Feds Identify Nearly 500 Initiatives to Cut Red Tape

President of the Treasury Board Shafqat Ali rises during question period in House of Commons on May 29, 2025. The Canadian Press/Sean Kilpatrick

The federal government has published progress reports listing nearly 500 proposed initiatives to cut red tape from its regulatory departments and agencies.

Treasury Board President Shafqat Ali says the progress reports identify almost 500 initiatives to “streamline services, cut duplication, and reduce costs,” such as providing quicker access to new drugs or speeding up transportation and agriculture decision-making.

“Reduced red tape will support Government of Canada priorities, like more efficient reviews of projects to drive economic growth, and greater collaboration with trading partners to reduce barriers and help get products to market faster,” Ali said in a Sept. 8 statement.

The federal ministers of departments and agencies with regulatory responsibilities had 60 days from July 9 to report back to Ali with proposals to remove outdated regulations or eliminate duplication with provincial rules.

The government will move forward with the initiatives proposed by its ministers, Ali says.

Additionally, the Red Tape Reduction Office will work with federal regulators to “make further progress,” which is set to include consultations with partners and stakeholders to carry out horizontal red tape reviews to “further eliminate regulatory barriers for business and deliver better and faster regulatory service.” Ali says the provinces and territories will also be engaged.

Priority Areas

The federal government says consultations will focus on priority areas such as supporting regulatory efficiency for project reviews, getting products to the market quicker, reducing barriers to business productivity, supporting international trade and greater efficiency at the border, and enhancing regulatory service delivery.

In the Red Tape Review summary document, the federal government outlined several examples from the progress reports of initiatives that departments have put in place to work toward these priorities.

The Impact Assessment Agency of Canada is “re-engineering” its processes under the Impact Assessment Act to reach the government’s goal of achieving project decisions within two years. Since 2024, 12 projects entered the federal impact assessment process and eight have received early federal assessment decisions in an average of just over three months.

Another cited example is that the Canada Energy Regulator (CER) is updating four regulations relating to the export and import of oil, gas, and electricity, the construction and operation of international power lines, and the reporting of toll information.

Additionally, the government says the CER has reduced decision timelines for pipeline project applications under 40 kilometres to an average of 79 days from the average timeline of 191 days four years ago.

Other examples include reducing the processing time for oncology drug applications by approximately five months, as well as the Canadian Food Inspection Agency promoting greater international alignment and access to agricultural products, Service Canada improving the accuracy and efficiency of Employment Insurance applications and payments, and Transport Canada collaborating with international partners to make it easier for Canadian transportation companies to work globally.

The Conservatives and the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan are in turn asking for the Liberal government to completely remove some of these regulations, saying they stand in the way of developing Canada’s oil and gas sector.

The government of Alberta, which calls the Impact Assessment Act the “no-more pipelines act” due to the regulatory burden it places on major projects such as oil and gas pipelines, says this legislation and others such as the tanker ban in the B.C. coast need to be removed.

“The national economic self-sabotage has to stop. Canadians deserve leaders in Ottawa with the courage to unleash our full potential, restore prosperity, and make our country strong again,” Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said last week.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has also said that many of the existing acts are “anti-energy laws” and that the federal government needs to abandon these laws to “unleash Canadian energy.”

Noé Chartier contributed to this report.