Alberta Innovates says it has reduced 60 per cent of its red tape as a way to cut unnecessary regulatory requirements and support businesses and entrepreneurs.
In a press release Wednesday, Tanya Fir, Associate Minister of Red Tape Reduction said that through different initiatives, the government has “cleared barriers to job creation, supporting innovation and modernization for the technology and innovation sector.”
“By reducing almost 60 per cent of the red tape at Alberta Innovates, it shows that with the ideas and feedback received from Albertans and Alberta businesses, we have been able to deliver significant and meaningful red tape reductions,” Fir said.
“Many of these changes have resulted in tangible benefits that put industry innovators in both core and emerging sectors in a better position to succeed, which is critical to Alberta’s long-term economic growth and diversification.”
According to the release, in May 2019, the province identified just over 631,000 regulatory requirements and committed to eliminating one-third of this total.
Since then, they have removed four regulatory requirements for every requirement added, achieving a 26 per cent overall reduction, and 33 per cent of inherited regulatory requirements since 2019.
The release states that these efforts have saved Albertans more than $1.2 billion.
A large part of the effort has come from the organization Alberta Innovates. They have simplified grant applications and reporting requirements to enable easier access to more than $150 million in annual funding for the innovation sector. This means that Alberta entrepreneurs and researchers can spend less time on paperwork and more time developing innovative solutions to drive economic growth.
“High-performance innovation systems depend on dozens of steps and processes that together deliver big impact,” said Laura Kilcrease, CEO of Alberta Innovates.
“The administrative efficiencies and digital tools that we put into place, to date, have streamlined access and increased transparency for a majority of Alberta Innovates funding programs and that benefits the entrepreneurs, innovators and researchers who look to us for support.”