[curr ev, pols] Canada takes legislative axe to root of regulatory bramble
Oh, my: In Canada, the government has figured out a surefire way to slash red tape with a law that eliminates one regulation for every new one that's created. The One-For-One Rule was adopted last month in a nice Canadian way, without political warfare.
NPR's Uri Berliner reports.
URI BERLINER, BYLINE: The story starts in 2001 in Canada's beautiful west coast province of British Columbia. Laura Jones lives there, in Vancouver. She's with the Canadian Federation of Independent Business. And she says back then, the economy of British Columbia was a mess, partly because there were so many time-consuming regulations. And she says some of them were pretty dumb.
LAURA JONES: Forest companies were told what size nails they had to use the build a bridge. Restaurants were told what size televisions they could have in their establishments. Kids even were affected. They were being told they needed two permits to show a tadpole in their classroom at show and tell.
BERLINER: So the incoming administration in British Columbia said enough is enough. For every new rule that becomes law, two existing ones would have to go. And Laura Jones says it's worked. In British Columbia, regulation has been reduced by 40 percent.
[...]
BERLINER: Eventually, British Columbia dialed it back to one for one, and that became the model for the entire country. For two years, one for one has been a federal policy, part of a broader attack on red tape.
Read the rest or listen to the segment here.
NPR's Uri Berliner reports.
URI BERLINER, BYLINE: The story starts in 2001 in Canada's beautiful west coast province of British Columbia. Laura Jones lives there, in Vancouver. She's with the Canadian Federation of Independent Business. And she says back then, the economy of British Columbia was a mess, partly because there were so many time-consuming regulations. And she says some of them were pretty dumb.
LAURA JONES: Forest companies were told what size nails they had to use the build a bridge. Restaurants were told what size televisions they could have in their establishments. Kids even were affected. They were being told they needed two permits to show a tadpole in their classroom at show and tell.
BERLINER: So the incoming administration in British Columbia said enough is enough. For every new rule that becomes law, two existing ones would have to go. And Laura Jones says it's worked. In British Columbia, regulation has been reduced by 40 percent.
[...]
BERLINER: Eventually, British Columbia dialed it back to one for one, and that became the model for the entire country. For two years, one for one has been a federal policy, part of a broader attack on red tape.
Read the rest or listen to the segment here.