Minister Announces Red Tape Cuts for Municipalities

In an address to the Alberta Urban Municipalities Association, Municipal Affairs Minister Kaycee Madu announced several red-tape reductions for municipalities with more to come. The chamber network has advocated to the government to ensure that the regulatory burden for business is efficient and not over burdensome. Some of the examples of the government reducing red tape include:

• Merging the application processes of Designated Industrial Requisition Credit and the Provincial Education Requisition Credit to eliminate the need to submit the same required information twice.
• Increasing the Designated Industrial Property Tax Requisition cancelation threshold, so if a municipality’s total requisition is less than $1,000, they will not need to incur administrative costs and red tape to process small requisition amounts.
• No longer requiring municipalities to submit a spending plan to receive their 2019 Municipal Sustainability Initiative operating allocation. At the end of the year, municipalities will simply report on how they used the funding.
• Making changes that will result in quicker review and approvals of applications, making it easier to administer grant-funded projects that support local engineering and contracting jobs.

We will continue to monitor this issue and report back to our members on our progress.