A new report card displaying government's handling of red tape is showing not good news for Alberta.

The report, released by the Canadian Federation of Independent Businesses yesterday (January 23rd) gave Alberta an F for the second year in a row when it comes to the issue of Red Tape.

Amber Ruddy, Alberta Director for the Federation explains what Red Tape is about.

"All the rules, requirements and regulations that come down from the government to run the business. When we're speaking about Red Tape, what we really mean about is the duplication, the poor customer service, the things that are not in plain language for small businesses to understand and do."

Ruddy says that numerous policies from the Alberta NDP Government have done little to limit the presence of Red Tape, which is why they received the failing grade.

"We gave Alberta Government an 'F' because they have no clear priority to address this issue. It's so important because 50 percent of independent business owners say that they'd advise their children not to start a business due to this level of regulation."

The Northwest Territories was the only other government to receive an F while three provinces scored an A. 

Manitoba was one of those provinces who had the biggest jump after receiving a D+ in 2017. The report points to numerous red tape reduction initiatives from the province including a two-for-one regulatory reduction law.

Ruddy says that Manitoba poses a great example for Alberta to follow if they want to improve their rating, but says the first step is transparency.

"If things are so great, they should be able to step on the scale and show how many regulations we have. They can put a cap on the number of regulations. Some jurisdictions [have] for every new rule they put in place, they take one off the books so at least the burden is not growing indefinitely on small business owners."

Despite the report, the Alberta NDP are still confident that the province is on the road to recovery after another report by ATB shows Wholesale Trade dollars have increased in Alberta since November of 2015.

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