OTTAWA – Starting a business typically comes wrapped in government red tape, but that may be about to change.

The Harper government’s Red Tape Commission issued its final report yesterday, titled "Cutting Red Tape; Freeing Business to Grow," and many of the recommendations in the report are key to the trucking industry.

In fact, one of the dozen MPs and business stakeholders on the Red Tape Commission is Denis Prud’homme, former owner of Prud’homme Trucking and past president of the Saskatchewan Trucking Association.

For the past several months, the Commission has been holding various roundtables, meeting with representatives from various industries. The Canadian Trucking Alliance (CTA), along with its members, appeared before the Commission in 2011 to recommend areas where reducing red tape could improve business efficiency and job growth.

In a statement released yesterday evening, the CTA outlined the pertinent parts to the trucking industry:

• Eliminate administrative burden on small businesses, Transport Canada implement plans to exempt small businesses that use smaller trucks locally from the administrative requirements in relation to hours of service (including the maintenance of logbooks).
• Increase the uniformity in the enforcement of the transport of dangerous goods regulatory regime and reduce administrative burden, Transport Canada accelerate initiatives designed to effect improvement in the consistency of application of program delivery and their communication to regulated parties.
• Provide a predictable and uniform business environment across Canada for the trucking industry and to reduce current compliance burden and associated costs, Transport Canada engage its provincial and territorial counterparts with concrete proposals to advance the harmonization of regulations that pertain to the National Safety Code (including hours of service). The department should aim to eliminate unnecessary compliance burden on inter-provincial truck commerce stemming from differences in regulatory requirements across jurisdictions.
• Provide businesses with greater certainty and predictability through reasonable timelines and service standards, Transport Canada streamline its processing of exemptions under the Motor Vehicle Transport Act.

The CTA also noted that many of the recommendations echoed initiatives outlined in the Border Action Plan, including harmonizing “trusted trader” programs with the U.S., and reducing border wait times by improving programs such as Free and Secure Trade (FAST).

While only time will tell how much of the Commissions’ recommendations are put into practice, the 79-page report does cover many of Canadian business owner’s grievances — from the amount of administrative paperwork to the unprofessional attitude of regulators.

You can read the full report here.

And you can read the CTA’s initial submission here.