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It is Red Tape Awareness Week in Canada and to kick off the week, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) has announced its winners for the annual Paperweight Award.
Photo Credit: CFIB
The Award points out the worst examples of government red tape on small businesses and this year’s winner is the CRTC Chairman Jean-Pierre Blais. He was recognized for the new anti-spam law (CASL) that has done little to actually stop real spam. The new law not only virtually does nothing to stop spam, but it imposed huge requirements on small business to record and track consents for just about every email they send.
The CRTC was most directly responsible for how CASL was constructed and how it will be enforced going forward. According to the CFIB, one member was quoted $30,000 to $50,000 to be in full compliance.
“They call it spam, but CASL actually targets everyday interactions with customers and potential customers,” said CFIB executive vice president Laura Jones. “Unlike big companies that can spend at will for paid advertising, small businesses rely on email to keep in touch with their customers. That’s not spam. It’s called doing business.”
Photo Credit: CFIB
Provincially the winner of the worst of the worst is Ontario Labour Minister Kevin Flynn, for requirements that businesses must print the province’s employment standards poster of legal size paper, which most cannot do easily in-house. Then, when the minimum wage was increased in the province, the poster was not updated for about a month, meaning every business was non-compliant.
Municipally there were several deserving nominees but the winner was Luc Ferrandez, Mayor of Plateau-Mont-Royal in Quebec. The municipality required restaurants with patios to meet an “esthetics” criteria and remove plastic chairs with nicer looking ones.
There were several other “dishonorable mentions” for the 2015 Paperweight Awards including Manitoba’s Finance Minister Greg Dewar, Ontario’s Minister of Labour and the Minister of Employment.
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