Acquiring business permits in Saskatoon can be a weeks-long process.
The Chamber’s proposed “Automatic Yes Tool Kit” aims to get businesses growing their operations and creating jobs instead of navigating bureaucracy.
Greater Saskatoon Chamber of Commerce (GSCC) CEO Jason Aebig says implementing these changes to permit procedures would establish Saskatoon as a leader in reducing red tape for businesses.
“Owners really would have more time to focus on the growth of their businesses,” says Aebig, “on creating the jobs we need them to create instead of chasing approvals or juggling time frames or incurring the hard costs of those delays or even navigating bureaucracy.”
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The “toolkit” involves the elimination of some low-risk permits altogether, streamlining others and setting a firm deadline for approvals.
The Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) says the time entrepreneurs spend jumping through legal hoops is better spent running their business.
“It’s spending the average small business about 32 business days a year,” says Tyler Slobogian, Senior Policy Analyst for CFIB, “kind of going through excessive paperwork, regulations, red tape, which could be spent on, you know, whether it’s extending their operations, hiring more staff, many other things to, you know, basically help every economy across Canada.”
Amid ongoing American tariffs, Slobogian says the air of uncertainty in Canada is just another reason Saskatoon could stand to benefit from these policies.
“The more businesses that we can get kind of up and running quicker and more efficiently, I think that would be beneficial for everywhere across Canada and specifically in Saskatoon and Regina. I think, you know, we need to definitely contribute to and try to make Saskatchewan a more business-friendly place, and this is just a perfect example of how we can do that.”
The initiative comes as 13 Saskatoon business organizations formed the Combined Business Group, with a goal to make Saskatoon the most business-friendly city in Canada.
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