Federal government looking to cut ‘unnecessary red tape' and modernize regulations
Treasury Board President Shafqat Ali announced Wednesday morning that ministers will have 60 days to review regulatory responsibilities and report back on their organizations progress and next steps.
'Regulations play a key role in protecting the health and safety of Canadians—but to stay effective, they must be regularly reviewed,' Ali said in a statement. 'Cutting unnecessary red tape is essential to unlocking Canada's full economic potential.'
The recently created Red Tape Reduction Office will oversee the review, which is intended to modernize outdated regulations and reduce red tape.
'As part of this review, Ministers will review regulations in their portfolios and propose actions and measures to eliminate red tape –– including removing outdated regulation, reducing duplication with provincial rules, and making it easier to access and deliver services,' Treasury Board said in a statement.
The Canadian Federation of Independent Business released a report that the combined cost of regulation to businesses from all three levels of government was estimated at $51.5 billion in 2024, with approximately $17.9 billion attributed to red tape.
'Canada's new government has a mandate to spend less and invest more. To that end, we will remove red tape by eliminating outdated regulation,' Prime Minister Mark Carney said in a statement.
'It's time to make government more efficient, make its processes more effective, and to catalyze more private capital so we can build the strongest economy in the G7.'
The Liberal Party's election platform pledged to reduce red tape, saying it would require all federal departments – including Transport Canada, Natural Resources Canada, and Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada – to review and report on progress to 'eliminate outdated and unnecessary rules, reduce duplication or overlap with provincial rules, and streamline the administration of rules and the delivery of regulatory decisions.'
The Liberal platform also promised to build AI infrastructure by investing in nation-building energy infrastructure and cutting red tape to make Canada the best place in the world to build data centres.
According to the Red Tape Reduction Office's website, the office was established to address regulatory red tape by 'making the regulatory system more efficient,' 'reducing barriers to innovation, productivity and economic growth,' and 'reducing regulatory costs for Canadians and businesses.'
The federal government's move to 'modernize outdated regulations and reduce red tape' within the government comes two days after cabinet ministers were directed to find operational savings over the next three years.
CTV News learned Monday that federal ministers have been asked to find 7.5 per cent savings for the 2026-27 fiscal year that begins on April 1, 2026 followed by 10 per cent in 2027-28 and 15 per cent in 2028-29 in an effort to find 'long-term savings.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Globe and Mail
9 minutes ago
- Globe and Mail
2 Artificial Intelligence (AI) Growth Stocks Hovering Around 52-Week Lows Even as the Nasdaq Hits New Highs
Key Points Infrastructure software has benefited more from AI investor excitement than application software. Salesforce and Adobe are struggling to capitalize on AI. Both companies are still growing and have bargain-bin valuations. 10 stocks we like better than Salesforce › As (by far) the largest sector in the Nasdaq Composite (NASDAQINDEX: ^IXIC), technology has been instrumental in driving the index to new heights. Megacap "Ten Titans" stocks like Nvidia and Microsoft make up a massive share of the tech sector and have continued seeing outsize year-to-date gains. Dig deeper, and you'll find that many large software companies have undergone sizable sell-offs. Where to invest $1,000 right now? Our analyst team just revealed what they believe are the 10 best stocks to buy right now. Continue » Salesforce (NYSE: CRM) and Adobe (NASDAQ: ADBE) are down more than 20% year to date despite a 12% gain in the Nasdaq. Here's what's driving the sell-off in these artificial intelligence (AI) growth stocks, and if they could be worth buying now. AI is challenging the SaaS business model At its core, what makes AI so exciting is its ability to improve efficiency by allowing companies and individuals to do more with fewer resources. AI can expedite research, provide helpful tips for coding, and accelerate task completion across industries. Large language models (LLMs) created by companies like OpenAI, Microsoft, Alphabet, and Meta Platforms provide a new technological foundation for enterprise software companies. Salesforce and Adobe became tech giants by carving out a niche in enterprise workflows and selling software as a service (SaaS) -- a model that depends on a growing number of users. Salesforce did it with customer relationship management (CRM) software for sales, services, marketing, analytics, and more. Adobe built its SaaS empire around Creative Cloud -- a portfolio of apps for videos, photos, graphic design, audio, and publishing. Users doing more with less means enterprises may be able to reduce the number of software subscriptions -- posing a challenge to the SaaS model. And worse yet, if rival companies can replicate some of the tools that Salesforce and Adobe provided, then it could lead some clients to go with a competitor or cancel their subscriptions. AI is an opportunity for SaaS companies, but it also levels the playing field and erodes the moats of established players. A legacy software giant like Adobe is now more vulnerable than ever to disruption by newer, smaller companies like Canva and Figma, which have their own growing list of AI offerings. Salesforce could lose market share to Microsoft Dynamics 365, which integrates with the Office 365 software suite and provides CRM and enterprise resource planning services. Similarly, Oracle 's Cloud CX platform competes with Salesforce clouds. Oracle's combination of cloud and database software, along with its CX Platform, gives it a more complete offering than Salesforce. The market isn't rewarding Salesforce and Adobe for their AI upgrades So far, many of the beneficiaries of AI investor excitement have been the companies providing the hardware and equipment -- like Nvidia and Broadcom -- and the infrastructure companies that are building software, frameworks, databases, storage, networking, etc. In a figurative sense, these companies are constructing a nationwide highway network to cut commute times and boost commerce. But you still need cars to drive on the highway, or else it is rendered useless. The advantage of companies like Microsoft and Oracle is that they are building the highway and selling cars. SaaS companies, by contrast, are like automakers going toe to toe in the highly competitive passenger vehicle market. Still, the application software companies have an incredible opportunity to leverage AI into their existing solutions -- especially through agentic AI, where AI agents help accomplish tasks for the user. These agents act as sophisticated assistants that can speed up workflows. Despite what their falling stock prices may suggest, Salesforce and Adobe aren't asleep at the wheel when it comes to AI. Salesforce has a predictive, generative, and agentic AI tools under its Agentforce lineup. Einstein offers a complete suite of AI tools, with a version starting at $25 per month per user and going up to $500 per user per month, not including add-ons. Adobe has a number of AI assistants, generative AI tools, and agentic AI that help users build, edit, and interact with media. For example, Adobe's AI assistants for Acrobat allow users to interact with documents to generate summaries, reports, emails, texts, and social posts. Adobe Firefly is a text-to-image generator. And Sensei can perform tasks like reframing video footage, filling images for consistency, and predicting trends for marketing content. Salesforce and Adobe are innovating at an incredible pace -- it's just that their competitors are, too. As a result, Salesforce and Adobe have delivered lackluster growth, showcasing how AI developments haven't directly translated to their earnings. In its latest quarter -- the first quarter of fiscal 2026 ended April 30 -- Salesforce issued full-year fiscal 2026 revenue guidance of just 8% to 9%, operating cash-flow growth of 10% to 11%, and an operating margin of 34%. The midpoint of Adobe's updated full-year fiscal 2025 guidance (period ending Nov. 28) calls for just 9.5% year-over-year revenue growth and 11.8% non-GAAP (adjusted) earnings-per-share (EPS) growth. Overall, their results aren't terrible -- but they are fairly unimpressive compared to the breakneck growth rates of companies that have done a better job converting AI spending into bottom-line results. Salesforce and Adobe have fallen far enough Salesforce and Adobe aren't the only application software stocks that are beaten down. fell nearly 30% last week. Palo Alto Networks, Autodesk, Datadog, Workday, ServiceNow, and Atlassian are just some of the many application software companies that are down year to date. When earnings are going up and a stock's price is going down, the valuation becomes more enticing. Sure enough, Salesforce sports a forward price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of just 21.5, and Adobe has a 17.3 forward P/E. Those are both lower than the S&P 500 (SNPINDEX: ^GSPC) forward P/E of 23.3. Salesforce and Adobe have their challenges, but these are still great companies. So the fact that they are cheaper than the S&P 500 on a forward earnings basis is a good indicator that the sell-off has gone too far. Still, buying either stock requires the conviction that the company can continue innovating and succeeding despite the onslaught of new competition. Investors approaching the application software industry should understand that valuations are low for good reasons. Should you invest $1,000 in Salesforce right now? Before you buy stock in Salesforce, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Salesforce wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $671,466!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $1,115,633!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 1,077% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 185% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join Stock Advisor. See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of August 18, 2025 Annie Dean, a Vice President at Atlassian, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Daniel Foelber has positions in Adobe and Nvidia. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Adobe, Alphabet, Atlassian, Autodesk, Datadog, Microsoft, Nvidia, Oracle, Salesforce, ServiceNow, and Workday. The Motley Fool recommends Palo Alto Networks and recommends the following options: long January 2026 $395 calls on Microsoft and short January 2026 $405 calls on Microsoft. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
CBC
25 minutes ago
- CBC
Teacher unions weigh in on public board turmoil as new school year approaches
Social Sharing Following a tumultuous summer for London's largest school board, local teacher unions weighed in on some recent local developments as the new school year approaches. With the upcoming year already affected by budget cuts, teachers and education workers are busy preparing their classrooms for incoming students, said Michael Thomas, president of the Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario's (ETFO) Thames Valley branch. "Their creativity, resilience, and dedication are what make me optimistic about the year ahead," he said. The Thames Valley District School Board (TVDSB) has been undergoing major restructuring after the province took control of the board in April, punting locally-elected officials out of the decision-making process and appointing lawyer Paul Bonifero as a supervisor to clean up financial mismanagement and a budget deficit of more than $30 million. Roughly 115 staff positions have been cut, with around 47 being teachers, library and guidance staff, and learning support. The board also recently announced it will allow unqualified education students to be added to supply teacher lists, which are typically filled with experienced retirees. 'Inappropriate measures' continue to be necessary. The board seeking not-yet-qualified first- and second-year education students to join the supply lists speaks to how deep staffing challenges in education have become, Thomas said. In Ontario, there are 40,000 certified teachers who are not currently working in education, he said, adding that this begs the question: Why are so many qualified professionals choosing not to enter or remain in the classroom? Unsustainable workloads, increasing class sizes and lack of support are all contributing factors, he said. "Until those systemic issues are addressed, inappropriate measures like relying on student teachers will continue to be necessary." For secondary schools, student teachers will only be accepted to teach subjects with a shortage of qualified teachers, said John Bernans, local branch president of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation. This could include courses on native languages or technology. "By and large, I don't think that there's much impact on our retirees. They're trying to fill some areas of need." Schools stretched thin amid budget cuts. When funding does not match student needs, school boards need to make difficult decisions, Thomas said. This can mean fewer teachers and education workers, larger classes and less specialized programming, all of which directly impacts students most directly, he said. According to data from ETFO, 95 per cent of schools require more mental health support, and 77 per cent of ETFO members have personally experienced violence at school or witnessed it against another staff member. "Cuts to funding have compounded annually since 2019, leaving schools stretched thinner and families concerned about the level of support their children receive." Union officials will be watching closely as under-funding creates larger gaps in student support, he said. In secondary schools, staffing cuts are largely affecting areas such as learning support, guidance and libraries —positions that help to support important areas like special education and student mental health, as well as technology and extra curricular activities. The absence of these supports will be especially felt by low-income families, Bernans said. "I think we can anticipate worsening problems with violence in schools and dysregulated students," he said. "That's been an ongoing issue and I don't think it's going to get any better given the cuts that have had to be implemented in order to try to balance the budget." This is not limited to TVDSB, Bernans added, pointing out that 40 per cent of school boards in the province are in a deficit. Still, it's a fundamental problem that will start having a bigger impact on students, he said. Teachers still optimistic, unions say. Despite ongoing and anticipated issues, both elementary and secondary teachers are looking forward to the start of the new year, both union heads said. TVDSB is dedicated to helping find solutions to budget constraints, Thomas said, adding that the ETFO will be working closely with the board to ensure teachers' and students' needs are being met. OSSTF members are also feeling optimistic, Bernans said, working with the board to place a greater emphasis on teachers' professional judgment and fostering increased expectations for students. "We are hopeful that we'll make some ground there and improve things that way," Bernans said.
Toronto Star
33 minutes ago
- Toronto Star
Why is Ford sailing while Carney is flailing? Because the premier has one asset you just can't teach
Is there a politician in Canada right now with savvier political instincts than Ontario Premier Doug Ford? As our relationship with the United States soured in March, during the waning days of Justin Trudeau's government, Ford took it upon himself to fly to Washington for a meeting with fiery U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. Ford was so effective that the BBC referred to him in a feature profile as 'the blunt-speaking Canadian premier taking on (U.S. President Donald) Trump.'
