Friday, May 19, 2017

Ontario to cut regulatory burdens

The Ontario cabinet is perusing a document that calls for major reforms to reduce the regulatory burden on small businesses, presumably including farms.

There is emphasis on regulations that might hinder trade.

The document calls for a fundamental change in bureaucratic mindsets when formulating new regulations.

For every $1 of increased costs those new regulations impose, they will have to find $1.25 in savings by reducing other regulatory burdens.

The new approach could have had significant impact on the regulations related to using neonicitinoids for seed treatments to kill pests. Those regulations place more burdens on Ontario than farmers in other provinces and the United States competing for the same markets.

Ontario farmers complained loudly that those regulations will cost them time and money to hire consultants and could results in considerable yield losses.

They say the government lacked scientific evidence that its regulations will reduce the collapse of bee colonies.

It’s also far from clear what regulations the government could eliminate to make up for the cost of new regulations, such as the ones imposed on the use of neonicitinoids.

“This is the most ambitious regulatory burden reduction package that any government has done in generations,” Brad Duguid, the province’s Economic Development Minister, told The Globe and Mail

Frankly, I think it's more of that stuff farmers spread on fields at this time of the year.