The Canadian Federation of Independent Business is urging all levels of government to review the permitting and approval process for home renovations, as they believe unnecessary paperwork is playing a part in Canada’s housing shortage.

Brianna Solberg, CFIB’s Provincial Director for Manitoba, Saskatchewan and the North, says this week is CFIB’s 15th annual Red Tape Awareness Week, which aims to hold governments accountable for rules, process, and paperwork.

At the beginning of the week, CFIB released a report called Flushing Out the Nonsense, which looked at the costs and documents needed to complete a bathroom upgrade in 12 communities across Canada.

“We found that on average, there was about seven documents required from municipal governments to complete just a bathroom renovation, and costs ranged anywhere from $2000 in Vancouver to $327 in the City of Saskatoon,” Solberg reports.

She says if it takes that much money and time for one homeowner to upgrade their home, then it is disincentivizing people from adding to the housing stock because it is such a burden.

CFIB calls on municipal governments everywhere to review the permitting and approval process, establish publicly available service standards, improve the ease of access to information. Solberg says in the best-case scenario, the permitting process would also be moved online.

CFIB encourages the federal and provincial governments to champion best practices, tie future funding for houses and infrastructure to requirements for a low administrative burden and ensure permit processing service standards are set provincially.

“When governments go unchecked, regulations and rules pile on, and they add rules and regulations without really assessing what’s already existing. That’s why CFIB has our annual Red Tape Awareness Week,” Solberg states. “If we don’t urge government to take a look at these things, then it could simply fall to the wayside.”