Survey of Regulatory Compliance Costs

Measuring the compliance burden and identifying targeted cost and compliance action priorities from Statistics Canada’s Survey of Regulatory Compliance Costs on the impact of paperwork burden on small business is a key component of the Government of Canada’s Paperwork Burden Reduction Initiative (PBRI). The Statistics Canada Survey is a triennial survey that focuses on small businesses, given their importance to the Canadian economy and the challenges they face in complying with information obligations stemming from government regulations.

The survey has two primary objectives. The government seeks to:

• improve understanding of how small businesses comply with information obligations stemming from government regulations and the cost of compliance; and
• establish a baseline measure of the compliance costs imposed on small businesses against which government can benchmark its progress in lessening the burden.

The survey was designed in partnership with Industry Canada and with the assistance of the Advisory Committee on Paperwork Burden Reduction. It consists of two parts:

• a Main Survey, which was distributed to over 30 000 small and medium-sized businesses, in fall 2005, to collect data on the time and salaries spent complying with the obligations internally; and
• a Supplementary Survey, which was distributed to over 5000 external service providers, in winter 2006, to collect data on the time spent complying on behalf of their business clients. (External providers include accountants, payroll firms and bookkeepers.)

The survey examined the information obligations stemming from a set of key regulations. The federal, provincial and municipal information obligations examined in the survey relate to:

• employees — payroll remittances, record of employment and workers’ compensation (claims and remittances);
• taxation — T4 summary/individual T4, T1/T2 income tax filing, federal/provincial sales tax and corporate tax installments;
• provincial and municipal operating licences and permits;
• corporate registration; and
• mandatory Statistics Canada surveys.

In addition to specific questions about each of the above, the survey includes questions about the firm's overall experience with government regulations, as well as business demographics. Information regarding demographics makes it possible to organize respondents under five employment size categories, five industry sectors and different geographic regions (Atlantic, Quebec, Ontario, Prairies and British Columbia).