BRANDON, Manitoba, December 21, 2006 — Scott Smith, Manitoba Minister of Competitiveness, Training and Trade; Merv Tweed, Member of Parliament for Brandon-Souris, on behalf of the Honourable Maxime Bernier, Minister of Industry; and Dave Burgess, Mayor of the City of Brandon, today announced that the innovative online project BizPaL will soon be available in the city of Brandon. BizPaL is an innovative project designed to help Canadian businesses save time when accessing licensing and permit information from multiple levels of government. This unique partnership between federal, provincial, territorial, regional and municipal governments will provide entrepreneurs and business people in Manitoba with simplified access to the information they need to launch or grow their businesses.
"BizPaL means less time finding, understanding and complying with multi-government regulations and that means more time to conduct business," said Minister Smith. "Today's announcement fits in with the government's mandate to provide the business community with single-window service delivery."
"Canada's new government is getting things done for taxpayers and business alike by working with our provincial and municipal partners to launch the BizPaL program," said Mr. Tweed. "This initiative will streamline and harmonize licence and permit requirements across all orders of government, and stimulate economic growth and prosperity for Brandon-area businesses."
Brandon Mayor Dave Burgess joined with Mr. Tweed and Minister Smith to announce that Brandon will join BizPaL in early 2007. "We are looking forward to providing BizPaL to the business sector of Brandon," said Mayor Burgess. "This innovative project helps to reinforce the fact that Brandon is a good place to do business. This initiative is another example of reducing the red tape."
Area business owners and entrepreneurs will be able to access the service by visiting http://www2.gov.mb.ca/bizen/wizard/welcome.aspx. Based on the responses to a number of interactive questions on the nature and location of the business, the online service generates a customized list of required government permits and licences. The list includes basic information about the permits and licences, the order in which they should be obtained, contact information and, in some cases, links to begin the application process.
The BizPaL system for Brandon will be developed with Industry Canada support, in collaboration with the City of Brandon and the Province of Manitoba. The province is looking forward to expanding BizPaL to other areas of Manitoba over the next year. To date, BizPaL has been launched in various locations in Yukon, British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Ontario.
Please visit http://www.bizpal.ca for additional project history and information as well as to access the websites of participating partners.
For more information, please contact:
Isabelle Fontaine
Office of the Honourable Maxime Bernier
Minister of Industry
613-995-9001
Media Relations
Industry Canada
613-943-2502
Sandy Trudel
Economic Development Officer
City of Brandon
204-729-2131
s.trudel@brandon.ca
Joe Czech
Manitoba Ministry of Competitiveness, Training and Trade
204-945-6778
Backgrounder
BizPaL Simplifies Permits and Licences for Canadian Businesses
BizPaL, an online project, benefits Canadian businesses by helping them identify which permits and licences are required and how they can be obtained. Entrepreneurs simply answer a series of questions on the type of business they want to start or operate and the activities they plan to undertake. BizPaL then automatically generates a list of all required permits and licences from three levels of government, along with basic information on each, and links to government sites where the entrepreneur can learn more and, in some cases, apply online.
BizPaL also benefits governments by making it easier to provide accurate information on permits and licences to business. Although the service is offered online, it can also be used through other service channels (i.e. telephone and in-person centres) to improve services to clients.
To date, BizPaL has been launched in British Columbia and the City of Kamloops; Manitoba and the Morden-Stanley-Thompson-Winkler Planning District; Ontario and the City of Ottawa, and the Regional Municipality of Halton with the City of Burlington, the Town of Halton Hills and the Town of Milton; Saskatchewan and the City of Saskatoon; and Yukon with the municipalities of Carmacks, Dawson City, Faro, Haines Junction, Mayo, Teslin, Watson Lake and Whitehorse.
The development of the BizPaL project involved consultations with stakeholders in business and government, and grew out of a working group of representatives from federal departments, provincial and territorial governments, and municipal governments across Canada.
BizPaL was a commitment of Canada's new government in the 2006 budget. This government is getting things done for businesses and taxpayers by working with provincial, territorial and local governments to launch the BizPaL program. In November 2006, the government released Advantage Canada, in which it identified ways to give Canada an entrepreneurial advantage and committed to reducing the paperwork burden by 20 percent.
