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Bureaucracy, lack of innovation hurting business

July 11, 2013, Ottawa — Canadian leaders perceive bureaucracy and lack of innovation as hindering the country's business environment.

The data, collected by the World Economic Forum's Executive Opinion Survey, asked business leaders to rank the five most problematic factors for doing business in their countries from a list of 16 possibilities.

"Canada is generally a good place to do business, but poor innovation performance is hindering our competitive potential," said Douglas Watt, director of organizational effectiveness and learning research at The Conference Board of Canada, which administered the survey in Canada. "Firms in Canada need a business environment that gives them the capacity to innovate without facing undue barriers in bringing new innovations to market."

Leaders indicated that the five most problematic factors for doing business in Canada were:

• Inefficient government bureaucracy
• Insufficient capacity to innovate
• Limited access to financing
• Inadequately educated workforce
• Tax rates and tax regulations.

   
Overall, 16.4 per cent of Canadian business leaders identified inefficient government bureaucracy as a problem. Multiple layers of regulation and slow administration systems may be among the reasons why Canadian business leaders feel government bureaucracy could be more efficient.

Both "inefficient government bureaucracy" and "access to financing", have been ranked by Canadian business leaders as top problematic factors for the past five Executive Opinion Surveys.

In contrast, tax rates and restrictive labour regulations ranked high among the most problematic factors between 2008 and 2010. In 2011 and 2012, tax rates and labour regulations dropped in importance as a problem for doing business.