Attracting investment to create jobs and prosperity should not be burdened by unnecessary and confusing bureaucracy. Currently, there are three streams to travel through to invest in Alberta, and each stream operates somewhat independently from the other while simultaneously needing each other. These three streams are the Ministry of Trade, the Ministry of Intergovernmental Relations, and the crown corporation Invest Alberta which is overseen by the Ministry of Jobs, Economy, and Innovation.
Two suggested actions could be taken to reduce the barriers to investing in Alberta: Streamline or Amalgamate
Streamline
Investors and even ministers are confused when it comes to who to deal with or which process to interact with when it comes to investing in Alberta. There needs to be a single, streamlined process that all three entities (the Ministry of Trade, the Ministry of Intergovernmental Relations, and the crown corporation Invest Alberta) follow and provide to potential investors.
Investors who are attracted by Invest Alberta are evaluated and started on the path to investing only to have to (more often than not) restart the process with one of the two ministries. Usually, this process has to restart when an investor encounters a regulation or piece of legislation that Invest Alberta or the Minster of Jobs, Economy, and Innovation has no authority over. The potential to lose an investment because these entities are not properly communicating with each other is an obstacle that needs to be removed.
- Investor information should be collected in a similar manner that suits the needs of all three entities.
- That would remove the need to restart the process of providing necessary information over again.
- Each entity should know what the other entities can and cannot do.
- Bouncing investors from one entity to the other is a classic case of the government being inefficient which leads to investment loss.
- Overlap of abilities should be reduced.
- Having two or three entities that can all provide the same product is inefficient and wastes tax dollars. An examination of each entity should be conducted to ensure that there is no overlap.
Each of the three entities should provide efficient and effective assistance to potential investors. Each entity should completely understand what the other two can accomplish. Each entity should be able to easily and quickly send investors to the other entities without the investor having to repeat any processes.
Amalgamate
Instead of a single point of contact, investors could potentially be dealing with three different ministries to invest in Alberta. The Minister for Trade, the Minster for Intergovernmental Relations, and The Minister of Jobs, Economy and Innovation (which oversees Invest Alberta) are all dealing with potential investors or even the same investor. By amalgamating the work of all three of these entities under one ministry, investors would have a single point of contact which would simplify investing in Alberta.
By amalgamating all trade-related dealings under one ministry it would simplify the process of investors who are currently being bounced between three different ministries. Not only are investors being passed off from one ministry to another, but often different ministries are uninformed as to which ministry the investor should be dealing with.
Combining these entities under one ministry would ensure that everything involved from start to finish, from attracting investment to the exchange of goods or a shovel in the ground is shepherded by a single ministry. The current frustration that investors feel when dealing with the current process could be greatly reduced if there was a single point of contact.
