Red Deer city manager Allan Seabrooke was the guest speaker at the Red Deer and District Chamber of Commerce luncheon on Wednesday. Seabrooke hopes to see reduced regulations from all levels of government moving forward in hopes of boosting economic development in the region and beyond.

By Sheldon Spackman

Economic Development

City manager seeks to reduce over-regulation, make Red Deer more business friendly

Sep 11, 2019 | 3:52 PM

Red Deer’s new City Manager says fewer government regulations would go a long way towards making our city more business friendly.

Allan Seabrooke said as much to over 100 business and community leaders at a Red Deer and District Chamber of Commerce luncheon on Wednesday.

Seabrook says the city is listening to the business community.

“We know that not only advocating to the province and the federal government on the red tape reduction that is already underway, that we in Red Deer need to also do the same thing,” he explains.

Over 100 local business and community leaders attended the Red Deer and District Chamber of Commerce luncheon on Wednesday to hear guest speaker Allan Seabrooke, manager for the City of Red Deer.

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“We’re watching very closely what regulations come from the province that will lessen some of the red tape that we can pass on to our businesses, as well as looking at our own house and looking at our own bylaws and making sure that what we’re doing and the processes that we have in place are business friendly because we are open for business in Red Deer.”

Seabrooke says all three levels of government have a role to play in reducing regulations for businesses and boosting economic development.

“In Red Deer right now, we are communicating with the current provincial government. We’re having many meetings with each of the ministries, we’re in contact through our MPs at the federal level to make sure that all of the task force that are there, know what each other are doing and that they know what the voice is of the businesses here in Red Deer, what the temperature is of our businesses and what they’re asking us to do.”

Seabrooke says there are consequences for our current state of over-regulation in Canada. He notes 131,754 federal government regulations currently in place, 1,877 provincial regulations and 470 Acts.

In addition, Seabrooke says there are 223 City of Red Deer regulations that are provincially-mandated, as well as over 500 bylaws.

“We’re out of equilibrium,” he exclaims. “We have far too many regulations that many are not necessary and what that is causing is a lot of costs for businesses. And it’s the timing that some businesses take to get their permit if they want to advance business in the community.”

Flexibility in zoning for municipalities is another area Seabrooke says is in need of improvement.

“Zoning is about planning your city effectively and making sure that businesses are going to thrive where they are being located,” he explains. “You can’t have a haphazard location of different types of businesses that are not compatible. So you have to ensure that businesses are compatible to the surrounding area, whether it’s a budding residential, whether it’s light industrial, heavy industrial, all of the various businesses for them to be successful to not have complaints from residents, there has to be effective zoning.”

Seabrooke says the City is very much open to hearing from local businesses if they have any zoning concerns or ideas to improve what’s currently in place.

“We want to find out what their ideas are,” exclaims Seabrooke. “And in conversations with our Chamber of Commerce, those are the types of comments we are going to get from them, make sure that they’re documented and we run those through our planning department and come up with plans that try to effect a business friendly approach.”

Seabrooke identifies four key points for a vision moving forward, including harmonization for all three levels of government, streamlining existing regulations, eliminating duplication and using a proper risk-management approach.

“If we do these four together, that is what creates a better equilibrium between your regulations and having good business prosperity and protecting our residents.”