Quebec’s Red Tape Problem and How to Fix It

Economic Note drawing lessons from other jurisdictions to show how the province’s economy would benefit from ambitious reform that dramatically reduces the regulatory burden

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This Economic Note was prepared by Charles Lammam, Senior Fellow at the MEI, in collaboration with Renaud Brossard, Vice President, Communications at the MEI. The MEI’s Regulation Series aims to examine the often unintended consequences for individuals and businesses of various laws and rules, in contrast with their stated goals.

Quebec will hold its provincial election on October 5, 2026. Whoever forms government will inherit a province with the largest stock of regulatory requirements in Canada, one of the highest compliance cost burdens per business, and the lowest economic freedom ranking of any province. While Quebec has made some recent progress, its economy would benefit from further regulatory reform that dramatically reduces red tape. This Economic Note compares Quebec’s regulatory burden to other provinces, reviews recent reform efforts, and draws lessons from other jurisdictions to chart a path forward.

A Sprawling, Costly Rulebook

Quebec carries 145,958 regulatory requirements on the books,(1) more than any other province (see Figure 1). These requirements are the individual obligations and conditions embedded in statutes and regulations that businesses must navigate to operate, expand, or hire.

According to the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, Quebec businesses spent $10.9 billion complying with government regulation in 2024, up 28.1% since 2017 (adjusted for inflation).(2) That growth rate is the second highest, nearly matching Prince Edward Island’s (28.4%), while British Columbia had the third-highest increase at 26.3% over the same period. Quebec’s $10.9-billion compliance burden works out to roughly $38,971 per business with employees, second only to Ontario(3) (see Figure 2).

Not all of that burden is waste. For example, a requirement that a restaurant post its health inspection results is justified regulation. However, a requirement that a restaurant navigate four separate provincial permit streams, from separate ministries with overlapping jurisdiction, just to serve food on a patio, is red tape.

By the Canadian Federation of Independent Business’s own reckoning, roughly 65% of the $51.5 billion national compliance burden reflects justified regulation(4)—rules that protect workers, consumers, and the environment in ways that deliver real public value. The remaining 35%, about $17.9 billion, is classified as red tape: excessive, duplicative, or outdated requirements with no clear public benefit proportionate to their cost. Applying that 35% rate to Quebec’s total compliance burden gives us a ballpark figure of $3.8 billion for the cost of pure red tape in 2024.

Some rules do outsized damage. A single requirement can generate costs that cascade far beyond its immediate target. Bill 29, regarding the “right to repair,” has led appliance retailers to warn consumers that prices could rise by 10% to 30% as a result.(5) Already, LG has warned retailers that it would increase prices by 10% on some of its products, citing the compliance burden.(6) No single line item in the regulatory requirements count captures that kind of cascading effect.

Quebec carries 145,958 regulatory requirements on the books, more than any other province.

Quebec’s 46 professional orders,(7) covering over 50 professions and 400,000 members, are another case in point. The orders exist, in principle, to protect the public. In practice, some of their entry requirements are overly restrictive and limit competition, raising costs for consumers without a corresponding gain in service quality.

And the stakes are high: research by the International Monetary Fund found that fully eliminating internal trade barriers—including those imposed by provincial professional licensing regimes—could raise GDP per worker in Quebec by 6.9% over the long run.(8) Economist Trevor Tombe found that narrower, bilateral mutual recognition agreements between provinces could generate billions of dollars in economic gains, with Quebec among the biggest beneficiaries given its comparatively high internal trade costs.(9)

Improvement Required

The Economic Freedom in North America index places Quebec dead last among Canadian provinces on the subnational index, with a score of 3.10—well below Nova Scotia at 3.97, the next-lowest.(10) Alberta is the freest at 6.44. This index measures more than regulation alone, encompassing government spending, taxation, and labour market regulation. On the broader all-government index,(11) which compares all Canadian provinces against all 50 American states, Quebec ranks 56th—below every American state. On the labour market regulation indicator in particular, Quebec is consistently the least free among all Canadian provinces and US states.

The Quebec government has not been ignoring the problem entirely. The Canadian Federation of Independent Business’s annual report card on red tape gives the province a B+ overall in 2026, up from a B in 2024.(12) For 2026, the sub-scores are: an A- (8.8) on Regulatory Accountability, an A (10.0) on Political Priority, but just a C (6.9) on Regulatory Burden. Quebec gets top marks for talking about red tape, but the burden remains stubbornly high.

Quebec businesses spent $10.9 billion complying with government regulation in 2024, up 28.1% since 2017.

Since 2021, Quebec has tabled five annual omnibus bills targeting administrative burden. According to the Quebec government’s own figures,(13) the cumulative effect between 2020 and March 2025 was an 11% reduction in the number of administrative formalities and a 23% reduction in their cost, for estimated annual savings of $250 million. Bill 11,(14) which received royal assent on June 11, 2026, contains 63 measures across 15 ministries and projects annual savings of $81.9 million.

Bill 11 also introduces a “two-for-one” rule for certain ministries:(15) two administrative formalities must be eliminated for every new one created, an improvement on the previous one-for-one standard, which only offset new rules rather than reducing the total stock. The rule, however, is being implemented by policy directive rather than in the bill itself. For maximum impact, the government should entrench the rule in legislation instead of leaving it to policy discretion; it should also clarify which ministries it applies to.

Quebec’s headline targets that get reported and tracked are counts and aggregate costs, not a measure of which individual rules cause disproportionate harm. A target built on volume alone can be met while the rules doing the most damage remain untouched. Quebec’s regulatory impact analysis process, required for proposed rules affecting business, assesses costs and benefits but only case by case.

What Does Reform Actually Look Like?

BC’s experience in the early 2000s is a relevant Canadian example.(16) After a decade of regulatory accumulation under an activist NDP government, BC entered the 2001 election with a sprawling and growing regulatory requirement count.(17) Mining companies ranked the province dead last out of 31 jurisdictions on investment attractiveness.

The incoming Liberal government appointed Kevin Falcon to a newly created cabinet post—Minister of State for Deregulation—with a single mandate: reduce the regulatory burden by one-third in three years. By 2004, BC had exceeded its target, eliminating 37% of requirements. This, along with other structural policy reforms, helped the province go from one of the worst-performing economies in Canada to one of the strongest, with GDP growth outpacing the national average every year from 2002 to 2008.(18)

What made regulatory reform work? A clear numeric target, a credible public count updated quarterly, political leadership from the top, and a hard cap that forced genuine trade-offs. At the same time, BC provides a cautionary tale. After the initial target was met, the dedicated Minister of Deregulation position was eliminated and the numeric accountability lapsed. As a result, BC’s overall grade on the Canadian Federation of Independent Business report card fell from A in 2017 to B+ in 2026.(19)

Quebec gets top marks for talking about red tape, but the burden remains stubbornly high.

The Netherlands offers a telling international example.(20) Starting in 2003, the Dutch government set a target to reduce administrative burdens on business by 25% within four years—and hit it, liberating an estimated €4 billion annually for productive use. The mechanism was the Standard Cost Model: a consistent, government-wide methodology for measuring what regulation actually costs businesses, applied ministry by ministry, with results released publicly. The model’s strength was its discipline. When every ministry knows its number is public and the target is binding, the culture inside government changes.

The lesson is that measurement without a binding reduction target lacks accountability. Quebec has the former. What remains missing is a renewed, multi-year action plan with legislated numeric targets—the kind that makes the regulatory requirement count actually fall rather than simply tracking its rise.

But hitting a number should not be the only goal. A credible reform agenda should also prioritize the regulations that impose the greatest economic harm for the least public benefit, rather than clearing the easiest formalities to meet a count. A systematic review of the existing regulatory stock that identifies rules where compliance costs are high and demonstrable public benefits are low would give a reduction target credibility.

The regulatory drag on productivity is measurable. Statistics Canada research links rising regulatory restrictions to slower GDP growth, controlling for other factors.(21) For Quebec—a province already grappling with persistently weak productivity—regulatory excess is a drag on investment, business formation, and the willingness of firms to expand.

The burden also costs time. Business owners estimate that a 35% reduction in red tape, achievable without compromising the public interest, would free up the equivalent of 137,000 full-time jobs nationally for more productive activity.(22)

An Opportunity for Real Change

Bill 11 is a genuine step, but the accountability problem persists: Quebec talks a good talk about red tape, but has been less effective at reducing it. The October election is an opportunity to change that.

Quebec already has key institutional pieces in place—a regulatory requirement count, a two-for-one rule under Bill 11, and five years of annual omnibus relief bills. What it lacks is a renewed, binding, multi-year reduction target that prioritizes the most harmful regulations. The 2020-2025 action plan that set Quebec’s previous targets expired on March 31, 2026, with no replacement published at the time of writing.(23)

A credible reform agenda should prioritize the regulations that impose the greatest economic harm for the least public benefit.

Whoever wins in October should fill this gap with a published, multi-year plan that does two things: sets specific reduction targets for the total regulatory requirement count, and identifies, through a systematic review of the existing regulatory stock, which rules impose the greatest economic harm for the least public benefit. Hitting a number matters. So does hitting the right rules.

Regulatory reform is fiscally neutral. Done right, few policy levers offer a better economic return.