Try this one weird trick to fix Canada's productivity crisis!
Not really - but fixing administrative burdens would help
Today, I examine some of the costs of administrative burdens digitally accessing government services and how they are both 1) incredibly frustrating and 2) contribute to our productivity problems. Fixing these issues very much fits into the wider issue of building state capacity. If we want a better Canada, then we need to improve the delivery of services, in the same vein that we need to improve the delivery of other types of programs, as I wrote about on Wednesday. Some of this is complex to do. Other pieces seem like low-hanging fruit. We need to do both.
Administrative Nonsense Costs Canada Time & Money
Once upon a time, Canada was at the cutting edge of providing digital services. However, since 2010, when Canada ranked third in global digital government rankings, we have tumbled to 47th in 2024. That is not just embarrassing. It also imposes real costs - on the most vulnerable who disproportionately rely on accessing government services, on businesses whose productivity is dragged down thanks to time wasted accessing services, and on government employees too, who report that technology issues hold back the quality of their work.
The excellent report on Tackling Canada’s Time Tax, by the folks at Springboard Policy and the CSA Group gets into the costs for individuals using government services. They highlight four main impacts that are not just inconveniences but show why these administrative burdens are actually harmful:
The time tax wastes people’s time and effort - creating learning, psychological, and compliance costs. A US estimate calculates that these add up to the dollar equivalent of the value of the US corporate income tax.
The time tax wastes public resources - as unlike other taxes, it doesn’t pay for government services, it makes them cost more to deliver
The time tax creates barriers for those who need the services - with disability advocates describing the process of accessing disability supports as “demoralizing”, contributing to only 40% of people who are eligible for the federal Disability Tax Credit actually receiving it
The time tax reduces trust in government - given that service delivery is where government becomes tangible to people, frustrating and difficult-to-access services reduce public trust.
As that report explores, as does other work from the Dais on digital government, there are a variety of reasons why these problems persist. These include a lack of digital skills in government, issues with government culture that can be “highly process-focused and bureaucratic at the expense of creativity and user outcomes”, and an overreliance on external vendors.
Some of these problems are systemic and really do require some hard work to build state capacity and create a more responsive government. But other barriers are really damn easy to address in the scheme of things.
To highlight that, I want to use some examples from the immigration world, which I have a sneak peek into through my wife’s work as an immigration lawyer. Some of the nonsense barriers that exist and act as a substantial time tax to both businesses (dragging down productivity) and individual applicants include:
A file upload limit of 4 MB per document and not always enough upload slots for all the documents needed for a full application. The result is that time is wasted either by the applicant or their representative fiddling with settings and file compression to fit 30-40 pages into one 4 MB upload slot.
The file size limits across applications and processes aren’t consistent either. When responding to a compliance review by email, some officers insist that attachments be no more than 3MB. These attachments might need to include 100 pages of evidence, which means more time is wasted compressing files.
Meanwhile, there are various portals even for the same branch of application. Some Permanent Resident applications have to be submitted through Representative PR Portal, and other types of PR applications go through the Authorized Representative Portal (different registrations and logins for each). That is just a small sample of the proliferation of online portals required for different types of immigration applications.
Finally, some processes still require paper applications, such as citizenship applications when using a representative. Not only can this application not be filed online, but it also involves a different set of supporting documents than those who do apply online.
As with the wider issues with the Canadian digital government, some of these problems require more work to fix, such as consolidating online application portals to make them more user-friendly. Others, like the issues with file sizes, seem like startingly low-hanging fruit, and they are undoubtedly common issues wherever there is a need to upload evidence to apply for services. While these kinds of limits might have made sense 15 years ago, where storage and download speeds were greater barriers, they seem incredibly outdated now.
So there you have it; my one weird trick to help with Canada’s productivity is to scrap limits on file upload sizes and stop anyone from wasting time unnecessarily compressing files ever again!
I remember hearing about a recent (late 2010s) fed gov RFP that required companies to submit a paper version. One company had to rent a van to deliver their bid, PSPC had to clear out an entire floor to house all the paper copies.