In July 2025, the federal government issued a directive to federal regulators to examine their internal process and issue a report on where efficiencies can be achieved. In response to this directive, Health Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada published their joint Red Tape Reduction Report. The report describes ongoing actions and future initiatives to "remove regulatory red tape," modernize regulatory frameworks, and support robust economic growth.
The report presents 42 initiatives, organized into 5 main themes:
- International alignment and reduction of trade barriers
- Improving client experience and service delivery
- Risk-based regulating
- Streamlining regulations, simplifying rules and enhancing flexibility
- Enabling new products and technologies
The reported actions and initiatives are poised to impact a broad range of products and processes regulated under key Canadian statutes, including the Food and Drugs Act, Cannabis Act, Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, and the Pest Control Products Act, among others.
These initiatives target major product categories such as foods, drugs, natural health products, medical devices, and cannabis. For example, reforms have been proposed to increase reliance on foreign regulatory approvals for drugs and medical devices, simplify the registration process for natural health products and non-prescription drugs, and reduce the required testing for certain radiopharmaceuticals and biologics (and issue previously discussed here).
While it is too early to know how legislation, regulations, and policies will ultimately change to achieve the report's stated goals, this process creates an important opportunity for industry stakeholders to assess how potential reforms could improve industry competitiveness and support the government's objectives. Health Canada intends to consult industry on many of these initiatives, so now is the time for stakeholders to ensure their perspectives are heard, as there are few occasions when regulators place such a significant focus on reducing red tape.
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