Overview
Alberta’s new Automatic Yes Toolkit for permits makes life better for Albertans by reducing red tape, increasing certainty, speeding up project timelines and creating more opportunities for businesses and individuals to thrive – all while ensuring health, safety and environmental protections remain in place.
Cutting red tape for lower-risk activities
Government began the work to improve wait times for permit decisions in 2023, by tracking and analyzing all permits issued by the Government of Alberta. To date, nearly 20% of government permits have demonstrated an improvement in average wait times, with several permits seeing improvements of 30 days or more.
To build on this work and further improve government permit approval timelines, the Automatic Yes Toolkit enables government to identify permits that can benefit from faster decision-making processes. For lower-risk and routine activities, permit approvals can be replaced with a set of clear operating requirements that must be followed. For permits approvals that are more complex and require detailed reviews to mitigate risk, the toolkit can be used to provide greater certainty for applicants around approval timelines by establishing maximum time limits for government decision.
Importantly, nothing in the Automatic Yes Toolkit is designed to reduce or eliminate effective government oversight. Government will retain the ability to deny permits, where appropriate, or to require more information, while also continuing to conduct monitoring and enforcement activities that ensure compliance with important regulations and requirements that keep Albertans safe.
Automatic Yes approach
By using clear operating requirements and setting maximum timelines for more complex permits, the Automatic Yes approach brings more efficiency and transparency to the permitting process.
Codes of practice
A set of rules outlining minimum operating requirements and allowing activities to begin as soon as the requirements are met. A formal notification to government may be required.
Permit by rule
A set of rules outlining minimum operating requirements and allowing activities to begin as soon as the requirements are met. A formal notification to government is typically required, along with some level of supporting documentation.
Shot clock
Requires that a decision on permit applications, and/or notification to the applicant of the rationale for rejection, be provided within a set timeframe.
Key considerations
Government’s evaluation for applying the 3 Automatic Yes approaches is informed by risk assessment that consider factors such as environmental impacts, public health and safety impacts, and the complexity of an activity. This evaluation helps ensure that the Automatic Yes Toolkit will only be applied to permits where the appropriate public safety or environmental protections can be assured.
Further to risk assessment, government would apply the following considerations to support the transition of an existing permit to Automatic Yes.
Legislative/regulatory considerations
Government may need to amend existing legislation and regulation, particularly those that prescribe required permit review and approval processes, or auditing and oversight.
Stakeholder engagement
As with all significant changes, government will conduct necessary stakeholder engagement to inform all necessary considerations in the development and application of one of the approaches in the toolkit.
Operational considerations
Government will review current permitting processes to identify and implement any system changes and resource allocations that may be required, such as digital solutions and staffing.
Share your suggestions
If you have suggestions of government permits or approvals that could be improved, as well as those that may benefit from the new Automatic Yes approaches, email your ideas to [email protected].
News
- Full speed ahead: fast-tracking permit approvals (January 28, 2025)