BizPaL Helps Small Business Cut Through Government Red Tape

Peter Adler

Filed under: Entrepreneurship, Investing, Small Business

small business owners can get help from a BizPaL site

Small businesses must have had it up to here with all the paperwork they've got to go through to be able to open their doors – and keep them open afterwards, so long as there is enough custom.

All that at a time when the prevailing thought is we should have gone paperless long ago.

Enter BizPaL. That's an online business permit and licence service that saves time spent on paperwork and helps entrepreneurs start up faster.

While general readers might question the need for licences and permits in the first place, they exist. And so long as we do not raise a revolution against them, might as well make the process as efficient as possible.

And that's what's happening in British Columbia these days. Ten communities have joined the BizPaL network, and they're tickled pink.

From now on, if you want to do business in the districts of Central Saanich, Delta, Mackenzie and Sechelt; the cities of Langford, Nelson, New Westminster and Port Moody; the Village of Valemount; and the Town of Smithers, it should be as easy as counting 1-2-3.

The whole thing is not really new, come to think of it. In today's world whose priorities and timelines have been compressed beyond recognition, BizPaL is perfectly ancient. It was launched in 2005, for crying out loud! BizPaL is jointly managed by a partnership involving governments at the federal, provincial, territorial and municipal levels. Provinces, territories and hundreds of municipalities have collaborated to make it work.

As government services go, BizPaL is still quite an innovative tool.

It's high-technology made easy for the average Mary and Joe Q. First-Time-Entrepreneurs.

Even its Frequently Asked Questions page is easy to understand: