Newfoundland and Labrador’s Minister of Government Modernization and Service Delivery, Sarah Stoodley, says the provincial government is working to make the province an easier place to do business. Among other things, that means making it possible for companies to handle more interactions with the government quickly and easily online.

Required interactions between business and government can involve anything from registering a business (currently possible through Companies and Deeds Online) to acquiring permits and licences. In this day and age, online services seem like they’d be a given. However, even the ability to find and file applications online isn’t an option yet for all activities.

“We do still have things that are paper based. I find it very embarrassing when I come across – we send someone an application, they have to fill it out and then they have to scan it and email it back. That really upsets me,” Stoodley recently told Atlantic Business Magazine.

A lack of digitized application and submission is not the norm, but there is much work that needs to done to achieve a high level of online business service efficiency.

The Province is working on it. That includes making it easier to find available applications, making the applications themselves less repetitive and onerous, being more transparent during the application processing period and finding ways to reduce the time for processing.

According to Stoodley, when it comes to online experience, the government has been mainly focused in recent years on individual citizen use of the MyGovNL online platform. There are now over 400,000 registered users who can renew the registration of their vehicle online with a few clicks, or—as of just over a year ago—see the latest from their medical records, as examples. There are more functions to be added, but the idea now is to establish a similar platform for businesses. She said businesses should hear and see more on this within the next year.

A “one-stop shop” for business online can theoretically make it easier to find a needed application or function. It also makes it possible to cut down on the information requested by government from businesses with each application or interaction.

“We’ve built a lot of online experiences for businesses (…) but it’s not authenticated,” Stoodley said. She explained having bureaucratic staff receiving a form from an open webpage is different compared to a centralized platform where business leaders can sign in under a particular profile. The associated profile makes it possible to reduce the amount of information needed each time for any given task.

The platform would already know the company basics. As a simple example, the business address and main contacts might not need to be entered again and again, on every form. In using information already on record, certain applications could be cut from a handful of pages or screens down to as little as one or two fields (lines) for specific information for the task at hand.

“We don’t want to send people away with a 20-minute application form,” Stoodley said, emphasizing the idea paperwork can be reduced for routine permitting, as a starter.

Next door, Nova Scotia has an “Access to Business” portal already functioning, where, for example, businesses can register, sign up for tender notifications and even apply for funding from the provincial film and television production incentive.

Stoodley said she is imagining something with even more functionality. In the case of applications with longer review periods, for example, processing may require checks under multiple government departments. Business owners could perhaps see where an application sits within the government bureaucracy.

“I wouldn’t say we would have that level of sophistication on day one, but that would certainly be what we would be working towards,” the minister said.

As with MyGovNL and personal services, the base is really needed first.

Thought is being given to what existing online services might first be migrated onto a business platform, and what online functions the province needs overall. Stoodley said “a series of consultations” are being planned. She offered no fixed date for the introduction of a new business platform, or any additional online services.

The province is currently in the third year of a five-year, $50-million spend on information technology assets, a Modernization and Service Delivery press release noted last week.

It is also set for a general election later this year.

Any improvements to existing services for small business would be of benefit to the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador. The province received a failing “F” grade in February in the annual Canadian Federation of Independent Business Red Tape Report Card.

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