INTERPROVINCIAL TRADE CONT.
“In Manitoba, the average individual would be about $5,000 richer if you dropped the trade barriers.” — Jeff Griffiths, director of the Skills, Innovation and Productivity Centre for the Calgary-based Canada West Foundation
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said we should do this. Let’s just do it. Let’s drop the barriers. Let’s drop the restrictions. Let’s build the infrastructure. Let’s invest in trade corridors across and between the provinces that allows us to do more trade internally,” he says. “Let’s use this crisis as a catalyst for change. I think most people in Canada would be in favour of it.” Whether or not we are facing an economic recession, our efforts to help businesses and workers to trade and move more seamlessly might just put Canada on the map, Zalazar says. “Removing internal trade barriers will not solve all our economic challenges, but that is not the point,” he says. “It should be seen as a strong signal that Canada is a good place to do business — and that governments at all levels are focused on making it easier, not harder, to operate here.” ■
Food for Canadians Act rules for interprovincial trade. “We’ve cleaned up a lot of the little things. A report that Canada West produced back in 2019 mentions differences between provinces on the size of packages allowed for coffee creamers — that’s now gone, thankfully, ” Griffiths says, referring to the individual pods you see at restaurant tables. “But there are still lots and lots of non-tariff barriers to trade that frankly don’t seem to make a lot of sense.” Griffiths says now is the time to keep with the spirit of Section 121 of the Canadian Constitution — which says all "articles of the growth, produce or manufacture of any one of the provinces shall, from and after the union, be admitted free into each of the other provinces." “We have an opportunity now. There seems to be some political will — the council, the federation, all the premiers got together and
Yet progression in all areas, of course, depends on the breakdown of barriers. A shift in overall attitudes and tools, such as trade commissioners who specialize in facilitating local rather than international trade, could help Manitobans do better business with each other and their fellow Canadians. When it comes to the Canadian Free Trade Agreement, removing specific product requirements from province to province could make all the difference in a small business owner’s life. Griffiths notes that plenty of issues exist — particularly in the agricultural and agrifood sector — that add cost and complexity for producers. These issues include everything from different provincial regulations on the recycled content of packaging to overlapping regulations for inspections in meat processing for selling products within a province versus the Safe
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SUMMER 2025
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