By Lindsey Ward, Winnipeg Free Press
In a time of tariffs and economic uncertainty, Canadians are relying on each other more than ever for goods and services. Interprovincial trade sounds like a no-brainer these days, but, frankly, it’s complicated.
Those looking to move products east to west
— as opposed to south — may face seemingly impossible barriers, whether they’re infrastructural, geographical, political or due to free trade regulations.
“It shouldn’t be easier to trade with other countries than within our own provinces — but for many businesses, that’s the reality,” says Randall Zalazar, director of government relations for the Canadian Chamber of Commerce.
Zalazar says interprovincial trade is crucial right now since “there’s no better place to find certainty than at home.” It also sends the right signals to investors looking for stable, predictable environments with clear potential for growth.
“On both counts, provinces like Manitoba will have a chance to lead,” he says. “Their economy will be better off for it.”
A 2021 index from the Montreal Economic Institute suggested that if all trade barriers had been eliminated in Manitoba in 2020, the province’s gross domestic product per capita would be nearly $5,000 higher in 2030. That’s comparable to Ontario’s GDP per capita.
“In Manitoba, the average individual would be about $5,000 richer if you dropped the trade barriers,” says Jeff Griffiths, director of the Skills, Innovation and Productivity Centre for the Calgary-based Canada West Foundation, a public policy think tank focused on Western Canadian issues.
Griffiths says Manitoba is second only to Alberta in having the fewest number of exemptions in the Canadian Free Trade Agreement — a 327-page document with 200 pages of exemptions. While assets like Manitoba Hydro and agriculture are more challenging to open, there are areas that have seen recent movement.
For example, Manitoba is positioned to capitalize on its robust alcohol distilleries — a product of agricultural industries — after it recently signed on to a major agreement between most provinces to allow beer and spirits to flow freely around the country.
The province is also part of the New West Partnership Trade Agreement — an internal free trade deal between the four Western provinces — and it joined the federal government’s Trucking Pilot Project in September 2024, with the goal of strengthening the links of Canada’s supply chain.
Lumber and other forest products should also be looked at as highly valuable resources in Manitoba, Griffiths says, and their movement interprovincially would especially be of value to northern Manitoba’s economy.
“There’s a pretty vibrant manufacturing base in Manitoba,” he says.
Internal trade barriers don’t solely apply to physical goods; skilled workers in areas such as farming, manufacturing, trucking and even insurance can be halted at provincial borders if they don’t meet licensing requirements.
“The Insurance Bureau of Canada has pointed out that the complexity of these requirements makes it harder for (insurance) adjusters to move between provinces,” Zalazar says. “Since Manitoba is home to several major insurance companies, there’s a clear opportunity to make progress here.”
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 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 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.” ■
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