Members of the House of Commons agriculture committee have joined the ranks of Ottawa politicos trying to gain insight into Canada’s complex interprovincial trade system.
The House began its study Feb. 17 and it comes as the Senate agriculture and forestry committee is also looking at internal trade issues.
Canada’s pernicious internal trade differences have been a longstanding issue since Confederation.
And while Canada’s 10 provinces and two of the three territories agreed to the Agreement on Internal Trade in 1995 (Nunavut didn’t exist at the time and is currently listed as observer status), ongoing disputes and regulatory barriers persist.
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Varying food safety rules that change from province to province have been known to restrict the sales of gourmet food in parts of the country, which can be easily sold in Europe or other international markets.
Meanwhile, different ethanol mixing formulas mean refineries are required to produce varying ethanols for different provinces.
There have also been spats in the past over the way hay was stacked on trucks moving between Alberta and British Columbia, which forced truck drivers to stop and adjust their loads before crossing the border.
As well, Quebec refused to sell margarine that was the same colour as butter, a regulation that wasn’t changed until 2008.
The federal government has said internal trade barriers are believed cost the national economy $50 billion in gross domestic product, although that number has never been sourced or substantiated.
Fixing internal trade has been touted as a priority for the federal Conservatives for years, attracting the attention of several high profile cabinet ministers. Industry minister James Moore, for instance, has repeatedly called the entire issue “ridiculous.”
Moore has criss-crossed the country in an attempt to drum up support for internal trade reform and repeatedly put the issue onto the premiers’ meeting agenda. The topic was raised most recently at the winter Council of the Federation meeting in Ottawa in January.
The issue was also mentioned in last year’s federal budget, with the Conservatives committing to easing internal trade issues via a yet to be finalized Internal Trade Barrier Index.
However, solving internal trade issues is not an easy task. Regulations aside, the political hurdles are plentiful.
Provincial co-operation is essential, and while the premiers have said they are committed to easing internal trade disputes, saying and actually doing it are two different things.
Internal trade is also an area that requires firm federal involvement, along with a willingness to stand tough against the provinces, but still manage to work with them.
Failure to do so risks having to go to court to reaffirm the federal government’s constitutional adeptness when it comes to trade matters. With a federal election looming, opening up the constitution is a fight no one in Ottawa is looking for right now.
Then there’s the prime minister Stephen Harper’s relationship with the provinces and his ongoing refusal to meet with them all at once. Harper has not held a first ministers meeting since early 2009, where discussion as focused on the state of the economy in light of the 2008 global economic crisis.
He has repeatedly met with the premiers one-on-one, but internal trade is one of those problems that will only ever been solved face-to-face, a point highlighted by former prime minister Brian Mulroney in December during a speech at the Crop Life Canada Conference. Mulroney quietly chastised Harper for refusing to meet with the premiers, saying the country’s 14 leaders should get together to discuss national issues such as internal trade.
However, getting the provinces on side is only one of many challenges around internal trade.
On the agricultural side, any conversation about internal trade is guaranteed to bring up questions around supply management, something the NDP has already started raising at committee.
With disagreements between provinces over how quota is allocated and anger over recent concessions made in international trade agreements, reforming supply management is a political fireball few MPs likely want to touch with an election just around the corner. Whether this debate can be avoided, though, remains to be seen.
