Is Canada now free of internal trade barriers? Not yet, says expert

Federal and provincial leaders are working to dismantle internal trade barriers that push up the cost of goods and make it harder to do business within Canada.

But anyone expecting all of them to be gone by tomorrow should read the fine print, experts say.

Throughout the spring federal election campaign, Mark Carney as Liberal leader repeatedly vowed to "eliminate" interprovincial trade barriers and create "free trade by Canada Day."

The rhetoric has been at times confusing and the political scorecard on this one is hard to track.

With July 1 just a day away, Carney's government has passed its planned changes into law — but it's more like the start of a conversation than the final word, says internal trade expert Ryan Manucha.

"It's a starting gun and it's starting a lot more activity and work, which is honestly the really exciting part," said Manucha. "If any of this was easy, it would have been done."

Manucha writes on the topic for the Macdonald-Laurier Institute think-tank and authored the book Booze, Cigarettes, and Constitutional Dust-Ups: Canada's Quest for Interprovincial Trade.

"When I'm advising governments, I say, 'Don't think of this as a light switch,"' he said. "We are changing the way that everyone approaches the concept of regulation and risk here, and so it's going to take some time."

The rush to break down internal barriers to trade comes in response to U.S. President Donald Trump's tariff war with Canada. One study estimates that existing internal trade hurdles cost the economy some $200 billion a year.

Manucha said Canada has talked about this problem for decades but is only addressing it seriously now — and it would "never have happened had we not had Trump."

He said the introduction of the Carney government's bill on internal trade was "incredible to see" because the idea was just "an academic theory maybe even as little as eight months ago."

Bill C-5, the omnibus bill that reduces federal restrictions on interprovincial trade and also speeds up permitting for large infrastructure projects, became law on June 26.

An analysis of the law by McMillan Vantage says that "this legislation would not achieve" the elimination of all internal trade barriers.

When Carney made his campaign promise, he was talking about cutting red tape put up by the federal government — not the rules set by the provinces, which have the most authority in this area.