A new study commissioned by the Certified General Accountants Association of Canada finds Canada has yet to achieve truly “free” interprovincial trade. The study places the blame on a lack of political will, procedural problems and the relatively low profile of the six-year-old federal-provincial Agreement on Internal Trade.
The study provides the first comprehensive assessment of the agreement’s first five years of operation and offers a seven-point plan for reducing and removing remaining barriers to interprovincial trade. According to the study, the agreement itself is basically sound and has had limited success in levelling the playing field for business in terms of government procurement. However, many of the commitments made by governments have been virtually ignored and dispute resolution processes are inaccessible, slow, expensive and, ultimately, unenforceable.
The study recommends that the federal and provincial/territorial governments:
“At a time when we are seriously considering opening our borders even wider to international competition, political neglect of the Agreement that governs interprovincial trade is placing Canadian jobs and Canadian business at serious risk,” said Dale Gislason, vice-chair of the CGA. “This study is the clearest demonstration yet that governments must work much harder to honour their commitments to reduce and remove barriers to interprovincial trade.”
Gislason noted, “The Government of Ontario continues to ignore appeals from the profession and from the provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba to open the practice of public accounting. In fact, CGAs across Canada have been waiting for more than a year for this to be resolved. Under the terms of the AIT, we will be lucky to see this relatively straightforward issue settled in the near future. Even if the panel rules in favour of increased labour mobility, there is nothing in the agreement to say the province of Ontario must implement the findings. We can and must do better.”