Time to end trade barriers

When the conversation is about the price of orange juice and ketchup going up or the loss of vital jobs in the auto industry because of American actions, it’s easy for Canadians — and our elected officials — to get outraged about the cost of trade barriers.

But dealing with interprovincial barriers, it seems, is far harder and less fun than going after U.S. President Donald Trump for suggesting that free trade with Canada presents a national security threat.

So much harder, in fact, that Canada’s premiers couldn’t even manage to give themselves what should have been a no-brainer, made-for-summer win: the freer flow of booze across provincial borders.

The premiers clearly tried. They seemed positively poised at their meeting in New Brunswick to announce a completed deal to effectively double the amount of wine, beer and spirits that consumers could take across provincial and territorial borders. But when it came down to finally putting pen to paper on Friday, the best they could manage was to agree “in principle to significantly increase personal-use exemption limits when crossing provincial/territorial boundaries.”

That means they’ll do something — probably what they were expected to do — eventually, when the last holdouts can be brought around.

And this wasn’t even about ending the barriers that businesses face when bringing craft beer or fine wine across provincial borders. That was too big a hill to even contemplate climbing.

The hypocrisy of all this, from a group that intends to lobby Americans more directly on the merits of free trade, is breathtaking.

As Manitoba Premier Brian Pallister put it: “We are a trading nation and we have to demonstrate that we understand the benefits to the Canadian family of trading more effectively within our own boundaries if we wish to make the case to others that they should pull the wall down between us and them.” We couldn’t agree more with that statement. We part ways with Pallister, however, on his preamble to it: “These premiers took positive steps in the last couple of days and have been working together for months to make sure we take those walls down inside our country. This is a tremendous achievement.”

Tearing down the interprovincial trade barriers that make life more costly and difficult for businesses and Canadian consumers would have been an achievement. Talking about doing it is something that’s been going on, with far too few results, for decades. Unfortunately, that pattern seems to be continuing. And if the premiers can’t agree on a matter as trivial as letting Canadian consumers transport a few more cases of wine and beer across provincial borders, what hope is there of agreement on bigger issues, such as a national pharmacare plan or tackling climate change?

The premiers know the financial consequences of provincial restrictions on the free movement of goods, services and people are substantial. Two years ago, a Senate committee estimated the annual cost of lost trade opportunities in the range of $50 billion to $130 billion of GDP.

Now, letting visitors from Quebec (legally) take home more wine from the Niagara region or Ontarians bring home more cases of craft beer from Quebec doesn’t add up to a big drag on the economy. But as one premier pointed out, it increases choice for consumers, could help drive innovation and is “a symbol for Canadians.”

Right now, it remains a symbol of premiers unable to walk their talk. And, worse still, they couldn’t finalize any of the other issues on the trade table such as harmonizing occupational health and safety rules, transport regulations and business registration.

A country that’s pushing the merits of free trade globally really shouldn’t be dumping a grab bag of costly requirements on companies here whenever their business interests cross a provincial border. But even slaughtering meat is an interprovincial battle that the premiers decided needs more conversation.

All that was summed up in the ironically-titled communique: “Premiers make advancements on Internal Trade.”

With all the global uncertainty, surely it’s time for the premiers to do more than talk about improving internal trade.

Canada’s premiers couldn’t even manage to give themselves an easy win