Booze, language laws and maple syrup? Here’s how interprovincial barriers impact your daily life

There’s been a lot of chatter about interprovincial trade barriers lately — namely, that Canada should remove them, with federal and provincial officials saying that opening up domestic trade could soften the impact of potential U.S. tariffs. But what are these barriers, and how do they impact our daily lives?

Just imagine that Canada’s 13 provinces and territories are each a small country, said Moshe Lander, an economics professor at Concordia University in Montreal.

“Each of which has its own government, its own ability to tax, its own spending decisions, its own regulations on road safety, health standards, educational qualifications — those types of things, if they differ between one province and another, is an interprovincial barrier.”

A 2019 IMF report showed that the country was leaving money on the table by keeping these barriers in place. In today’s dollars, removing them would pump $245 billion into the economy, report co-author Trevor Tombe recently said. 

So what are some everyday interprovincial trade barriers that you may or may not notice in your everyday life? CBC News compiled a brief list — but there are thousands of them, and it’s unlikely they’d all be removed.

“Will we get rid of everything? Don’t be silly,” said former Alberta premier Rachel Notley told reporters on Friday.

Boozy barriers

You’ve probably heard of this one: Most Canadian wineries, breweries and distilleries can’t sell or ship directly to consumers in other parts of the country. That’s why Ottawa beer makers can’t send brewskis across the river to Gatineau, Que., why you can’t buy Quebec-made whiskey in Nova Scotia, and why — until recently — B.C. wineries couldn’t sell their vino directly to Albertans. 

Most provinces have their own liquor retailers (like Ontario’s LCBO, Quebec’s SAQ and Nova Scotia’s NSLC) that have different rules related to selling, storing and labelling alcohol: “It’s easier to get a wine from Australia than it is to get a wine from B.C.,” said Lander.

Part of why these were established in the first place was so that smaller booze makers wouldn’t get squeezed out by competition from other provinces. That reasoning “has maybe outlived its usefulness,” said Lander.

While plenty of alcohol trade barriers remain, the provinces made a deal in 2018 to raise personal exemption limits on alcohol, letting individual Canadians carry six cases of beer, two cases of wine and six litres of spirits across borders.

A litany of language laws

There’s a whole list of general exceptions to the Canada Free Trade Agreement, which was signed in 2017 and governs free trade within Canada. Measures related to language are exempted, for example, unless they’re a “disguised restriction” on trade, according to the agreement.

Quebec’s language laws are one example of the resulting trade barriers — and that province holds more exceptions to the CFTA than any other, according to a 2023 index compiled by Montreal think-tank MEI.

“If you are an English business and you want to operate inside the province of Quebec, there is a litany of laws, rules and regulations about signage, which language comes first, proportions of French to English, the needs of the employers and employees in communicating,” said Lander.

There are different rules for Quebec-made products sold into other provincial markets. But Quebec tightened its language laws in 2021, which provincial officials said was necessary to protect the French language.

Food and farming quirks

Ever notice that chicken sold in B.C. is more expensive than it is in other provinces? That’s because the price is set by a provincial chicken board (yes, you read that right). Or that fruits and veggies are packaged and labelled differently in Quebec compared to Manitoba? Those are just a few ways that food is subject to internal trade barriers.

That red tape used to exist in Lloydminster, a city that straddles the border between Alberta and Saskatchewan. Until pretty recently, you couldn’t sell a deli sandwich made on the Alberta side to a grocery co-op on the city’s Saskatchewan end without a separate licence — irritating hungry residents and food businesses alike. The provinces launched a pilot project removing the barrier, a change recently made permanent.

“It became a question of, ‘OK, we’re in the same city, why can’t we trade among ourselves?'” said SeoRhin Yoo, senior policy analyst of interprovincial affairs at the Canadian Federation of Independent Business. “We have tons of cities like Lloydminster where they would really benefit from the free flow of goods and services because they’re so close together.”

Another example: in the early 2000s, when B.C. was hit by a drought, Alberta farmers stepped in to share their healthy harvest. The trucks transporting hay between the two provinces hit a snag, having to follow B.C.’s load safety regulations.

Job-hopping between provinces

Thinking of moving across the country for your career? Well, hold your horses: Some provinces require a little extra legwork to do the same job in a different place.

“Depending on the particular profession, you may have more or less mobility,” said Andrew Leach, an economist at the University of Alberta. “You might be able to work in another province with your certification. You may have to update your certification, you may have to do different training.” 

Call it an occupational hazard. A nurse trained in Ontario, for example, might need to do additional coursework to practice in Manitoba; a psychologist certified in Alberta might need more training to work in Nova Scotia; and Quebec lawyers can’t practise outside of their province because it has its own Civil Code (and the rest of Canada follows common law).

There’s been some movement on this front: British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba signed their own mini-agreement in 2010, removing most barriers to trade between these four western provinces, including ones that hinder labour mobility.