San Francisco is 220 kilometres closer to Vancouver than Regina, and Austin, Texas is 755 kilometres closer than Toronto.
“Of businesses who reported transportation cost and availability as an obstacle when conducting interprovincial trade over the last 12 months, one-quarter reported it as a major obstacle,” Statistics Canada said in an interprovincial analysis last year. “So if we were to be able to remove that, that would really raise everybody’s standard of living and help with economic growth across the country.”
“At the time, CFIB was super excited about the agreement,” Loeppky said of the CFTA. “But what we’re seeing is there are still barriers, particularly around food, labour and alcohol.” “What we’re hearing from many of our members is that it’s actually easier to sell their products—not just food but any products or services—internationally than it is within Canada.”
Another major headache for business is differing regulations in provinces with respect to workers’ compensation and certifications, with a lot of duplication of fees and paperwork when workers temporarily move from one province to another. The CFIB would like to see professional licences and certifications obtained in one jurisdiction to be automatically recognized in all other jurisdictions.