Today, at the Committee on Internal Trade (CIT) meeting, the Honourable Dominic LeBlanc, Minister of Public Safety, Democratic Institutions and Intergovernmental Affairs, and the Honourable Anita Anand, President of the Treasury Board and Minister of Transport, announced the launch of a pilot project to mutually recognize regulatory requirements in the trucking sector.
The ministers thanked the coalition of willing jurisdictions: Ontario; Nova Scotia; Manitoba; Prince Edward Island; Saskatchewan; Alberta; Newfoundland and Labrador; Northwest Territories; Yukon; and Nunavut for joining this effort to improve the efficient movement of goods - a crucial aspect to Canada's productivity and affordability. The pilot project will be co-chaired by Newfoundland and Labrador and Canada.
Mutual recognition agreements in key sectors, such as transportation and trucking, have the potential to boost Canada's productivity and economic growth. Experts forecast that adopting mutual recognition as a means to reduce barriers to internal trade could increase Canada's economy by $200 billion per year.
Under this new trucking pilot, participating provinces and territories will commit to recognizing each other's regulatory requirements, even where differences exist, such as oversized vehicle signage requirements, to allow trucks and the goods they carry to move across Canada more effectively, without compromising safety and security measures. The pilot, the first of its kind on this scale within Canada, will help governments test and measure what can be achieved through mutual recognition and will help drive future work in other important sectors of the economy, including labour mobility.
Today's announcement is an important first step towards wider, national adoption of mutual recognition and builds on the Government of Canada's demonstrated leadership and action to liberalize trade and boost Canada's economic productivity.
Through federal leadership, including the Federal Action Plan to Strengthen Internal Trade, the Government of Canada has:
- Launched the Canadian Internal Trade Data and Information Hub, providing open and accessible information on domestic trade and trade barriers in key economic sectors;
- Removed and narrowed 1/3 of federal exceptions in the Canadian Free Trade Agreement, providing Canadian businesses with more opportunities to be competitive across the country;
- Strengthened regulatory cooperation through the harmonization of building codes and energy efficiency regulations and exempting oil rigs from duplicative requirements;
- Funded the development of a National Registry of Physicians, led by the Medical Council of Canada, a foundational element that will support labour mobility for physicians;
- Reviewed the Red Tape Reduction Act and made it a requirement for the one‑for‑one rule to control the administrative burden on business and to take into account burden reduced as a result of regulatory cooperation between the Government of Canada and other jurisdictions;
- Advanced regulatory cooperation through the Canada-U.S. Regulatory Cooperation Council and the Federal-Provincial/Territorial Regulatory Reconciliation and Cooperation Table to reduce regulatory barriers to trade and make it easier for businesses to operate across multiple jurisdictions; and
- Held regional roundtables in Canada and the United States to better understand the regulatory challenges businesses face when conducting business across internal and international borders.
Additionally, as announced in August 2024, the Treasury Board of Canada is setting up a working group to examine productivity in Canada's public sector and inform the government's economic plan. The working group will be comprised of various experts from academia, think tanks, private and public sectors, and will engage with unions. It will examine the delivery of services to Canadians and the role of technology in helping address barriers to achieving greater efficiencies for Canadians and businesses. The working group's mandate and terms of reference will be finalized and made public in the coming weeks.
