The trade dispute is centred around three bridge repair projects in New Brunswick, including the Centennial Bridge in Miramichi.Viktor Pivovarov/The Globe and Mail
A Canadian internal trade panel has convened for the first time this week after an Ontario contractor alleged the New Brunswick government breached the Canadian Free Trade Agreement over a bridge construction project.
The interprovincial trade dispute is the first of its kind to reach the country’s internal trade tribunal under the free-trade agreement, which replaced the Agreement on Internal Trade in 2017.
The dispute is centred around three bridge repair projects in the Miramichi and Fredericton areas, including the Centennial Bridge, which spans the Miramichi River. Julmac Contracting Ltd., based in Acton, Ont., alleges the New Brunswick government unfairly discriminated against out-of-province contractors in favour of local companies, while the province says this isn’t a trade disagreement at all but a simple matter of the contractor defaulting on its projects.
At issue is whether the government of New Brunswick breached the rules in the Canadian Free Trade Agreement against discriminating when dealing with goods suppliers and businesses from outside a province or territory.
“So the question for the panel this week is: Did the government of New Brunswick honour that promise? If there’s been a breach of the promise, then there should be a remedy awarded by this panel,” Julmac counsel David Outerbridge said during his opening submissions Monday.
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For decades, interprovincial trade barriers have stymied the flow of goods and services across Canada, inhibiting economic growth with estimated losses of $92-billion annually. In 2017, the Canadian Free Trade Agreement was enacted to help ease the free flow of goods and services between provinces and territories.
Over the last year, policy makers have been under significant pressure to build a more resilient domestic economy, prompted in part by U.S. President Donald Trump’s continuing threat of tariffs on Canadian goods and a recent decision not to renew the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement for another 16 years, but instead to review it annually.
Prime Minister Mark Carney has pushed for “one Canadian economy” as part of an attempt to diversify away from the United States. Federal and provincial leaders have taken some steps to reduce barriers between provinces, albeit with mixed results,
The trade panel convening at the University of New Brunswick Faculty of Law in Fredericton this week is comprised of three lawyers - chair Valerie Hughes, Robert Deane and Drew Tyler. It will hear from legal representatives and witnesses, with intervenors from Nova Scotia, Ontario and Saskatchewan.
The dispute dates back several years but, in February, 2025, New Brunswick’s Department of Transportation and Infrastructure ordered Julmac to vacate its worksites at three bridge projects.
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Prior to that, in 2023, the company filed a lawsuit and made a free-trade complaint alleging the New Brunswick government unfairly discriminated against out-of-province contractors in favour of local companies.
In its filing, Julmac used the example of temporary moulds for concrete structures, which provide structural support while concrete sets and cures on a bridge pier. Julmac alleges that it had to meet higher pressure ratings, requiring double the plywood and 60-per-cent more hardware, to meet the “onerous” standards. The company said the stringent requirements exceeded the “simplistic” mould designs that New Brunswick “routinely” allows from local contractors.
“What we’re asking for is simply a level playing field,” Mr. Outerbridge told the panel. “We’re not asking for Julmac to be preferred. We’re simply asking that when Julmac is carrying out construction in this province, it be treated the same as local New Brunswick contractors. And a recommendation in this case that is what should occur would send a broader message, particularly at this moment in Canada’s development.”
He pointed out the importance of the free-trade agreement’s commitments being respected and cited the federal government’s focus on infrastructure development and nation-building projects, which should “be completed in a fair and non-protectionist manner.”
The government of New Brunswick however says that Julmac’s complaint is entirely related to its poor contractual performance and doesn’t relate to the Canadian Free Trade Agreement.
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“There is no discriminatory treatment,” said the province’s lawyer, Mark Heighton, in his opening submissions Tuesday. “There’s certainly no less favourable treatment and there is no basis on which this panel in our view could conclude that the agreement has been breached.”
Mr. Heighton told the panel that it was not the province or an external design engineer dictating arbitrary, differential or less favourable treatments, but Julmac’s own approach and strategy.
“What you don’t see in the evidence and what you haven’t heard in cross-examination is a single instance in which you have a local contractor proposing to use the exact same means and methods as Julmac is proposing to use and being told that that’s okay for the local contractor, and it’s not okay for Julmac,” Mr. Heighton said. “You don’t see that comparison because that comparison isn’t in the evidence. Because that did not occur.”
The hearing is scheduled to conclude on Friday. Under tribunal rules, the panel is expected to issue a report within 45 days after the hearing is completed.