Ontario Premier Doug Ford and Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew struck an internal trade agreement between their two provinces on May 14.Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail
It has been six months since U.S. President Donald Trump launched his tariff blitzkrieg on Canada and created the urgent need to tear down this country’s counter-productive internal trade barriers. Alarmingly, the goal of a single Canadian economy is still a long way off, with only one province to date even close to taking the sort of sweeping action the moment requires.
In April, Ontario removed all its party-specific exceptions under the Canadian Free Trade Agreement, a 2017 deal that is notable more for the 135 pages of carve-outs in its annexes than it is for any actual freeing of interprovincial commerce.
This week, on Labour Day, the Ford government announced “as of right” rules that will allow many out-of-province professionals (health-care workers not included) to start working in Ontario within two weeks, rather than wait months for certification.
The new rules mean that, as of Jan. 1, 2026, professionals from out-of-province will be able to work within 10 business days, once their credentials are confirmed by the relevant Ontario regulatory authority, of which 50 were named. They then have six months to complete the registration process.
No other province comes close. Nor does Ottawa, which cut all of its party-specific carve-outs under the CFTA but kept a raft of general exemptions in place in areas it deemed sensitive to national security.
The Carney government also continues to support supply management in dairy, poultry and eggs, which creates unjustifiable barriers to interprovincial trade in those areas. And its Free Trade and Labour Mobility in Canada Act, enacted in late June, is still in the consultation phase.
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Other than that, the country is awash in press releases about memoranda of understanding between various configurations of reciprocating provinces to reduce but not eliminate barriers. It’s a piecemeal approach.
There is still no national agreement to align trucking regulations and smooth the movement of goods across the country. Most Canadians still can’t buy wine, beer and spirits made in other provinces in their government-run alcohol retailers. The recognition of out-of-province credentials for health-care workers has improved slightly but is sporadic at best.
If you want to know what is holding this country back, you only have to look at Ontario’s recent announcement. The policy doesn’t actually eliminate the biggest barrier to labour mobility in Canada – that is, the jealously protective regulatory authorities that guard their turf at all costs.
Instead, it only requires those bodies to work a little faster and more transparently, and to permit applicants to start their jobs within 10 business days while the full registration process grinds on slowly in the background.
That there are at least 50 such bodies in Ontario alone is telling. Lawyers, veterinarians, teachers, chartered accountants, architects, electricians, municipal clerks, graphic designers, interior designers, road supervisors, translators, archeologists, home inspectors, landscapers, undertakers – they are all certified on a required or voluntary basis, depending on whether a license to practise is required.
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Every province has a similar spate of gatekeepers, each with their own set of rules and requirements. Every one of them will argue that without their geographically specific oversight, buildings would collapse, trucks would drive off the road and, apparently, archeology would run amok.
Most Canadians would agree that certification has its place, at least for some professions. What they are less likely to agree to is that a person needs to be certified in each province in order to work there.
It simply is not believable that a provincial regulatory body might have standards so low that, say, a veterinarian or road supervisor would pose a threat to the public.
It is also redundant for each provincial body to insist on verifying the credentials of an out-of-province worker, and on checking if there are complaints against them. That is information that every regulating body in Canada should post online, so that individuals and companies can quickly verify that a person is qualified and in good standing.
Ottawa and the provinces are losing precious time bowing to a redundant web of provincial regulatory authorities that are contributing to Canada’s low productivity.
It’s time for governments to tell them to accept each other’s standards. Or better yet, to just get out of the way of qualified Canadians altogether.