B.C. Premier David Eby has repeated a call to lower trade barriers within Canada to make shopping north of the U.S. border easier. 

"This is pretty basic," Eby said Wednesday (Jan. 22). "If we are going to have the United States putting tariffs on our goods, let's be able to buy stuff from other provinces easily. Let's buy things Canadian first."

Eby posted this message on social media after meeting virtually with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and provincial premiers.

"One of the pieces that's really important for British Columbia, I was really pushing at the table, and I was really glad to hear support across the country for, was getting rid of those barriers that stop Canadians from buying goods from each other." 

The question of internal trade barriers has long vexed Canadian federalism. Canada's continental geography, with its small, unevenly spread population has historically complicated internal trade. A 2019 paper from the International Monetary Fund notes geography "accounts for 57 percent of total trading barriers across all regions and trading routes."

But the report also points to three other types of barriers: prohibitive barriers like restrictions on the sale of alcoholic beverages to customers in other provinces; technical barriers requiring businesses operating in multiple provinces to follow different regulations for the same sector; and permits, licensing, and other paperwork requirements for labour, products and services. 

These non-geographic barriers vary from sector to sector, with food products and manufactured goods among the most heavily protected. 

The report noted "removing non-geographic trade barriers would increase trade volumes to a level similar to international trade volumes". It argued real Gross Domestic Growth per capita would increase by four per cent nationally if trade in goods was fully liberalized. Lower internal trade barriers would also increase productivity. 

The report acknowledges steps to reduce those barriers, pointing to the Canadian Free Trade Agreement, which became effective symbolically on July 1, 2017 after years of negotiations. It broadly praises the agreement as a step forward, but finds that "compared to an ambitious and successful international trade strategy, progress in reducing internal trade barriers across Canada has not kept pace."

Internal trade liberalization within Canada also has a distinct geography, according to the report. It counts British Columbia along with Alberta and Ontario as the provinces with the "lowest non-geographic barriers" with the Yukon, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador at the other end of the ranking. 

The report states public support for steps liberalizing trade within Canada is high, but also points to various obstacles. These include court rulings that grant provinces considerable power to establish and enforce internal trade barriers, notwithstanding language in Canada's constitution that gives Ottawa "full control over trade and commerce." 

A B.C. recent example is the sale of alcohol across provincial borders. Legislation passed in 2019 removed the federal requirement that alcohol moving from one province to another go through a provincial liquor authority. But provinces could still impose their own rules and B.C.'s wine industry got a taste of that in 2023 when Alberta informed the industry that it would stop selling their products in stores. Alberta justified the move with the claim that wineries were allowing Albertans to order wine directly rather than buy them in stores.

Both sides resolved the dispute in early 2024 with Alberta once again allowing residents to purchase B.C. wine directly with a "virtual warehouse" collecting fees. The agreement also sees B.C. open its market to alcoholic products from Alberta. 

Eby cited that agreement in his plea for more internal trade. 

"We are looking at how we can remove other barriers across the country, so that we can buy goods from other provinces as well."