BACKGROUNDER: PROVINCIAL – TERRITORIAL ACTION ON INTERNAL TRADE
Alcoholic Beverages
Several initiatives are underway to improve consumer choice and producer access to markets:
- Ten provinces and territories have now eliminated, or plan to eliminate, exemption limits for alcohol transported by a person across provincial-territorial boundaries for personal use, and others have agreed to significantly increase their limits.
- Nine provinces already allow and/or are exploring technical options for direct-to-consumer sales.
- All provinces and territories are undertaking work to review and improve their sales channels to reduce administrative burdens and improve access, selection and availability of alcoholic beverages to consumers within their provinces or territory.
- Six provinces have or will develop e-commerce platforms for the sale of alcoholic beverages, or allow private retailers to do so, with the aim of supporting enhanced consumer access and convenience. Three provinces already have fully operational government-run retail e-commence platforms.
Additionally, provinces and territories are taking action to increase transparency for producers by launching a new online information hub by the end of 2019, which will function as a single website for producers to access plain language information on all provincial-territorial alcohol retailing and distribution systems. Provinces and territories will work to be transparent about their pricing and improve listing practices to reduce related red tape and barriers to market entry for producers.
Regulatory Reconciliation
Several reconciliation agreements were completed in 2018 to align regulatory approaches and reduce regulatory burdens on businesses operating in multiple jurisdictions in areas of:
- Occupational Health and Safety – common standards have been agreed to for first aid kit contents; hearing protection; personal flotation devices; and head-foot-eye protection. When implemented, businesses and workers operating across multiple jurisdictions will no longer bear the time and expense of navigating different requirements.
- Technical Safety – mutual recognition for the review of pressure vessel equipment design will remove redundant and expensive reviews for participating jurisdictions.
- Transportation – weights for single wide-base and dual tires will be aligned to make the use of the tires more practical for the transportation sector on major trade routes.
Premiers have prioritized five additional and significant areas of work and committed to completing reconciliation agreements in the following areas by the end of 2019:
- Construction codes;
- Energy efficiency standards for household appliances;
- Aquaculture site marking requirements;
- Upholstered and stuffed articles regulation; and,
- Corporate registries – announcing the introduction of a reconciled, integrated system for extra-provincial corporate registration, starting first in western provinces and expanding across the country.
Premiers instruct all responsible ministers to prioritize and follow through on the implementation of regulatory reconciliation efforts. In addition to addressing existing regulations, Premiers direct ministers to ensure regulatory cooperation continues in emerging areas such as autonomous vehicles and mandatory entry-level training for truck drivers.