B.C. looking at coalition of willing provinces to expand trade within Canada, Eby says
Premier says B.C. may form its own trade agreements with other provinces if feds don't act fast enough
The British Columbia government is willing to enter bilateral agreements with other jurisdictions in order to boost interprovincial trade as looming U.S. tariffs threaten Canada's economy, Premier David Eby says.
The possibility of U.S. tariffs on Canadian goods and services has pushed provinces to look to each other as one way to diversify their markets and protect their economies and jobs. Despite the establishment of the Canadian Free Trade Agreement in 2017, many products do not trade freely among provinces and territories.
"What we need to do is start acting like a country where if you're licensed for a particular profession, or if you're producing a particular good in some part of the province, that you're able to sell it without difficulty or sell your services without difficulty," Eby said on Wednesday.
There's a list of exemptions under the free trade agreement that provinces are grappling with to try to remove as many as possible, he said.
B.C. could enter agreements with a "coalition of the willing" provinces to recognize each other's regimes for trade and professions, if an agreement can't be reached by the federal government, Eby said.
"British Columbia continues to push at my level, at the First Ministers Meeting level, as well as at the ministerial meeting for a mutual recognition approach," he said.
"This is where, if it's good enough for your province, it's good enough for our province."
This could include a limited list of exceptions "but ideally none," he said.
"This is what I understand the approach from Nova Scotia is and it's the approach that we're looking at as well, so that we don't have to wait for the federal government."
On Tuesday, Nova Scotia's government introduced a bill aimed at reducing interprovincial trade barriers, with provisions only to be extended to provinces or territories with similar legislation.
The B.C. government is also looking at tabling such legislation and the B.C. public service has already reached out to Nova Scotia to understand its bill's content, Eby said.
"The goal of that was to ensure that British Columbia has tools in place that mesh with and work with the initiatives of other provinces," Eby said.
Premiers spoke with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau earlier Wednesday about trade and many other issues around the threat of American tariffs, Eby said.
The uncertainty created by U.S. President Donald Trump around the tariffs is destabilizing on its own, something that Eby said is a deliberate strategy to weaken Canada and reduce the likelihood that people will invest in the country.
This is why the plan to redouble all efforts to diversify away from the United States and find new customers for B.C. goods will remain, he said.
The Committee on Internal Trade is set to meet in Toronto on Friday to discuss interprovincial trade.
Idea of taxing coal mooted
When speaking with the prime minister, Eby said he also raised the idea of taxing thermal coal that comes in by rail from the United States to be shipped out of B.C.'s Deltaport, as first suggested by the B.C. Conservatives. Thermal coal exports fall under federal jurisdiction.
"We need to be all hands on deck on this. We shouldn't be divided at the provincial level, at the federal level. If there are things that we can do to respond to the Americans, we should do it. If there are things we can do to strengthen our economy and diversify our markets, we're going to do it," Eby said.
Conservative Leader John Rustad argued that the province's responses to the tariffs thus far — which included an import ban on U.S. liquor made in Republican states — were ineffective.
He said his proposal to put a carbon tax on U.S. coal exports was a way of getting some leverage on issues like the long-simmering softwood lumber dispute.
"[The coal is] all coming from the U.S. It's coming through the Vancouver port, 80 million tonnes a year," he told CBC's Power and Politics host David Cochrane.
"And so why wouldn't we look at creating leverage where it matters, to actually be able to try to get to the table and have a deal that works for British Columbians and for Canadians?"
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With files from Power and Politics