Domestic Trade
Agreement on Internal Trade
British Columbia is a party to the Agreement on Internal Trade (AIT), a trade agreement amongst all provinces, territories and the federal government.
Signed in 1994 and in force a year later, this agreement provides basic rules of trade for many important sectors of the internal Canadian economy. Although the AIT was a good start to reducing impediments to trade, investment and labour mobility across Canada, its effectiveness was limited since it lacked an effective dispute resolution mechanism, and its coverage did not extend to all key sectors. The governments of Alberta and British Columbia created the Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement to further reduce such impediments. The TILMA is an extension of the AIT.
In 2004, the Council of the Federation comprising all provincial and territorial premiers, adopted a five-point internal trade plan. The council's Five Point Plan is intended to create a stronger and more effective AIT to improve trade within Canada by means of increasing its effectiveness in the following five areas:
- Dispute resolution
- Labour mobility
- Energy
- Agriculture
- Reconciliation of standards and regulations – transport sector.
The AIT is administered by the Committee on Internal Trade represented by federal, provincial, and territorial internal trade ministers. While chairing the committee in 2008, British Columbia led efforts to strengthen the enforcement mechanism through making the compliance process more effective, providing an appeals process as well as imposing monetary penalties and suspending dispute resolution privileges.
In addition, new labour mobility provisions were approved that ensure people with a specific professional or occupational certification in one province or territory will be recognized as qualified to practise their profession in all provinces and territories where their profession is regulated.
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