“Booze, Cigarettes, and Constitutional Dust-Ups: Canada’s Quest for Interprovincial Free Trade”

by Ryan Manucha McGill-Queen's University Press

Gone are the days of provincial border inspectors stationed at Coteau-du-Lac, Quebec, who monitored the passage of goods between Upper and Lower Canada flowing along the St. Lawrence River. But has Canada truly left provincialism behind? There may have been no border services tower at the New BrunswickQuebec border. Yet nearly 150 years after confederation, the Supreme Court endorsed the detainment and penalties inflicted upon Gerard Comeau by RCMP officers on account of the surplus beer he’d bought back from a liquor store located on the other side of a provincial frontier.

All Canadians, from Vancouverites to Haligonians, have marched behind the same flag during the Olympics and donned the same uniform when fighting in armed conflict. Why hasn’t nationhood driven us toward a collaborative economic system, in which goods and services can flow freely and unimpeded across provincial borders? By one estimate, domestic trade irritants amount to a seven per cent tariff on goods crossing internal borders.

Canada’s internal trade story begins when the nation’s provinces were but fledgling colonies and will continue for as long as the country remains a confederation. By examining the past trajectory of internal trade, it may even be possible to guess at its future.