The following are transcripts of testimony by Paul Daly and Mark Mancini before the Canadian House of Commons Standing Committee on International Trade, delivered sequentially and drawing on their co-authored paper, The Single Market Myth: How Ottawa and the Provinces Can Finally Dismantle Canada’s Costly Internal Trade Barriers. The recording occurred on April 23, 2026. Check against delivery.
“Our Constitution need not be a counsel of despair. Parliament and the provinces can build a regulatory solution that works within the division of powers and does not depend on inherently unstable executive action. The law here is not necessarily the obstacle — it is, if used… pic.twitter.com/AwZDOhNJ2F
— Macdonald-Laurier Institute (@MLInstitute) April 27, 2026
By Mark Mancini
Canada’s internal trade problem is not primarily an economic problem. It is a legal one. I am here today to explain why the legal tools some governments have reached for are inadequate – and in some cases constitutionally risky – and what the Constitution permits us to do instead.
I do so based on a report – The single market myth: How Ottawa and the provinces can finally dismantle Canada’s costly internal trade barriers – co-authored for the Macdonald-Laurier Institute with my colleague, Professor Paul Daly.
The Constitution wisely divides economic authority between Parliament and the provinces. Provinces hold broad jurisdiction over property, professional regulation, and trade within the province. The result, in a federation, is an inescapable web of non-tariff barriers: different product standards, different licensing regimes, and different certification requirements for important professional jobs.
Even well-intentioned provincial regulation by its nature creates constitutional friction. These approaches can be duplicative and wasteful.
Parliament’s jurisdiction over “trade and commerce” cannot override this constitutional reality. The Supreme Court of Canada has been clear: federal legislation cannot descend into the day-to-day regulation of goods and professions reserved to the provinces, and the Court has unfortunately narrowed other interpretive pathways to a frictionless national market, particularly in the “free the beer” case.
This explains the limitations of recent statutory efforts to encourage regulatory harmonization. The Canadian Free Trade Agreement is voluntary, and for its benefits, contains laundry lists of exceptions on goods, and importantly, labour mobility. The One Canadian Economy Act represents a step forward. But it only applies when federal and provincial laws naturally interface; it cannot compel cross-province acceptance of regulations among the provinces.
Many of these efforts – including those in the provinces – also rely on a constitutionally suspect method of breaking regulatory impasses. They depend on so-called Henry VIII clauses, which permit individual Cabinet ministers or the Cabinet to amend primary law. The executive purports to exercise a quintessentially legislative act, blurring the lines of accountability in an era of distrust of state institutions.
The Supreme Court has held that Henry VIII clauses are not strictly unconstitutional (see Reference re Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act). But they distort accountability and, because they depend on executive action changeable at a stroke of a pen, create an unstable policy environment for regulated entities.
The existing mechanisms are wanting. There is, however, a constitutionally sound “escape valve”: a joint federal-provincial agency, created through matching legislation passed at both levels of government – Parliament and each participating provincial legislature – with the sole mandate of harmonizing and reducing duplicative barriers.
This model is based on the well-regarded technique of interdelegation and already underpins some of Canada’s existing regulatory schemes, including the constitutionally valid scheme for securities regulation affirmed in 2018.
This is not technocracy for the sake of it. Excess bureaucracy is a genuine concern. But this proposal is designed to coordinate and reduce the duplication of national and provincial regulations. We take the world as it is – while leaving room for jurisdictions that choose to simply remove barriers outright.
Such an agency would do three things. First, mandate mutual recognition: if a good, service, or professional credential is lawful in one province, it is presumptively lawful in all.
Second, develop binding harmonized standards across defined sectors, and a means to enforce them through the agency and matching legislation.
Third, systematically identify barriers and recommend their removal – with provincial ministers acting on those recommendations through tightly constrained, accountable powers. This, incidentally, contributes to a more stable and predictable regulatory environment.
Our Constitution need not be a counsel of despair. Parliament and the provinces can build a regulatory solution that works within the division of powers and does not depend on inherently unstable executive action. The law here is not necessarily the obstacle – it is, if used correctly, a potential solution.
“We suggest the creation of a joint federal-provincial framework – an administrative body empowered, within clear limits, to do three things: require mutual recognition where possible, develop harmonized standards where necessary, and identify and remove unjustified barriers.”… pic.twitter.com/0bIn0MGBm2
— Macdonald-Laurier Institute (@MLInstitute) April 27, 2026
By Paul Daly
Chair, members of the Committee, thank you for the invitation to appear.
I will make a simple claim.
Canada is not, in any meaningful sense, a single economic market. And that is a problem we now have the tools – and the responsibility – to fix.
Across this country, goods, services, workers, and capital still encounter barriers at provincial borders. A product lawfully sold in one province may not be sold in another. A qualified professional may not be able to practise across a provincial line without re-certification. Firms that can compete globally are often tripped up domestically.
These are not marginal frictions. They are structural constraints on productivity, growth, and resilience. At a time when Canada faces external economic uncertainty, we are still leaving enormous gains unrealized within our own borders.
The question, then, is not whether internal trade matters. It is how to achieve it.
Our paper, The single market myth: How Ottawa and the provinces can finally dismantle Canada’s costly internal trade barriers – co-authored with Mark Mancini for the Macdonald-Laurier Institute – makes a legal point that is sometimes overlooked in public debate: there is no simple, unilateral solution. Parliament cannot legislate a national economic union into existence. The Constitution does not permit it. Nor have the courts interpreted the Charter as a vehicle for economic integration.
But this is not a counsel of despair. It is a clarification of where the real opportunity lies.
The Constitution does allow for something more powerful than unilateralism: co-operation. Parliament and the provinces, acting together, can build institutions capable of delivering genuine economic integration – through shared administrative bodies, mutual recognition regimes, and coordinated standard-setting.
In other words, the path forward is not federal imposition, but joint construction.
And that brings me to the broader point I want to emphasize.
This is not a project that belongs to one party, one ideology, or one region. Properly understood, it speaks to the deepest commitments of all of them.
For those on the government side: this is a nation-building project. Confederation was not only a political union; it was meant to be an economic one. Completing the internal market is, in a very real sense, completing the work of building Canada.
For Conservatives: this is a project of economic liberty. Internal trade barriers are government-imposed restrictions on the ability of Canadians to work, to trade, and to compete. Removing them is not deregulation for its own sake; it is the restoration of freedom within the constitutional order.
For New Democrats: this is about fairness and opportunity. Internal barriers do not fall evenly. They burden workers who cannot move, small businesses that cannot scale, and consumers who pay higher prices. A more open internal market is not only more efficient; it is more equitable.
And for members of the Bloc Québécois: there is a long and principled tradition of support for free trade, both internationally and within Canada. Ensuring that Quebec’s producers, workers, and entrepreneurs can access markets across the country on fair terms is entirely consistent with that tradition.
So, there is, I think, a genuine possibility of common ground.
Our proposal is deliberately pragmatic. We suggest the creation of a joint federal-provincial framework – an administrative body empowered, within clear limits, to do three things: require mutual recognition where possible, develop harmonized standards where necessary, and identify and remove unjustified barriers.
This would not eliminate provincial autonomy. It would coordinate it. It would ensure that the exercise of regulatory authority in one province does not unnecessarily impede the economic life of another.
Of course, such a body would have to be carefully designed – subject to legislative oversight, judicial review, and clear statutory constraints. There are real questions of accountability and institutional design. But those are questions of implementation, not of principle.
And the principle, I suggest, is compelling.
Let me close on this.
Parliamentary committees do important work. Much of it is necessarily incremental. But from time to time, there are moments when something more ambitious is possible – when structural reform is within reach.
Internal economic integration is one of those moments.
If progress is made here – if meaningful steps are taken toward a genuinely open Canadian market – this will not be remembered as a technical adjustment. It will be remembered as a significant act of national renewal: one that strengthened unity, expanded liberty, and improved the everyday economic lives of Canadians.
That is an opportunity. And it is one that lies, in no small part, with you.
Mark Mancini is an assistant professor in the faculty of law at Thompson Rivers University and a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.
Paul Daly is the University Research Chair in Administrative Law and Governance at the University of Ottawa. A leading scholar of public law in the common-law world, his work on judicial review, reasonableness, and the culture of justification has shaped academic debate and judicial decision-making across multiple jurisdictions.
