As may know the Canadian Free Trade Agreement (CFTA) came into force on July 1, 2017. This agreement covers trade, investment and labour mobility across Canada. The CFTA contains a chapter which covers Regulatory Notification, Reconciliation and Cooperation and it establishes a Federal/Provincial/Territorial Regulatory Reconciliation and Cooperation Table (RCT). As part of the RCT process, parties will enter into negotiations to reconcile regulatory measures, identified by a party, that act as a barrier to trade, investment or labour mobility in Canada. A regulatory barrier can take many forms including but not limited to:
- Differing testing or certification requirements; standards; trucking, shipping or transportation requirements;
- Differing occupational health and safety, workers compensation, labelling or packaging requirements;
- Differing licensing, or construction-related requirements
Accordingly, the Government of Newfoundland Labrador is in the process of identifying regulatory barriers that are priorities for the Province to bring forward to the RCT. To aid in this process NL trade policy officials would like to set up a one-on-one meeting with a representative(s) from your group to discuss any interprovincial regulatory barriers that have negatively impacted you or members of your group with respect to trade, investment or labour mobility during the next three weeks.
If you would like to set up a meeting with NL trade policy officials to discuss interprovincial regulatory barriers that you would like to see reconciled, please contact Richard Squires at 729-5036 or rsquires@gov.nl.ca.