International Trade Committee on April 16th, 2026

[Jacob Mantle, Conservative, York—Durham, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Bellisle, I'll ask you the same question.

In your estimation, as of today, do we have free trade in Canada?

[Robert Bellisle]

I'll say it the same way, but in a different way.

It's funny that Canada has 50 free trade agreements around the world with one missing, I think, to make it 51, that magical number, and I think it's the interprovincial one.

[Jacob Mantle, Conservative, York—Durham, ON]

Thank you.

Ms. White, it's the same question for you.

In your estimation right now, do we have free trade in Canada?

[Julie White]

Well, I will say something similar to what my colleagues said.

The provincial governments and the federal government have expressed goodwill. However, there's still a lot of work to do to facilitate opening markets. So things are not perfect right now.

[Jacob Mantle, Conservative, York—Durham, ON]

Thank you.

Ms. Pohlmann, you mentioned several of the MOUs that have been signed among provinces. As I understand them, those MOUs are non-binding. Am I correct in that understanding?

[Corinne Pohlmann]

That is my understanding as well, which is why, for us, there's a lack of accountability here. If promises aren't fulfilled, there's no accountability for that.

[Jacob Mantle, Conservative, York—Durham, ON]

Would you be in favour, then, of commitments that are more legally binding among the provinces and between the provinces and the federal government?

[Corinne Pohlmann]

Yes, I think so. There needs to be some sort of mechanism so that, for example, if a business owner thought their goods should not have to be recertified, for example, they would have a mechanism they could go to to say that they thought this was going to be recognized in both places, but instead they were fined. That sort of system doesn't really exist in its current form.

[Jacob Mantle, Conservative, York—Durham, ON]

Mr. Bellisle, if I could paraphrase your comments, you made a comment in your opening remarks about the importance of logistics in the context of free trade in Canada, because if you can't move your goods somewhere, you can't sell them to your customer.

As someone in the port industry and port logistics, you mentioned your container terminal. I think you said it took six years to get it permitted. Is that right?

[Robert Bellisle]

Sorel is the one that's at the six-year mark and not yet permitted. With the Port of Quebec, we're three years into the process to have customs agency clearance.

[Jacob Mantle, Conservative, York—Durham, ON]

I understand that it's over 10 years for Roberts Bank terminal 2 on the west coast of the country, and they're still fighting about that now, so it's been three years, six years and 10 years.

Are those acceptable timelines for critical infrastructure like a port?

[Robert Bellisle]

The geopolitical landscape is moving at an extremely rapid pace. Just look at our cross-border economies, if you wish, and see how they've changed. We need to make sure that businesses can move at that same speed, so definitely we need to get the execution to go much faster. There are ways to get there much faster while still keeping safety and the environment at the forefront.

[Jacob Mantle, Conservative, York—Durham, ON]

Thank you.

Ms. Pohlmann, I'd be remiss if I didn't ask you about other activities that the CFIB undertakes, including its Paperweight Award and other awards that identify areas where the government could do better.

One of the ones that I think you handed out this year was to the CBSA, once again, for its customs and revenue management system. Could you explain why you gave them the Paperweight Award again this year?

[Corinne Pohlmann]

CARM, as it's known by most folks, was fully implemented in 2025, right when the tariffs were being implemented, so it added another layer of complexity to what was already going to be a fairly complex system.

As many of you know, it was meant to make things easier when you're importing products into Canada. However, they instead ended up changing some of the rules. They made it quite complex to register for the system. They added a security component to it that had never been there before that was adding costs to small businesses.

We continue to get complaints about the difficulty of using the CARM system to this day. It was a bit of a nightmare scenario when it was fully launched, which I think was last May, around the time when tariffs were at their peak.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much.

Please go ahead, Mr. Naqvi, for five minutes.

[Yasir Naqvi, Liberal, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Thank you very much, Chair.

Thank you to all the witnesses for attending this very important discussion and providing your perspectives.

Ms. Pohlmann, I thank you for your testimony and the reports that you generated at the CFIB on the state of internal trade. It's an issue that I've been working on for some time.

I'd like to focus our discussion on the role of the provinces and territories, because they play a very important part in this endeavour. Of course, the federal government has a role in taking action.

You do advocacy at the provincial level as well. Can you speak to your experience as to the kind of work and pace and effort you're seeing right now at the provincial level in breaking down these internal barriers within Canada?

[Corinne Pohlmann]

I would say that, at the provincial level, it varies quite a bit. There are provinces that are much more committed and focused than others, but most, if not all, have made some efforts to move the needle on internal trade, which is something we hadn't seen prior to 2020. There are definitely those that are much bigger advocates for moving things forward than others are. I think that's just the nature of it.

We use our abilities as an advocacy organization to put pressure on those we know are less keen to move quickly or have felt that they've done enough and are now moving on to other things. We're seeing a bit of that happening too. That's where we are with the provinces, but we continue to meet with them.

As I said, we're preparing for our next report card, which will come out in July. We're in the process of meeting all of the provinces. Unlike five years ago when we started this process, they now immediately respond when we ask for these meetings. They want to go through the report card with us, understand what we're tagging to them and where we're seeing them sitting in the overall count. They care more about it than they did in the past.

[Yasir Naqvi, Liberal, Ottawa Centre, ON]

I will leave it up to you if you want to name names in terms of which provinces are doing well and which are laggards. I'm not going to make you answer that question, but I do want to talk about challenges. What challenges are you seeing? What challenges are being enumerated or articulated to you, in terms of the pace that's required to create one economy, free trade within our country?

[Corinne Pohlmann]

What we've learned over the years, not just around internal trade but, I would say, around regulations writ large, is that it's often left to the bureaucrats or the civil service to actually manage the process, to implement it and to move it forward. However, it needs political commitment and political drive to make it actually achievable. Often I find when you leave it to just the civil service, they can get mired down quite a bit because they get focused on very specific things and they get worried about very specific regulations or programs. It needs that political drive in order for it to continue to move things forward.

That's where it can move from one province to the next. If the political drive is no longer there, then the momentum tends to slow down. That's been our experience when it comes to dealing with this.

[Yasir Naqvi, Liberal, Ottawa Centre, ON]

You stated earlier that you've seen more progress in the last eight months than before, so you acknowledge that the current federal government's leadership on this is driving that change.

[Corinne Pohlmann]

The federal government has played a big role, and I would say this is going back even to the time of the Canadian Free Trade Agreement. In the previous government, the Liberal government, this has always been a focus. It's important that the federal government take a leadership role, show by example and push it forward, because it does make a difference. We see that when we talk to the provinces too.

[Yasir Naqvi, Liberal, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Would you also agree that this project cannot be completely done unless and until provinces and territories play their very important role?

[Corinne Pohlmann]

They absolutely have to play a role because without them it's never going to actually be true free trade.

[Yasir Naqvi, Liberal, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Thanks, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much.

Next is Mr. Savard-Tremblay for two and a half minutes, please.