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Ministry of Jobs, Tourism and Innovation

Domestic Trade

Agreement on Internal Trade

British Columbia is a party to the Agreement on Internal Trade (AIT), a trade agreement amongst all provinces, two 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 is a good start to reducing impediments to trade, investment and labour mobility across Canada, its effectiveness is limited as its coverage does not extend to all key sectors. To address these shortcomings, the governments of Alberta and British Columbia created the Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement. The TILMA was extended to include Saskatchewan under the New West Partnership Trade Agreement, which took effect July 1, 2010.

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:

    1. Dispute resolution
    2. Labour mobility
    3. Energy
    4. Agriculture
    5. Reconciliation of standards and regulations

The Committee on Internal Trade (CIT) continues to oversee improvements in these areas.

The AIT is administered by the CIT, which is comprised of 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, establishing monetary penalties and allowing suspension of dispute resolution privileges.

In addition, following the lead of British Columbia’s Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement, 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 practice their profession in all provinces and territories where their profession is regulated.

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