One of the funny things the tariff dispute made public was how in Canada buying wine/beer from other provinces from within Canada is treated like a foreign import by the provinces (causing a huge price markup ala tariffs and tons of paperwork for small vendors). We have lots of internal trade barriers like that which were ironically originally intended to help small players compete.

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ronniefalcon 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

Ontario and Nova Scotia just announced yesterday they plan to stop this. Hopefully Quebec follows suit.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/ontario-nova-scot...

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bryanlarsen 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> lots of internal trade barriers like that

If by "lots" you mean 2: alcohol and licensed labor. There are other things that could be easier, but they're not true barriers. Like differences in building codes.

	▲	dmix 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		Tbf they did start to reduce a bunch of provincial trade barriers via Canadian Free Trade Agreement (https://www.cfta-alec.ca/) which was a project started a decade ago. They explicitly excluded alcohol though.

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asdff 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Wow. I guess I took american interstate trade for granted.

	▲	tastyfreeze 2 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		We are pretty lucky in that regard. It is by design. Open trade among the states was a primary point of argument in ratification of the US Constitution. States were concerned with a federal government having any power to restrict the engine of their own success. As a result the US system was designed to prohibit restricting trade between states and encourage restricting trade at the national border through tariffs. The goal was to encourage internal trade and production that builds national wealth and skills. The government was to make profit off of international trade through tariffs. That structure encouraged government to protect the economic engine domestically to continue profiting from international trade.
	▲	bryanlarsen 2 days ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		The big one in Canada is licensed labor, and the US has the same problem. Hairdressers not being able to work across state lines without getting another license, for instance.
	▲	dhosek 2 days ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		I’ve been reading a presidential bio every year (I’m currently up to Monroe and I hope that I’ll be dead or not reading before I’ll be reading the 44th bio¹) and it’s an interesting way to get focused senses of American history and trade between the former colonies was a big issue before the constitution was instituted. ⸻ 1. Cleveland doesn’t get two bios.
	▲	drob518 2 days ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		Thank the founders for the Commerce Clause, at least when it's applied correctly and isn't being abused.
	▲	gobalini 2 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Note we’re only talking about alcohol here. It’s funny how people read something, skip the specifics, assume it applies to everything and then spread misinformation. So if you want a comparison in USA it needs to be something that is regulated by the US government, like hydroxacloroquine.

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cmrdporcupine 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

"Help small players compete" isn't really how I'd interpret Ontario's wine industry, which is -- like so much of Canadian capitalism -- dominated by only two companies, Vincor and Andrew Peller. They have effectively achieved regulatory capture having established in the 80s a retailing, tariff, taxation, regulatory (VQA and other things), and even municipal zoning (go look at Niagara and area zoning laws some time about things like minimum acreage etc) that squeezes out small players in favour of their own operations.

This all came out of the signing of the original FTA in the 80s. The established players at the time were basically given a permanent advantage as part of negotiations around that. (For 30 years only those two companies could run their own retail stores for example).

Through acquisition and obfuscation they've built up a whole trading card stack of wine labels, that make it look like there's far more diversity here than ther e is. The story in the Ontario wine industry is a lot like how our tech sector works -- Vincor is Google, and smaller wineries are startups, and the "exit strategy" is to get bought up by them. Otherwise you'll probably perish.

Even the VQA "quality" descriptors are written to favour their own established businesses.

(Some chipping away at this recently at least. I hate Doug Ford but he's the first government to really undermine these monopolies in the last 40 years because by opening up retailing at grocery stores and gas stations etc. And VQA has become a little less restrictive about things like varietal choices etc in the last 5 years.)

Wish I knew less about this subject. I used to fantasize about operating my own small winery. Something that's not possible in Ontario unless you're well connected, extremely rich, or masochistic (or preferably all of the above).