Premier Danielle Smith speaking to constituents at the Rect-Tangle Arena in the Town of Redcliff on March 4, 2025. Eli J. Ridder/CHAT News

By Eli J. Ridder

TRADE WAR

Canada’s premiers taking ‘decisive action’ to eliminate internal trade barriers, Smith says

Mar 4, 2025 | 11:01 PM

Alberta’s Danielle Smith says Canadian premiers will act quickly to remove interprovincial trade barriers after the United States imposed sweeping tariffs on Canadian goods that she labelled an “unjustifiable economic attack.”

Smith, speaking during a town hall in Medicine Hat Tuesday, said step one for the premiers was to agree to the federal government’s staggered countertariff plan targeting exports to the U.S. that Canada can easily get elsewhere.

But the next order of business, Smith said, is aligning provincial regulations to remove the barriers that cost the Canadian economy more than $32 billion annually, according to a Fraser Institute study.

“We also are taking decisive action to eliminate internal trade barriers, you may see something more on this tomorrow,” said Smith, who serves as MLA for Brooks-Medicine Hat.

It would be “a comprehensive mutual recognition agreement, so that we can get trucks loaded up in Vancouver able to travel all the way across the country without facing multiple different regulations in each province,” she said.

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Smith is scheduled to give her first in-person remarks on the U.S. tariffs in Medicine Hat on Wednesday after releasing a statement to social media on Tuesday.

Calls for Canada’s provinces and territories to knock the internal barriers down have grown in recent weeks.

Canada’s internal trade minister Anita Anand said last week she was working with the provinces to recognize out-of-province labour certifications and regulations.

Anand said eliminating internal trade barriers could add an extra $200 billion to the Canadian economy and minimize the impact of tariffs.

U.S. President Donald Trump imposed a 10 per cent tariff on Canadian energy and 25 per cent tariffs on all other goods as of Tuesday.

Smith, who earlier this year travelled to Trump’s resort to make the case against tariffs, called the sanctions an “unjustifiable economic attack on Canada and on Albertans.”

“It is a blatant violation of our free trade agreement, and it’s the same free trade agreement that the U.S. president was bragging about in his first administration,” she told over 300 constituents at the town hall.

“These tariffs won’t just harm Canada, they’ll drive up the cost for all American families, making food, fuel, and vehicles and housing more expensive while putting hundreds of thousands of jobs on both sides of the border at risk.”

— With files from The Canadian Press