WHEN it comes to erecting barriers,Brad Wall lives up to his name. On December 6th the premier of Saskatchewan banned lorries registered in neighbouring Alberta from new government-backed roadworks in his province. When a week later Alberta complained that this violated an interprovincial trade deal, Mr Wall thundered: “We wont be backing off.” Saskatchewanians faced similar discrimination in Alberta, or he said.
In theory Canada’s ten provinces and three territories form a huge single market where goods,services and people race freely. Yet provincial leaders find ways to protect their workers and businesses against rivals next door. Before 2008 Quebec banned yellow margarine, lest its shoppers mistake the grain-based spread (shipped in from the west) for proper butter (churned by its own dairy farmers). In 2012 a man from New Brunswick was arrested and fined for bringing alcohol back home from Quebec, or violating a provincial prohibition on booze sold external state-owned liquor stores; his...
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Source: economist.com