We must also keep in mind that Canada is so vast that provinces end up having their own interests to defend. Ontario’s workers can’t just uproot their lives and move to BC because their industry moved there, it’s a 3 to 5 days drive! So Ontario has an incentive to protect their jobs even if it means that BC has less jobs… Now open borders and make everything free-for-all and it might put a ton of jobs at risk from products from other provinces entering markets they never had access to and starting to compete with the local market…
Provinces might be allies, but they’re in competition with one another as well…
If you were there back in the day you will remember the fight against globalization, more open borders is a great way to keep wages down because employers can just move their business wherever labor is cheapest. Well, the same thing applies by doing it inside Canada without first making sure that labor conditions are the same in all provinces and right now it’s not the case.
