Canada’s free trade agreements: there’s the CFTA (Canadian Free Trade Agreement), CUSMA (Canada-United States-Mexico)  CUFTA (Canada-Ukraine), the CPTPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership), the CKFTA (Canada-Korea), CCFTA (Canada-Chile), CIFTA (Canada-Israel), CETA (Canada-European Union), CUKTCA (Canada-United Kingdom), plus Canada-Honduras, Canada-Columbia and I may be missing a couple.  Let’s look at the first one I mentioned, the CFTA, Canadian Free-Trade Agreement, which is an intergovernmental agreement between the federal government and the provinces and territories launched in 2017.  It contained 39 exceptions, 20 of which have recently been removed to break down trade barriers between provinces and help businesses have greater opportunities to compete across the country.  Do you think this is because of the tariff threats coming from you-know-who?  Darn right it is.  Of course, it begs the question as to why these 20 barriers existed in the first place, never mind the remaining 19.  I don’t pretend to be the sharpest knife in the drawer but the inability to operate or sell products or services across different provinces has always made me ponder whether one province’s rules and regulations are overly strict or authoritarian, or is one too slipshod and lax in comparison?  Rule-bound bureaucratic minds, one of which I don’t have, could dig into that. 

That’s Coffeetalk.  I’m Vic Dubois.