ANNUAL MEETING OF THE COMMITTEE ON INTERNAL TRADE – ALL PARTIES CONTINUE TO WORK COLLABORATIVELY

Montreal, Quebec – November 23, 2018 – The federal, provincial and territorial Ministers, and senior officials, responsible for Internal Trade met today in Montreal for the annual meeting of the Committee on Internal Trade (CIT).

Under the Chairmanship of Pierre Fitzgibbon, the Québec Minister of Economy and Innovation, this meeting served as a work session during which Ministers reviewed the work done to date by the various working groups and tables formed under the Canadian Free Trade Agreement (CFTA).

They also took stock of ongoing negotiations arising from the CFTA and provided direction to officials in order to accelerate progress.

Internal trade is set to be discussed at the First Ministers’ Meeting scheduled for December 7, 2018, in Montreal.

Quick Facts:

• The Committee on Internal Trade (CIT) was created in 1995 under the Agreement on Internal Trade and continued under the Canadian Free Trade Agreement (CFTA), which came into effect on July 1, 2017.
• All governments have equal status at the CIT and its Chairpersonship rotates annually among the Parties. Quebec is Chair of the CIT for the current year and Nova Scotia will assume the role in January 2019.
• The CFTA has modernized the framework governing internal trade in Canada, including by ensuring that governments are at least as open to Canadian businesses and investors as they are to foreign businesses and investors.
• Internal trade is crucial to the growth of Canadian businesses. For small and medium-sized businesses in particular, this type of trade can often help to propel them into international markets.
• Between 2000 and 2017[1], the value of interprovincial exports of goods and services in Canada increased from $213.3 billion to $406.4 billion, representing an average annual growth of 3.9%.
  • During the same period, Canada’s exports of goods and services to international markets grew at an average annual rate of 1.8%, from $487.7 billion to $663.7 billion.

[1] Source: Provincial and Territorial Economic Accounts, November 2017, Statistics Canada. Data of November 2018.