Nova Scotia and Ontario lead interprovincial trading

More progress has been made on removing trade barriers within Canada in the past six months than in the last eight years, states the State of Internal Trade: Canada’s Interprovincial Cooperation Report Card by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB).

Nova Scotia, the first province to introduce and implement mutual recognition legislation, achieved the highest grade in CFIB’s 2025 International Trade report card with a score of 9.4 (A grade). Ontario is a close second after eliminating all of its CFTA exceptions, scoring a 9.2 (A grade), states CFIB.

Ontario improvements include:

· Passing mutual recognition enabling legislation (Bill 2) to mutually recognize the goods, services and registered workers of reciprocating jurisdictions.

· Extending the province’s “As of Right” health care professionals’ entry rules to occupations governed by regulators under the Ontario Labour Mobility Act.

· Creating a framework under Bill 2 to allow direct-to-consumer alcohol sales with willing provinces.

1. Score: Zero is worst, 10 is best. The scores of the three areas of inter‐provincial/territorial cooperation are combined into a single score that allows for a ranking of governments from best (highest score) to worst (lowest score). 2. Grade: A, A‐: 8.7‐10 (Excellent performance); B+, B, B‐: 7.5‐8.6 (Good performance); C+, C, C‐: 6.0‐7.4 (Satisfactory performance); D: 4‐5.9 (Less than satisfactory performance); F: 0‐3.9 (Unsatisfactory performance). (The State of Internal Trade: CFIB)

“The Ontario government scored exceptionally better than last year’s C+, mostly due to the trail-blazing move of eliminating all its Canadian Free Trade Agreement exceptions,” said Julie Kwiecinski, CFIB’s director of provincial affairs for Ontario.

According to a CFIB April 2025 survey, nine in 10 Ontario small business owners agree that governments need to follow through more quickly on their actions to improve interprovincial trade.