Canada’s Economic Revival Requires Breaking the Provincial Regulatory Cartel

Canada’s Economic Revival Requires Breaking the Provincial Regulatory Cartel by Maj (ret’d) CORNELIU, CHISU, CD, PMSC FEC, CET, P.Eng. Former Member of Parliament Pickering-Scarborough East Canada likes to describe itself as a single national economy. In reality, it operates more like a loose confederation of protected markets, each guarded by provincially self-regulated bodies whose original public-interest purpose has quietly morphed into something else: gatekeeping. In an era of slowing productivity, labour shortages, and intensifying global competition, this model has become obsolete. Worse, it has turned into a bureaucratic brake on economic revival. This regulatory paralysis is most visible—and most damaging—in the treatment of foreign-trained professionals, one of Canada’s most underutilized economic assets. Every year, Canada deliberately selects and admits tens of thousands of internationally educated engineers, doctors, nurses, architects, and skilled tradespeople under immigration programs explicitly designed to address labour shortages. Yet upon arrival, many discover that the real barrier was never immigration policy, but provincial regulatory bodies that treat foreign credentials with reflexive suspicion and procedural inertia. The result is a quiet national scandal. Highly qualified professionals drive taxis, work survival jobs, or abandon their fields altogether while Canada continues to claim—often in the same breath—that it faces critical skills shortages. This is not anecdotal. Statistics Canada and multiple provincial auditors have documented persistent underemployment and earnings gaps among internationally trained professionals, even years after arrival. The problem is not a lack of competence; it is a lack of regulatory adaptability. Provincial self-regulatory bodies insist they are protecting public safety. In practice, many operate on a presumption of incompetence unless applicants can reproduce, at great cost and delay, credentials they already hold—sometimes from jurisdictions with standards equal to or higher than Canada’s. Experience gained abroad is discounted. Exams are duplicated. “Canadian experience” requirements still linger despite repeated political promises to abolish them. Appeals processes are opaque, timelines stretch into years, and outcomes vary arbitrarily by province. This dysfunction carries a double economic cost. First, Canada wastes human capital it has already screened, selected, and welcomed. Second, it actively discourages future talent. Global labour markets are competitive and informed. When internationally trained professionals learn that recognition in Canada is slow, unpredictable, and fragmented by province, they choose Australia, the United Kingdom, or the United States instead. At a moment when advanced economies are competing aggressively for skilled workers, Canada signals hesitation and distrust. However, the problem does not stop with immigrants. The same regulatory rigidity that blocks an engineer trained in Germany or a nurse trained in the Philippines also obstructs mobility between Ontario and Alberta, or Nova Scotia and British Columbia. Protectionism, once normalized, rarely confines itself to one group. Foreign-trained professionals merely expose a deeper structural flaw in Canada’s regulatory architecture. For decades, Canada tolerated this fragmentation because growth masked inefficiency. That era is over. Productivity has stagnated for more than ten years. Business investment per worker lags well behind peer countries. Major projects—housing, infrastructure, energy—are delayed not by lack of capital or demand, but by regulatory complexity layered across provincial boundaries. At the centre of this dysfunction sits a uniquely Canadian phenomenon: provincially self-regulated professional and occupational regimes. Self-regulation was originally justified on sound principles. Professions such as engineering, medicine, and law require technical expertise and ethical standards best maintained by peers rather than politicians. However, over time, many of these bodies drifted from public protection toward institutional self-preservation. Entry barriers hardened. Credential recognition slowed. Interprovincial mobility became an administrative maze. What was once oversight now functions as an economic toll booth. The economic cost is no longer theoretical. The Parliamentary Budget Officer has estimated that Canada’s internal trade barriers impose an economic penalty equivalent to a four per cent tariff we levy on ourselves. This is not the work of foreign competitors, but of Canadian governments and delegated regulators constraining other Canadians. No serious country seeking growth would tolerate such a self-inflicted handicap. Labour mobility illustrates the absurdity. Canada faces acute shortages in construction, health care, engineering, and advanced manufacturing. Yet a professional licensed and competent in one province often cannot work seamlessly in another without months of paperwork, duplicative fees, and discretionary approval. Defenders of the status quo argue that standards differ and public safety is at risk. That argument collapses under scrutiny. Canadian provinces educate professionals to broadly similar national benchmarks, and accreditation bodies already operate at national or international levels. If a professional is competent in one province, the presumption should be competence everywhere in Canada—subject only to narrow, clearly justified exceptions. Housing provides a stark example. Canada’s housing shortage is now a national emergency. Governments promise faster construction, yet skilled trades and professionals remain trapped behind provincial certification walls. Red Seal programs exist, but implementation is uneven. Municipal approvals vary wildly. Engineers, planners, and inspectors face province-specific rules layered on top of local ones. The result is predictable: delays, cost overruns, and fewer homes built. Energy and infrastructure face similar constraints. Canada speaks confidently about electrification, clean growth, and industrial renewal, yet struggles to mobilize talent across provinces to deliver projects on time. Regulatory inertia is no longer a technical issue; it is a strategic vulnerability. Other federations have confronted this challenge. Australia moved decisively toward mutual recognition of occupational credentials decades ago. The European Union, despite its complexity, has made professional mobility a core economic principle across sovereign states. Canada, by contrast, still tolerates internal barriers that would be unthinkable at an international negotiating table. The irony is striking. Canadian governments celebrate trade diversification abroad while tolerating protectionism at home. We negotiate for years to reduce tariffs with Europe or Asia, then quietly allow domestic regulators to block Canadian workers and firms at provincial borders. This is not federalism at its best; it is fragmentation disguised as autonomy. The solution is not to abolish standards or politicize professions. It is to modernize governance. Provinces should be required—by federal legislation if necessary—to adopt automatic mutual recognition for licensed professionals and trades. Self-regulatory bodies should retain authority over ethics and discipline, but not over interprovincial or international market access. Economic mobility is a national interest. Ottawa already has constitutional tools it is reluctant to use. The federal government can attach conditions to funding, harmonize national frameworks, and enforce the spirit of the Canadian Free Trade Agreement. What it lacks is political resolve. Provinces, for their part, must recognize that regulatory sovereignty without economic growth is an empty victory. Canada does not suffer from a lack of talent, capital, or ambition. It suffers from institutional inertia. Every month a skilled worker waits for recognition, every project stalled by duplicative rules, every firm deterred by regulatory uncertainty compounds our productivity problem. If Canada is serious about economic revival, it must confront an uncomfortable truth: the era of provincially self-regulated silos is over. What once protected the public now too often protects incumbents. Reform will provoke resistance—from regulators, associations, and political actors invested in the status quo. So let us understand that resistance for what it is: not a defence of safety or quality, but a defence of control. Economic renewal requires mobility, speed, and scale. Do you think Canada can afford to keep regulating itself into irrelevance?