Interprovincial standardization drives innovation and facilitates trade by enabling interoperability.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press

Ryan Manucha is a leading expert on interprovincial trade and C.D. Howe Institute research fellow. Colin Deacon is an independent senator and former entrepreneur who is focused on innovation and the digital economy.

Talk to Canadians about internal trade barriers and their minds turn to booze, pipelines and trucking. These are just the tip of the iceberg. Underneath the surface? Mismatched spools of red tape in every province and territory. A solution? Standards.

Hardly sexy, standards are critically important to the competitiveness of every sector in our economy. Canada’s regulators are mishandling the strategic value of standards, federally and subnationally, and that’s threatening our country’s economic resilience and prosperity.

A tale from early Canada tells us of the vital importance of standards. Prior to Confederation, Canada’s colonies had different standards for the distances between railway tracks. In Upper and Lower Canada it was 5 feet 6 inches, and in the Maritimes it was 4 feet 8½ inches. As a result, freight and passengers had to be offloaded and reloaded at intercolonial junctions. Interprovincial standardization enabled interoperability and brought immense savings and productivity gains.

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