Canada’s Alberta To Drop 8 Trade Barriers Says Jason Kenney

Jason Kenney, the Premier of Alberta in Canada, says his government is eliminating more exemptions to a free-trade agreement between provinces.

YaahooJournalist reports that Alberta will remove eight of 14 remaining exceptions to the Canadian Free Trade Agreement, Kenney told a business audience.

The Alberta Premier Kenney announced the elimination of the exemptions during a speech to the Canadian Chamber of Commerce in Saint John, N.B., on Saturday, September 21 (Canadian time).

It’s time for action, not more talk, on free trade in Canada.

Today I announced that Alberta is taking another bold step toward free trade.

We are unilaterally scrapping 8 more of our exceptions under the Canada Free Trade Agreement & narrowing 2 othershttps://t.co/9vpPInZVm7 pic.twitter.com/5nVI5nGUiB

— Jason Kenney (@jkenney) September 21, 2019

YaahooJournalist reports that Kenney stressed that he will move Alberta from being the province with the third-highest number of exemptions when he announced in July that he would remove half of them, to being the province with the fewest exemptions in Canada.

A statement released by the Alberta government said the announcement on Saturday deals with areas such as the energy sector, alcohol and the sale of public lands.

CBC reports that the previous federal Conservative government began negotiations with the provinces on what eventually became the Canadian Free Trade Agreement, which went into force in 2017.

However, critics, including Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer, have said there’s nothing free about it since it includes 130 pages of exemptions.

Meanwhile, Jason Thomas Kenney PC MLA is a Canadian politician, currently serving as the 18th Premier of Alberta since 2019, and leader of the United Conservative Party in Alberta since 2017.