HRSDC-IC-SSHRC Skills Research Initiative

Working Paper Series

Is there Scope for Enhancing the Mobility of Labour Between Canada and the United States?
by Michael Hart

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Abstract

Over the past twenty-five years, integration between Canada and the United States has accelerated perceptibly, driven in large part by the demands of firms and individuals in both economies for the goods and services produced in the other, but facilitated by policy developments such as the negotiation of the Canada-US Free Trade Agreement. The extent of cross-border linkages that now tie the two economies together has created a dense pattern of private and public cooperation that is further deepening integration. The free movement of people, particularly movement to pursue temporary work assignments, remains one of the areas for which there remains significant scope to do better. This paper argues that Canada has much to gain and little to lose from an aggressive effort at reducing the impact of entry and regulatory restrictions that deter cross-border Canada-US labour mobility. The principal focus of such an initiative should be the border because that is where the most restrictive impact is administered. Additionally, useful results can be gleaned from a more active, bilateral program of regulatory cooperation aimed either at mutual recognition or similar approaches to certification, accreditation, and other deterrents to the cross-border deployment of scarce professional expertise or reducing the impact of relatively minor differences in labour-market and similar regulations. Canada’s long-term goal should be to move toward an open border between the two countries, with customs and immigration inspection reduced to spot checks, backed up by tighter and mutually agreed approaches to customs and immigration issues involving goods or people from third countries. Such an initiative needs to be an integral part of a larger and more ambitious project to design how the two governments can best work together to govern their common economic and security space to the mutual benefit of their citizens. Such a new bilateral accommodation needs to engage the full spectrum of issues where the two societies connect and have common interests, from security and immigration to the regulation of consumer safety and the treatment of third-country goods.