{"id":800602,"date":"2026-07-14T04:48:30","date_gmt":"2026-07-14T04:48:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/800602\/"},"modified":"2026-07-14T04:48:30","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T04:48:30","slug":"n-b-adopted-trump-like-protectionism-lawyer-alleges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/800602\/","title":{"rendered":"N.B. adopted Trump-like protectionism, lawyer alleges"},"content":{"rendered":"

The New Brunswick government is being accused of adopting Donald Trump-style protectionism in violation of an internal trade agreement among Canadian provinces and territories.<\/p>\n

A lawyer for an Ontario construction company made the accusation on the first day of a hearing convened in Fredericton under the 2017 Canadian Free Trade Agreement.<\/p>\n

Julmac Contracting Ltd. alleges the province discriminated against it as an out-of-province contractor in favour of local companies on four bridge projects.<\/p>\n

\u201cNew Brunswick has committed itself \u2026 that it will in fact walk the talk\u201d on open trade between provinces, Julmac lawyer David Outerbridge said at the outset of the hearing.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe question for the panel this week is: did New Brunswick honour that promise?\u201d<\/p>\n

Outerbridge compared the province\u2019s treatment of Julmac to U.S. tariffs imposed on Canada by the Trump administration in 2025 \u2014 both of them \u201cvariations on the same wrong-headed idea,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Outerbridge called New Brunswick \u201ca well-known violator\u201d of internal trade principles, noting it has scored poorly in an annual Canadian Federation of Independent Business report on interprovincial barriers.<\/p>\n

\"AJulmac’s complaint is related to several infrastructure projects, including the refurbishment of the Centennial Bridge in Miramichi. (Michael Heenan\/CBC)<\/p>\n

The most recent report gave the province a C grade and ranked it ninth out of 13 provinces and territories.<\/p>\n

Julmac\u2019s complaint revolves around its work on the Anderson Bridge replacement in Miramichi and the refurbishments of the Mactaquac Dam bridge, parts of the Centennial Bridge in Miramichi and the Nashwaak Bridge in the Marysville area of Fredericton.<\/p>\n

The company\u2019s lawyers said last year it was kicked off three of those projects after it filed the trade complaint.<\/p>\n

Julmac alleges the province waived some requirements for New Brunswick companies but not for Julmac, costing it millions of dollars more than local contractors and putting it at a competitive disadvantage.<\/p>\n

WATCH | \u2018Massive significance\u2019: Hearing is first of its kind under 2017 trade deal\u00a0:\"\"<\/p>\n

N.B. government faces scrutiny in internal trade case<\/p>\n

Province is accused of discriminating against out-of-province contractor on bridge contract requirements.<\/p>\n

It argued in filings the department forced it to use costlier materials, was less flexible on penalties for missed deadlines and took longer to review and approve plans compared to local companies.<\/p>\n

On Monday, Outerbridge asked Darren Colford, a senior DTI engineer and the hearing\u2019s first witness, to confirm that the department forced Julmac to resubmit \u201cshop drawings\u201d \u2014 technical blueprints \u2014 multiple times for departmental approval.<\/p>\n

\"ADarren Colford, a senior engineer with the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure, testified Monday. (Jacques Poitras\/CBC)<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve heard that,\u201d Colford said.<\/p>\n

But the engineer hesitated and claimed to not understand several followup questions about how frequently that happened.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would have to check the record to find out exactly how often,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Outerbridge and Colford then spent part of the morning haggling over technical aspects of concrete pouring as the lawyer probed whether DTI treated Julmac \u201cless favourably\u201d than New Brunswick companies.<\/p>\n

Outerbridge also tried to get Colford to admit that Julmac was required to have fuel spill containment trays under its equipment \u201call the time,\u201d while a local company was exempt from what is a mandatory requirement.<\/p>\n

The channel bridge adjacent to the Mactaquac Dam is another of the infrastructure projects in Julmac’s complaint. (Google Maps)<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t answer that for every piece of equipment that Julmac had in this province,\u201d Colford answered.<\/p>\n

Later, another Julmac lawyer, Shalom Cumbo-Steinmetz, quizzed DTI engineer R\u00e9mi Jalbert about documents showing an engineering firm hired by the province directed Julmac to change its design drawings.<\/p>\n

Jalbert said he didn\u2019t know why those changes were ordered.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not sure about the entire story,\u201d he said. \u201cThere might be a reason why.\u201d<\/p>\n

The hearing is the first ever held under the current version of the internal trade agreement.<\/p>\n

Ryan Manucha, a research fellow at the C.D. Howe Institute who writes about internal trade, said this gives the process \u201cmassive significance.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt means the internal trade court is alive and well and it\u2019s being used as intended,\u201d he said. \u201cIt means there\u2019s a vibrant internal trade apparatus for recourse when there\u2019s an internal trade barrier.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"AJulmac president Derek Martin attended the hearing in Fredericton. (Jacques Poitras\/CBC)<\/p>\n

A panel of three trade lawyers from Ontario and British Columbia is hearing the case over five days this week. Three other provincial governments, Ontario, Nova and Saskatchewan, are intervening in the hearing.<\/p>\n

Julmac is not seeking damages in the case.<\/p>\n

The company is asking for a finding that New Brunswick violated the Canadian Free Trade Agreement and a recommendation that it treat out-of-province contractors the same as local companies.<\/p>\n

Otherwise, the 2017 agreement to reduce trade barriers between provinces is meaningless, Outerbridge said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe CFTA was created for a purpose, and that purpose should be realized.\u201d<\/p>\n

Manucha said the hearing is also important because the panel\u2019s ruling will be the first time many key concepts in the agreement are interpreted.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt will give other workers, businesses, and governments clarity as to how their cases might unfold,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

That could encourage more use of the complaint process, he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The New Brunswick government is being accused of adopting Donald Trump-style protectionism in violation of an internal trade…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":800603,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[49,48,44],"class_list":["post-800602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/800602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=800602"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/800602\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/800603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=800602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=800602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=800602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}