WASHINGTON -- Manufacturers, exporters and experts from both sides of the border are meeting in Washington to figure out new ways to cut through the reams of red tape that pose an ever-present risk to Canada-U.S. trade.
The high-tech 21st century has them contemplating a fresh challenge: how to prevent that red tape from sticking in the first place.
Treasury Board President Scott Brison and Mick Mulvaney, director of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, were among those kicking off a two-day meeting of the Regulatory Co-operation Council.
The council, founded in 2011 by former prime minister Stephen Harper and former president Barack Obama, is supposed to break down the countless regulatory roadblocks between the two countries.
It's bracing for the onset of high-tech breakthroughs like artificial intelligence and battery-powered cars, which are sure to present an unprecedented challenge to efforts to align regulatory standards.
Brison says if the two countries can establish standards that are essentially identical, that would not only streamline the process of reconciling their regulatory demands, but render it almost unnecessary.
"If we work together, that will give consumers access to cutting-edge, life-enhancing technologies sooner and for less money, and our companies would be able to produce those technologies and products that use those technologies, be more competitive and create more jobs," he said in an interview.
"The danger is if we don't build, as muscle memory, regulatory co-operation into the DNA of our regulators, we will actually deepen the unnecessary divisions between our economies."
