Standards shopping

Small jurisdictions have a hard time covering all the bases. Developing regulations is expensive. If you're determined to have "My Jurisdiction" versions of each and every regulation that could be out there, you're either going to have a ridiculously expensive regulatory regime or you're going to stymie development in niche markets.

Yesterday I pointed to the problems facing Manitoba's Harborside Farms. They want to develop traditional Italian cured meats in small artisanal batches for sale in Manitoba. But they're forbidden from doing it because, unless you can prove your product meets Manitoba regulations, you can't sell it. And it's a sufficiently small market that Manitoba never got around to writing any regulations that would allow them to operate.

Leaving aside for now the very sensible alternative of simply allowing standard consumer protection legislation and liability solve this kind of issue, there's an obvious alternative. Let them produce their product under the Italian regulations, then have Manitoba inspectors verify that they've met the Italian standard.

The problem is very similar to one facing importers of niche-market DVDs in New Zealand. How? You can't sell DVDs here unless you get them rated by the Censor's Office. And they don't rate DVDs for free. If you make a buck a piece on the sale, you'd still need to ship a thousand units in a country of four million people (and change) to cover just the ratings cost.

The solution there is the same as that which should obtain for Harborside. Allow import of films that have been rated by the Australians, or the Canadians, or the Brits, or the Americans, or some other set of trusted countries, and simply require that the ratings sticker note the country which issued the rating.

This kind of solution can be applied across rather a few thin-market small-jurisdiction scenarios. Why does every small area have to reinvent every wheel?

Take it a step further. If Manitobans can import Italian-made products meeting Italian standards, why shouldn't they be able to produce things in Manitoba to Italian specifications, even if a Manitoba regulation does exist? Simply require that the product be labelled as meeting Italy's standards.

Maybe it wouldn't work for everything. A building that meets Canadian building standards instead of New Zealand standards would be better than a New Zealand standard building, unless there's an earthquake. But again, it isn't hard to imagine strange niche construction areas where there might not be domestic specifications, but where the Japanese standards would work a treat.

The fixed costs of developing regulations aren't trivial. Why not allow a bit of forum shopping to spread the burden?