The Globe and Mail reports in its Tuesday edition that Ontario's recent commitment to joining the Canadian Securities Administrators' "passport" system has been hailed as a step toward removing interprovincial trade barriers. Guest columnist Jonathan Preese writes that the passport system is designed to help Canada's capital markets by allowing participants to interact with a single principal regulator rather than all 13 of the provincial and territorial regulators. By the time this system was introduced in 2005, every province and territory had agreed to participate with the exception of Ontario, which withheld its signature as a gesture in support of developing a national regulator. The practical impact of Ontario's recent decision to join the passport system is overstated. This is because, despite Ontario's intentional foot-dragging, the Ontario Securities Commission and the other CSA members have developed an "interface," which emulates the benefits of the passport system. Under this interface, every province and territory has agreed to accept OSC decisions on passport filings. As a result, Ontario's decision to join the passport system is largely ceremonial and will have a limited impact on reducing trade barriers.