Companies that undertook interprovincial trade also exported internationally, leading HEC to conclude that productivity is the key to competing over distances. Photo by Allen McInnis / MONTREAL GAZETTE/Postmedia files

Eliminating interprovincial trade barriers won’t boost Canada’s gross domestic product as much as forecasted, says a new report by the École des hautes études commerciales de Montréal (HEC).

“Even if we were to tackle the harmonization of provincial regulations — the real challenge — it would be utopian to envisage a 6.9 per cent rise in the country’s standard of living over the long term,” the report said. “This is partly because the very nature of the barriers in question is unlikely to produce such effects, but mainly because the real barriers to interprovincial

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