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For that matter, there is an opportunity here for the opposition parties, as well. Liberal leader Justin Trudeau sometimes likes to invoke the legacy of Sir Wilfrid Laurier, and for what principle did Laurier stand more squarely than free trade? As for the NDP, while the party’s embrace of free trade with other countries is tentative at best, it has been at pains under Thomas Mulcair to avoid seeming too loony or parochial — and nothing is more loony, or parochial, than inter-provincial trade restrictions. What better way for both parties prove their economic credentials to a skeptical public than to campaign for a stronger economic union, pairing it with their traditional support for a strong federal government?

Internal free trade has worked in Britain and the U.S. for centuries and Australia for decades

They should, especially as the federal government clearly has the power to act, as the distinguished (and sadly, just-deceased) Canadian public servant Robert Knox argued in a 2011 paper co-authored for the Macdonald-Laurier Institute. Section 91 of the Canadian Constitution, which gives Ottawa not merely “Trade and Commerce” but all powers not explicitly reserved to the provinces, is all the authority the federal government needs to strike down trade barriers within Canada. This power does not permit wholesale federal invasion of provincial jurisdiction under the pretext of freeing trade. But neither does it permit the provinces to use their powers to balkanize the economic union.

Internal free trade has worked in Britain and the U.S. for centuries and Australia for decades. As our founders intended, it promotes prosperity and national cohesion. And, like free trade generally, experience suggests it is good politics, for those who are prepared to campaign vigorously for it. The argument for it can be hard to make; it requires time and patience to beat back every petty objection or protectionist fallacy. But the election is more than four months away. We have all the time in the world.

National Post