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Ottawa and the provinces agree that ambitious new international trade agreements signed by the federal government have overtaken the existing AIT and businesses complain that it is now often easier to export to the United States and Europe than it is to ship to other Canadian provinces.

Perrin Beatty, president of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, has said the “balkanized 13 markets” across Canada hits consumer choice and drives up prices, as provinces seek to protect local businesses from competition. “It’s lose, lose, lose,” he said.

Internal trade accounts for 20 per cent of Canada’s GDP, or $366 billion. But inter-provincial barriers and restrictive regulatory regimes have frustrated the intention in the Constitution that there be an unimpeded market of “articles of growth, produce or manufacture” across the country.

A year ago, Moore took aim at trade barriers estimated to cost the country $50 billion a year last year, stating a new Agreement on Internal Trade was his “No. 1 priority.”

He said then that the election of business-friendly governments across the country, including in Quebec, had created a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” to make progress.

In tabling the federal budget in April, the Conservative government announced the creation of an Internal Trade Promotion office within Industry Canada to support the negotiations.

Federal officials have stressed that progress is being made on the internal trade front.