Thank you for your question. I will answer it in French.
My answer has two parts. For starters, certain measures constitute explicit barriers or impediments to trade, but the federal and provincial governments can do a number of things to improve trade, without really dealing with those barriers.
Existing measures that restrict the free trade of goods are concentrated in certain sectors. Interprovincial trade of alcoholic beverages—such as wine and beer—is traditionally subject to a number of constraints. Both federal and provincial measures were impeding this trade.
However, as my colleague from the agency mentioned, under two legislative initiatives—the first was adopted in 2012, and the second was put forward more recently as part of An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on February 11, 2014 and other measures—the federal provisions that restricted interprovincial trade of alcoholic beverages were largely removed. But for those new measures to be fully effective and liberalize trade, they would have to be accompanied by equivalent provincial measures. In some provinces, including British Columbia, measures have been adopted to liberalize that type of trade. However, a number of other measures established in other provinces are still restricting the personal exemption limit for importing alcoholic beverages into a province. That's one example I wanted to bring up.
Something else that can be not so much an explicit barrier, but more of an impediment is, as my colleague from the agency mentioned, the difference in regulations that apply to red meat processing. As I was saying in my presentation, in order to be able to engage in interprovincial trade, an establishment must be federally registered. But the federal government's requirements are different from those set out in provinces such as Ontario or Quebec. Some establishments cannot meet the federal standards. As a result, since they are only provincially registered, they cannot participate in interprovincial trade. That's another example.
More general and more ambitious rules under the Agreement on Internal Trade, which has been in effect since 1995—and I would like to bring up the government's initiative to modernize that agreement—would probably help greatly improve interprovincial trade. The approach that has been favoured since 1995 by that agreement is to have a positive list. The agreement applies as long as provinces and the federal government have established a list of measures that are covered, while general rules apply in our international agreements, with some exceptions. That's what is referred to as a negative list. That structural change in the agreement on domestic trade would go a long way toward promoting greater liberalization of trade for all products, but it would be especially beneficial when it comes to agriculture and agri-food products.