Federalism is a tricky thing. It's the bane of all of these recommendations that we put forward.
I think the role of the federal government is twofold. Primarily, it is to serve as a convener for the provinces and in some cases municipalities, to set the stage for that dialogue. It's laying out the costs of these internal trade barriers to Canadians and attempting to reconcile between some provinces or other provinces why they exist, what the costs and the benefits are, and trying to smooth that out, if you will.
The other thing that we've recommended before and that I would still like to see is a public registry of what these internal barriers to trade are and what they cost. Some of them are quite ludicrous, like certain tires being on certain trucks and that kind of thing.
That grabs headlines, politically speaking. That's what people will pay attention to, and that's what people will read. They shouldn't exist.
It's a good starting point. Obviously, that's a simple issue. Truck tires won't fix the internal trade barriers, but work is needed and we'd love to see it happen as quickly as possible.
