It is one of the biggest opportunities for growth. I don't need to outline all the figures. I'm sure members of this committee have heard them many times around the potential to grow Canadian GDP and create tens of thousands of jobs.
It is important to remember that these barriers are not hard tariff barriers. These are, in most cases, small regulatory differences that have been created across provincial borders. The way you produce or sell a product in one province is subject to different rules in another. Obviously, the labour requirements are based on various certification and boards. This means that we've created a series of small markets instead of one large market.
We are encouraged by the recent movement of the last six or seven months. We've been shaken out of our complacency on internal trade, and we've seen a number of these bilateral trade agreements announced by the provinces to look at mutual recognition.
I'm a little worried that some of that momentum seems to be fading a little bit. Everybody was talking about it, all levels of government, saying that they're going to do everything to remove these barriers. Now I don't hear as much. I know that a lot of that means work is happening behind the scenes to look at what mutual recognition looks like.
We think that strong leadership at all levels of government to continue to aggressively try to remove these barriers and commit to mutual recognition is really the key. Trying to align regulations is a long, slow, painful process, for those involved, at least, whereas mutual recognition says that, if you produce a good or sell a good in a way that is legal in one province, it should be considered legal and lawful in another. We think that's the answer. We hope all provinces start to move even more aggressively in that direction in the months ahead.