On the global trade side, we've always seen an advantage for Canada in supporting the strong rule of law multilaterally. The fact is, multilateral agreements help the smaller countries deal with the bigger ones. Obviously we've also seen a huge impact from our bilateral and trilateral deals within North America. I don't think anybody disputes that those have produced huge benefits, despite the immense difficulty we went through in the adjustment phase in the early nineties.
I think we are at a dangerous point in terms of the global trade regime. There's a sense that negotiations have been bogging down at the multilateral level. There's interest in pursuing stuff at the bilateral level, but progress has been painful at best—and Canada's experience is not unique in that regard.
So I think Canada needs to keep focused on the importance of the multilateral regime and keep making an active contribution to bringing down barriers globally, because the fact is free trade has worked for us. We have done very well the more open we are and the more we've taken part in both regional and multilateral regimes.
In that respect, coming back to your first question on internal trade barriers, yes, the agreement between Alberta and British Columbia was a great example. We had all governments sign agreements on internal trade a long time ago. Unfortunately, we haven't seen the concrete follow-through commitment that we should have.
This comes back somewhat to what Garth was talking about in terms of simplifying regulation. The fact is that taking away rules, simplifying what it takes to do business, and reducing the number of times people have to fill out forms can seem like penny-ante stuff, but those pennies add up. If you look at the experience of other countries in that regard, the Netherlands, for instance, has done a spectacular job of addressing the paper burden side of regulation. It may be easier for them because they're a unitary country, rather than a federal system. The fact is a lot of our regulatory burden flows from the fact that we have multiple layers of government. That puts a premium on governments working together.
Again, I think we are moving into a period in the coming months during which almost everything regarding fiscal arrangements will be on the table between the federal government and the provincial governments. That should be a broader and more comprehensive discussion about how to make the Canadian federation work better and enable companies to flourish more easily—in communities large and small and in every corner of the country.