I would start with the politics of the issue. You have certain skill sets, businesses, and individuals who are gaining an advantage by having protection within their home markets. So even though it would benefit us as a national economy as far as productivity goes, and it would benefit us as consumers because there may be better prices available in the marketplace, it's a classic case where the interests of the few are crowding out the smaller interests of the many.
That is fundamental to what all of you do: trying to decide how to get that balance right, understanding that there will be losers, and whether you're prepared to compensate the losers, even though many of us would gain from the reduction of these barriers.
There has been a little bit of progress. Barriers on government procurement have come down under the AIT. You can buy B.C. wine in an Ontario or Quebec liquor store now, which you couldn't do 10 years ago. But the area where the barriers are probably most acute is around professional services. We still have 10 different standards when it comes to professional credentials. You have to ask yourself pretty profound questions about why nursing skills that are adequate in B.C. are not adequate in Alberta, Quebec, or Ontario.
A lot of this is about political will. I look to what has happened between B.C. and Alberta--the TILMA agreement--as a sign that it is possible to find the political will, the courage, to actually make progress. It is very instructive that Premier Campbell pushed so hard with the other premiers but there was so little uptake.
This is clearly not rocket science. How to make progress on this is quite clear. I'm really struck by the fact that the Europeans, in forming the European Union, have made huge progress. They have come up with a common European standard on everything from cheese to consulting services, and we're stuck in the 1940s and 1950s model in Canada with a balkanized national economy.
The barriers around goods are not that acute. People point to things like Quebec margarine having to be a different colour. So the goods barriers are slim. It's when you get into the transportation of goods--having to take things off a truck in one province and put them on a different truck in another province--that things become truly irrational in the effective functioning of our national economy.
But the biggest area is around professional services and standards.