Internal trade barriers between provinces cost the economy up to $200 billion a year.
Claimed by: Commonly cited in Alberta autonomy debates
Contested: Credible sources disagree, or the outcome depends on events that have not happened yet. How we rate.
Summary
There is real agreement that interprovincial trade barriers impose meaningful costs, but the headline dollar figure is genuinely disputed. An IMF working paper estimated that fully removing internal barriers could raise real GDP by close to 7 percent, about $210 billion, treating the barriers like a 9 percent tariff. Other economists argue those models overstate the effect by applying international-trade assumptions to a single national market, and put the realistic gain closer to 1 percent of GDP. So the barriers clearly cost something, but the size is contested by experts.
Evidence
An IMF report estimated removing internal trade barriers could raise real GDP by nearly 7 percent, about $210 billion, equivalent to a roughly 9 percent national tariff.
Critics argue the largest estimates overstate the impact and that realistic gains may be closer to 1 percent of GDP.