69

Canada's economy could gain nearly seven per cent, or $210 billion, in real GDP by fully removing internal trade barriers between the country’s 13 provinces and territories, according to a report published Tuesday by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

On average, the barriers are the equivalent of a nine per cent tariff nationally, estimates the report, which was co-authored by IMF researchers Federico J. Diez and Yuanchen Yang with contributions from University of Calgary economist Trevor Tombe.

That would-be tariff is even higher in service-oriented sectors like healthcare and educational services — more than 40 per cent — where professional mobility between provinces is highly regulated.

"Such a level would be prohibitive in most international trade agreements," the authors wrote. For comparison, the Bank of Canada estimates that the U.S.'s average tariff rate on Canada was 5.9 per cent in November 2025.

top 3 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[-] Auli@lemmy.ca 2 points 2 hours ago

If we didn't siphon money out of the country with American businesses and vacations to the US we would be better off.

[-] NordicAnalyst@lemmy.ca 9 points 1 day ago

we need this more than anything ; and external partnership

[-] Thedogdrinkscoffee@lemmy.ca 8 points 1 day ago

We can give ourselves more than the US can ever take away.

this post was submitted on 27 Jan 2026
69 points (100.0% liked)

Canada

10989 readers
577 users here now

What's going on Canada?



Related Communities


🍁 Meta


🗺️ Provinces / Territories


🏙️ Cities / Local Communities

Sorted alphabetically by city name.


🏒 SportsHockey

Football (NFL): incomplete

Football (CFL): incomplete

Baseball

Basketball

Soccer


💻 Schools / Universities

Sorted by province, then by total full-time enrolment.


💵 Finance, Shopping, Sales


🗣️ Politics


🍁 Social / Culture


Rules

  1. Keep the original title when submitting an article. You can put your own commentary in the body of the post or in the comment section.

Reminder that the rules for lemmy.ca also apply here. See the sidebar on the homepage: lemmy.ca


founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS