Eliminating interprovincial trade barriers won’t boost Canada’s gross domestic product as much as forecasted, says a new report by the École des hautes études commerciales de Montréal (HEC).

“Even if we were to tackle the harmonization of provincial regulations — the real challenge — it would be utopian to envisage a 6.9 per cent rise in the country’s standard of living over the long term,” the report said. “This is partly because the very nature of the barriers in question is unlikely to produce such effects, but mainly because the real barriers to interprovincial trade are structural in origin.”

Various reports on ending provincial trade barriers estimate that doing so could be worth from $110 billion to $200 billion annually, or $2,900 to $5,100 per capita, for Canada’s econom

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