We’re all becoming very familiar with the phrase  “Make America Great Again.” While its political baggage is well-documented south of the border, the underlying sentiment is actually quite simple: how do we unlock a country’s full economic potential?

In Canada, one of the least glamorous — yet most economically impactful — answers may lie in the removal of interprovincial trade barriers.

A Quiet Drag on Growth
Most investors are surprised to learn that it's often easier to trade goods internationally than between Canadian provinces. From trucking regulations and alcohol distribution to certification standards and labour mobility, a tangle of outdated rules has quietly eroded our domestic efficiency for decades.

According to estimates from the International Monetary Fund and internal Canadian studies, these barriers cost 1–2% of GDP annually. That’s tens of billions of dollars in lost productivity, every single year. For context, that’s roughly equivalent to the annual output of New Brunswick or PEI, wiped out by bureaucracy.

Why It Matters for Investors
At Allan Bush Investment Team, our Founder, Allan Bush has spent the past three decades helping high-net-worth Canadians build wealth through dividend-paying investments and his well-known “Chicken and Egg” strategy. He’s seen how strong domestic growth supports steady, rising cash flows, the lifeblood of dividend strategies.

Removing interprovincial trade barriers won’t just help farmers in Saskatchewan or brewers in Nova Scotia, it will support the long-term profitability of Canadian businesses, especially those in transport, infrastructure, agriculture, manufacturing, and logistics.
These are the same sectors that often reward shareholders with reliable and growing dividends — the kind of holdings that form the backbone of the portfolios at CIBC Wood Gundy Allan Bush Investment Team Waterloo.

A Unifying, Non-Partisan Opportunity
At a time when economic certainty is fragile, inflation remains sticky, and interest rates continue to weigh on consumer sentiment, removing trade barriers is a non-partisan, low-cost, high-impact policy that could unify both provinces and political parties. It’s not flashy, but it’s fiscally smart. And it doesn’t require spending billions — just political will and cooperation.

What’s Next?
While the federal government and several provinces have made incremental progress in recent years, the pace is glacial. The Canadian Free Trade Agreement (CFTA) was a step in the right direction, but it remains riddled with exceptions.

For investors, this is a space to watch. Policy shifts that improve interprovincial trade could drive profitability, stimulate GDP growth, and support dividend stability and expansion over the long term.

Allan Bush’s Final Thoughts
Canada doesn’t need a revolution. But a little common sense, like letting a licensed contractor work across borders, or allowing dairy to move freely across provinces, might just be the economic boost we’ve been missing.

Real economic strength doesn’t always come from stimulus packages or tax reform. Sometimes, it comes from simply getting out of our own way.