A new think-tank is calling on the federal government to strike down barriers to trade and mobility between provinces, arguing that Ottawa has the constitutional authority to do so.

The Macdonald-Laurier Institute maintains that provincial barriers are costing Canadians money, and since the provinces won't remove these barriers the federal government should.

The institute, launched in March and describing itself as non-partisan, issued a study Monday — entitled Citizen of One, Citizen of the Whole — saying there are too many impediments to the free movement of people, goods, services and investment in Canada.

The report recommends that the federal government enact an economic charter of rights and create an economic freedom commission to investigate breaches of the new charter.

Interprovincial barriers — long deplored by economists, think-tanks and businesspeople — cause harm in two ways, said John Robson, the think-tank's managing editor.

"One is that they add costs that (people) don't see, and that's a good way of sneaking up on people," he said. "But the other one is this pernicious sense that we're not really fellow citizens — that it is the job of the provinces to keep us from interacting with one another in our daily life."

Robson cites prohibitions on ordering wine from one province to another, and how the certification of hairdressers differs between provinces. But he says there are much more serious barriers that need addressing.

"Canadians have a right to have public policy that isn't conspicuously ridiculous as well as policy that doesn't just gratuitously impoverish us," Robson said at a news conference. "This is not how you run a serious country."

The study comments that during the 2008 election, the Conservative Party said it would be prepared to intervene using federal authority if trade, investment and mobility barriers were still in place within Canada in 2010.