Former Finance Minister John Manley is fed up with the constant bickering that threatens to derail talks to lower interprovincial trade barriers.

In an interview with BNN, Manley expressed exasperation at the nation’s inability to strike an internal trade deal even as the federal government inks international agreements.

“The glaciers are receding faster than interprovincial trade barriers,” he said. “[It’s] just hard to believe, in a country that’s so progressive and open to international trade.”

Manley said the current squabble between Alberta and Saskatchewan over beer is irritating, and flatly ignores current market dynamics.

“Beer: I mean, give me a break! Everywhere I go in North America, it’s all about local beer: you don’t need protection for people to sell local beer,” he said. “And besides, there are way more beer drinkers than there are beer producers, so let’s give the consumers a break for a change.”

Manley said the current barriers prevent Canadian firms from achieving the scale necessary to compete with larger, international firms.

“This is fundamentally about how we take what is a fairly small economy … and how do we give firms an ability to scale up to become big enough to compete with their international counterparts,” he said. “Fragmenting our market: that’s just the worst thing we could be doing.”

Manley said the odds of a deal as the premiers meet in Whitehorse have diminished, but he’s hopeful cooler heads will prevail.

“It’s far easier to believe that it won’t [happen] than that it will,” he said. “We should all go for a beer and just resolve it among ourselves.”