TILMA Hearings Continue

After a week of public hearings in Regina, the Saskatchewan Legislative Assembly’s Standing Committee on the Economy has moved to Saskatoon. Fortunately, CUPE was able to import Steven Shrybman for some expert testimony. Luckily, he wasn’t caught up in any “inter-provincial barriers” on his way from Ottawa. Some of his testimony was reported in today’s Leader-Post: Ottawa-based trade lawyer Steven […]

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Two Tory Tactics and the Wheat Board

The following column by Bruce Johnstone, The Leader-Post’s Financial Editor, does a much better job than I did of explaining the Conservative government’s flawed barley plebiscite. This column, which is particularly interesting coming from an ardent free-marketer like Johnstone, touches on a couple of the Harper government’s favourite tactics: 1. “The Thin Edge of the Wedge” – holding a plebiscite […]

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Senate Transcripts of Erin and Marc’s Excellent Adventure

The Senate has posted transcripts of the Standing Committee on Banking, Trade and Commerce’s meetings on May 16, when I testified about “issues dealing with interprovincial barriers to trade,” and May 17, when Marc testified about this topic. Marc has already posted his written presentation. My section of the transcript follows: Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on Banking, Trade […]

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Ontario Tories on TILMA

John Tory, the leader of Ontario’s Conservatives, has pledged to join TILMA if elected. Given Premier McGuinty’s stance on the issue, it seems that electing many more New Democrats may be the only way of keeping Ontario out of this pernicious deal. Based on how things are unfolding in Saskatchewan, public consultations might be of benefit to Ontario. Opposition to […]

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Mandryk Opposes TILMA

After a week of public hearings, CanWest’s long-time Saskatchewan political columnist has essentially come out against TILMA. The following lines are from Murray Mandryk’s column in today’s Regina Leader-Post: The unions and the left have been raising some very valid questions over why Saskatchewan needs to sign on to this trade agreement and what the impact might be if we […]

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Labour Mobility: The Thin Edge of the Wedge?

A couple of hours ago, Industry Canada put out the following press release.  In forecasting this release last night, Canadian Press again repeated the Conference Board’s thoroughly discredited estimates of TILMA’s benefits. As far as I know, the proposed April 2009 deadline for “full labour mobility” is the deadline toward which provincial governments were already working with the regulated professions […]

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TILMA: A Report from the Front Line

On Tuesday, I testified before the Saskatchewan Legislative Assembly’s Standing Committee on the Economy, which is holding public hearings on joining TILMA. The Legislative Assembly is broadcasting the hearings and promptly posting the recordings. To see my presentation, click “Video 1” for June 5 and use the bar immediately below the screen to advance the time to 48.5 minutes. A […]

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More Legal Analysis of TILMA

The Canadian Union of Public Employees released Steven Shrybman’s second assessment of TILMA at this year’s Federation of Canadian Municipalities meeting. His first was for the Ontario Federation of Labour. Alberta-BC trade deal will undermine Municipal authority June 2, 2007 09:38 AM Calgary – A legal opinion produced by Sack Goldblatt Mitchell sheds damaging new light on the recent Alberta-BC Trade, […]

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TILMA and Investor Rights

In this month’s Fraser Forum, Robert Knox attacks the critics of TILMA. Knox, who was one of the folks leading the charge for the Agreement on Internal Trade, mostly takes aim at legal interpretations by Ellen Gould and Steven Shrybman that contemplate areas where TILMA’s broad scope could lead to perverse rulings by trade panels. His counter-argument goes something like […]

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Alberta and BC elect more Conservatives than Ontario

In today’s column, Andrew Coyne examines the Conservative government’s decision to increase parliamentary representation in line with population growth for Alberta and BC, but not for Ontario. He suggests that this move is designed to appease Quebec, while steering clear of the obvious motive: additional Alberta/BC ridings are far more likely than additional Ontario ridings to elect Conservatives. PS – […]

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The Saskatchewan NDP on TILMA

The Saskatchewan NDP Caucus has just posted an appropriately critical description of TILMA followed by a catalogue of the Saskatchewan Party’s support for this agreement. The Saskatchewan Legislative Assembly will soon begin public consultations on TILMA, but the material posted makes it fairly clear that the governing NDP will not sign the agreement.

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Alberta Municipalities on TILMA

It is good to see that the Alberta Urban Municipalities Association is paying attention to this issue: AUMA Wants Full Consultation on new Alberta-BC Trade Agreement Watch for upcoming public consultations on the recently signed Alberta-British Columbia Trade, Investment, and Labour Mobility Agreement (TILMA).

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The Ottawa Citizen on TILMA

The Ottawa Citizen endorsed TILMA on Tuesday. I drafted an op-ed in response to the editorial, but Larry Brown of NUPGE beat me to the punch with an excellent letter printed in yesterday’s Citizen. For posterity, my op-ed follows: What Internal Trade Barriers? The Ottawa Citizen has endorsed the Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement (TILMA) without specifying any of […]

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Marc’s testimony to the Senate

Both Erin Weir and I gave testimony to the Senate Committee on Banking, Trade and Commerce in the past 24 hours, and I think we made an impression by challenging their assumptions about “interprovincial trade barriers” and bogus “solutions” like TILMA. My testimony follows: Presentation to the Senate Committee on Banking, Trade and Commerce By Marc Lee, Senior Economist Canadian […]

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What Inter-provincial Barriers?

Like so many commentators on this topic, Andrew Coyne attacks the inefficiency and absurdity of alleged “internal trade barriers” without actually naming any. He could presumably trot out the two or three usual suspects, but does he believe that Canada’s “economic union” depends upon the colour of margarine in Quebec? Coyne writes that, “Viewed strictly as a legal matter, the […]

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Measuring Inter-provincial “Barriers”

Marc’s recent post prompted me to look at transcripts from the Senate hearings on “issues dealing with interprovincial barriers to trade.” The following passage caught my attention: The Chairman: Let me suggest something that tantalized me when I first looked at this question well over 30 years ago, and more recently — the economics of it. I think one of […]

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The Conference Board’s Saskatchewan Survey

Asking business whether to get rid of government regulations is much like asking a barber whether to get a haircut. Nevertheless, the Conference Board’s main (and only) evidence in projecting TILMA’s benefits for BC and Saskatchewan were surveys of business organizations and government departments. In our paper, Marc and I noted some serious problems with the BC survey as well […]

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My call with the Senator

Out of the blue yesterday I got a call from the Chair of the Senate Committee on Banking, Trade and Commerce, Jerahmiel S. Grafstein. An honour, I suppose, because he was personally inviting me to testify before the committee on interprovincial trade barriers. I was somewhat caught by surprise and had no idea who he was (turns out he’s a […]

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Saskatchewan’s Trade Deficits with Alberta and BC

As noted in December using 2002 figures, Saskatchewan imports more from its prospective TILMA partners than it exports to them. The 2003 figures are now available: Saskatchewan’s trade deficit with Alberta was $2.1 billion and its trade deficit with BC was $0.4 billion. Since there are currently no significant barriers to inter-provincial trade, signing TILMA would not significantly increase inter-provincial trade […]

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Oops, They Did It Again

As Joe Kuchta points out, the Conference Board’s assessment of TILMA’s potential effects on Saskatchewan embodies the same basic flaws as its previous assessment for BC. Joe also notes that, like its predecessor, the Saskatchewan assessment features what appear to be arithmetic errors.

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TILMA Versus Canadian Football

The Canadian Football League’s season does not begin until June, but debate is already underway about TILMA’s potential effect on its franchises, most of which are for-profit businesses that receive government subsidies. The last federal budget proposed a new Canadian Heritage Sport Fund to promote three-down football, but also proposed to expand TILMA to more provinces. In response to my […]

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Saskatchewan and TILMA

Today, the Government of Saskatchewan initiated a process of legislative consultations on TILMA and released the Conference Board’s assessment of this agreement’s potential impact on Saskatchewan. This document is the sequel to the Conference Board’s BC assessment, which Marc and I critiqued on this blog and in our paper. I have not yet read through the 55-page document, but will […]

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McGuinty on TILMA

Today’s Financial Post reports that Ontario’s Premier “is exploring the possibility of joining the B.C.-Alberta free trade initiative.” Specifically, it quotes him as saying, “what I have done is talked to [B.C. Premier] Gord Campbell and [former Alberta premier] Ralph Klein, in the past, and said, you guys seem to have done something which sounds good. I’m not sure the […]

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Internal Trade Conference

On March 30, I attended the federal government’s conference on “Internal Trade: Opportunities and Challenges,” which was hosted by Human Resources and Skills Development Canada and by Industry Canada. Other attendees included academics, federal and provincial civil servants, and representatives of business and professional organizations. The academic and policy people all agreed that the material costs of alleged inter-provincial barriers […]

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TILMA and the environment

Last week, the Sierra Legal Defence Fund published a legal analysis on the environment and TILMA. Below is an excerpt from the press release, and the full document is here. This is an important analysis as BC’s point man on the file, Colin Hansen, has been claiming that the environment has been set aside as a “legitimate objective”. April Fools’ […]

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Saskatchewan’s Political Right on TILMA

This week, I am back home in Saskatchewan, where debate on TILMA is really heating up.  (My location and time zone also explain why Andrew filled in for me on today’s Labour Force Survey.) Brad Wall leads the Saskatchewan Party (the renamed Conservatives) and hence the Official Opposition.  While some TILMA proponents have withdrawn from the deeply flawed Conference Board […]

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Grady on the Conference Board and TILMA

Patrick Grady, a former senior Finance official and leading mainstream economist, has weighed in on the Conference Board’s estimate of TILMA’s economic benefits. He cites the paper that Marc and I wrote and reiterates the points first made on this blog. He also notes that the Conference Board’s own forecast of BC’s economic-growth rate does not seem to reflect its […]

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