Official Report of
DEBATES OF THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY
(Hansard)
Monday, October 29, 2007
Volume 23, Number 6

Motions on Notice

Trade Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement
TILMA
(Motion 66)
R. Sultan


R. Sultan: Mr. Speaker, on Motion 66, I move:

[Be it resolved that this House encourages all provinces and territories to reduce barriers to trade and labour mobility by following the model set out in the B.C./Alberta Trade and Investment Labour Mobility Agreement (TILMA).]

TILMA is an important step toward implementing a radical idea: free trade within Canada. What a revolutionary concept, to remove trade barriers on trade with Alberta, just as we did with the United States and Mexico 13 years ago. Well, better late than never.

The usual suspects have lined up against TILMA, with the labour sector–funded Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives leading the parade.

Here's a sampling of the outcry. "Another bad deal for Canada" - Council of Canadians. "Bad news for labour" - Saskatoon and District Labour Council. "TILMA equals bad" - a blog entry by somebody who doesn't want to sign their own name. "TILMA will quickly lead us to economic integration with the United States" - I thought it was with Alberta, but that's BCGEU. Another stalwart officer of BCGEU: "TILMA threatens access to early childhood education." Wow.

The critics suggest that not only are early childhood education and Canadian independence at risk; so too are jobs, labour standards, employment safety and freedom of municipalities to buy their supplies locally at a higher price. It might be okay to buy in Bellingham, but we draw the line at Calgary.

As one listens to the forecasts of doom and various pleas for the status quo, one is reminded of another private member's motion by Frédéric Bastiat, another economist and a member of the French parliament. This was his proposal:
    "To the hon. members of the Chamber of Deputies: a petition from the manufacturers of candles, tapers, lanterns, candlesticks, street lamps, snuffers and extinguishers and from producers of tallow, oil, resin, alcohol and generally of everything connected with lighting.

    "We are suffering from the ruinous competition of a rival who apparently works under conditions so far superior to our own for the production of light that he is flooding the domestic market with it at an incredibly low price. For the moment he appears, our sales cease, all the customers turn to him, and a branch of French industry whose ramifications are innumerable is all at once reduced to complete stagnation. This rival, which is none other than the sun, is waging war on us so mercilessly we suspect he is being stirred up against us by the perfidious Albion" - which, as an aside, was the French terminology for Great Britain in those days.

    "We ask you to be so good as to pass a law requiring the closing of all windows, dormers, skylights, inside and outside shutters, curtains, casements, bull's eyes, deadlinks and blinds - in short, all openings, holes, chinks and fissures through which the light of the sun is wont to enter houses to the detriment of the fair industries with which we are proud to say we have endowed the country - a country that cannot, without betraying ingratitude, abandon us today to so unequal a combat…What industry in France will not ultimately be encouraged?"
Members opposite and their many friends who have spoken out against TILMA have obviously studied their Bastiat. Just as, more than 100 years ago, the parliament of France was encouraged to throttle low-cost competition from the sun, modern-day TILMA critics would throttle any advantage from jurisdictions who might have a low-cost advantage over us.

Carrying this logic to its extreme, we on the North Shore could install customs barriers on the Lions Gate and Iron Workers bridges, purchase all of our petroleum supplies from a new refinery to be built in Ambleside and forbid lawyers downtown from taking on any clients from Edgemont Village.

But frankly, I prefer the words of Mike Harcourt, a great Canadian:
    "On the question of internal trade barriers, the first ministers have agreed that we're going to work to eliminate as many of those internal trade barriers as possible, and they set June 30, 1994, as the deadline for doing that. We reached this agreement in March 1993. We've had our trade ministers working very actively on that. As a matter of fact, at this moment Minister Clark and his parliamentary secretary are in Toronto dealing with the question of internal trade barriers."
That's Mike Harcourt, June 27, 1994.

Here's what they say about TILMA down east. "B.C. and Alberta have achieved for themselves what the agreement on internal trade" - the latest reincarnation of provincial relationships prodded on by the federal government - "failed miserably to do for all ten provinces. They have created a clear and enforceable liberalized environment for trade and commerce inside Canada."

That's the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies.

The need is great. Canada's productivity is lagging behind that of most of its competitors. Ultimately, this is reflected in Canadian wages, chronically about 20 percent lower than those in the United States.

The need to reduce barriers in our economic union has been studied to death. Over 20 years ago the Macdonald royal commission into the economic union lamented our failure to open up trade between the provinces. Federal and provincial governments regularly profess their commitment to strengthening the Canadian common market with little to back up their speeches, at the end of the day.

Meanwhile, regional trade agreements abound in the world. The European Common Market is a resounding success, and there's never before been greater mobility of labour and capital around the world. Historical enemies such as Germany, France and England can open their borders, but Alberta and British Columbia cannot. We should be able to grasp the simple principle of treating persons, goods and services equally regardless of origin.

In fact, that sounds like such a sensible principle that maybe the Human Rights Commission can make more headway on it than governments.

As a final clincher to the debate, I would offer the economic model offered by two eminent Swedish economists, Eli Heckscher and Bertil Ohlin, in the 1920s and elaborated on in the 1930s by one of my old professors, Paul Samuelson of MIT, and further tweaked in the '50s and '60s by another of my old professors, Jaroslav Vanek, proving that these ideas are hardly new.

The gist of their conclusions is that national welfare rises for both countries - read both provinces - when they move to free trade.

You can look it up.

  

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