Having written stories about the Free Trade Agreement, the North American Free Trade Agreement, the Multilateral Agreement on Investment, and a host of others, forgive me if I’m skeptical about trade agreements.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for free trade. However, trade agreements seem to be more about protecting someone than actually opening up markets. And why do they always have to be negotiated out of the public’s eye?
The latest one to come down the pike is the Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement - affectionately referred to by all those in Bedrock as TILMA.
It came into effect on, no fooling, April 1 and is designed to break down trade barriers between British Columbia and Alberta. It will be phased in over the next two years. The Conference Board of Canada says the deal could add $4.8 billion to real GDP and create 78,000 new jobs in B.C. Heady stuff.
The idea is great and something that has been needed for some time. I know of the comments that came out when writing about all those other trade agreements was that there are more restrictions between provinces than there are between countries. It’s absolutely silly to think that its easier to do business with Alabama than it is with Alberta, but, in may ways it is. Breaking down the barriers is great but, once again, why do we need secretly-negotiated deals?
The knock against such deals is always that they result always seems to gravitate to the lower standards, not the higher. In other words, if there are stricter rules in one jurisdiction, it’s easier to relax the tougher rules rather than toughen up the lax ones.
According to the powers that be, they say that won’t be the case with TILMA. Government negotiators have apparently told the NDP that the “intent” of the deal is to gravitate to the higher standards. That would be a first for trade deals.
However, the question of whether the deal will mean British Columbia will drop its six per cent sales tax or whether Alberta will adopt such a tax, has not yet been answered.
I would think that under such a deal, which is designed to open up trade between provinces, it would easily be argued that B.C.’s sales tax is prohibitive to trade and that the tax must either be eliminated or harmonized.
And that brings up the other sticky, sticky problem with these trade deals - democracy. They often trample on democracy. That’s what happens when governments make trade more important than people. The PST is a prime example. Like it or not, it was created by our democratically elected representatives and only our Legislative Assembly should be able to abolish it. But perhaps TILMA will take precedent.
Municipalities are a little leery of the deal because they worry about their powers being usurped by major corporations. Remember, the Liberal government has already enacted legislation allowing it to overrule local city councils when it came to development projects, so the spectre of more interference isn’t really welcomed.
Whether any of this will come to pass will be played out over the next couple of years as the agreement is phased in. On the surface, it’s something that needs to be done. We don’t need scads of restrictions between our to provinces. However, we also don’t need an erosion of the powers of our locally elected officials.