Premier seeks easier trade within Canada

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 27/04/2018 (2745 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA — Amid fears about the future of North American free trade, and a pipeline spat that’s pitted premiers against each other, Manitoba Premier Brian Pallister is rallying his colleagues to break down taxes and regulations that impede trade within Canada.

“We are a federation, but we’re (also) a family,” Pallister said Friday between meetings in Ottawa.

“This is too important not to get right.”

The premier revealed he’s been quietly pushing fellow premiers to fully implement an interprovincial deal signed a year ago, which is aimed at eliminating taxes and harmonizing regulations for everything from food safety to corporate securities.

He was in Ottawa to meet with federal ministers and to drum up support for his idea by talking to national media.

Last April, premiers inked the Canadian Free Trade Agreement (CFTA), which came into force last July. Since then, there have been 23 negotiating sessions in which senior bureaucrats have been sorting out how to implement the agreement.

Pallister wants that process sped up.

“We need our premiers to… push forward on the actual implementation of what it is we’ve agreed to in theory, and make it happen in reality,” he said.

Pallister claimed CFTA could increase GDP by billions, and amount to $1,500 per family per year. He said 40 per cent of Manitoba’s exports go to other provinces.

In late July, the premiers will meet in New Brunswick. “I’ll be contacting all of the other premiers, to urge them to get this item at the top of the (agenda),” he said.

Pallister has had mixed success convincing fellow premiers to seek his point of view.

At a July meeting of finance ministers, Manitoba was the only province asking Ottawa to delay marijuana legalization by a year.

Later that month, when the premiers met, they outlined five conditions Ottawa would have to fulfil in order to meet the summer 2018 deadline.

Within the past year, Manitoba has been the sole holdout on issues such as health funding and marijuana taxation, and was second-last to agree to a climate framework.

“Being in the majority all the time doesn’t make you right,” Pallister said.

“Sometimes you have to be a little tugboat, pulling the biggest ship behind you.”

Pallister’s free-trade crusade comes as Alberta and British Columbia are clashing over the Trans Mountain pipeline extension.

“Let’s take these examples we’re seeing of delay, deferral, postponement and outright stalling tactics… and let’s move ahead on these other issues,” Pallister said.

Earlier this month, the Supreme Court upheld provincial laws that prohibited a New Brunswick man from taking cases of Quebec beer to his home province.

Pallister wouldn’t comment on the ruling, but said those who support it are not thinking clearly.

“We have an opportunity to respond to the illogical nature of, and the danger of, these types of obstructions to our ability to do business with each other,” he said.

He compared that mindset to those who want the North American Free Trade Agreement to collapse.

It’s a message Pallister will be pushing this weekend as he heads to New York to meet with investors alongside provincial Finance Minister Cameron Friesen.

dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca