From: golchowy@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca (Gerald Olchowy)
Subject: Royal Bank hypocrisy and the Telecommunications Sellout
Organization: University of Toronto Chemistry Department
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 14:06:31 GMT

"Does the Charlottetown Accord pass the Royal Bank unity test?

by Terence Corcoran, Globe and Mail business commentator
(one of the most radically "pro-business" "pro-free-enterprise"
business columnists in Canada)

Posted without permission...
...from the Globe and Mail, October 2, 1992: page B2:

When the Royal Bank's economic analysis of the benefits and costs of
Canadian unity or disunity was released, attention riveted on the
sensational implication of disunity, defined as complete Quebec
separation under its own currency and without any common market with the
rest of Canada.  The Prime Minister, in particular, seized the analysis
as evidence of what would happen if Canadians voted NO in the
referendum.

Ignored by the PM, and everyone else, was the Royal's outline of what it
considered to be the "essential structural elements" of unity, the basic
federal requirements to "maintain the integrity and well-being of our
national economy."

In other words, the bank set out the underpinnings of national unity
and, presumably, the prerequisites for a constitutional arrangement to
which Canadians should vote YES.

The bank listed 11 elements: 1) A single currency; 2) National fiscal
policy; 3) Interprovincial free trade; 4) A strong voice in foreign
affairs; 5) Efficient and stable financial system; 6) Tax and regulatory
harmony; 7) Efficient national and international transportation system;
8) Efficient and reliable telecommunications system; 9) A flow of
quality immigrants; 10) Internationally competitive research and
development; 11) Access to social policies.

This is hardly a stirring Magna Carta of popular liberation and national
purpose, bankers being bankers.  But at least the Prime Minister might
have attempted to answer whether the Charlottetown Accord meets these
bare-bones requirements set out by the bank whose views he appears to
hold in such high regard. 

Since the Royal has institutionally thrown its weight behind the Yes
vote, one assumes that the bank has concluded that the Charlottetown
Accord goes a long way toward fulfilling its own shopping list.  TO
ASSUME THAT, HOWEVER, REQUIRES STRETCHING THE SINEWS OF ASSUMPTION TO
THE BREAKING POINT.

On four of the elements (1,4,5,10), the Charlottetown Accord is more or
less irrelevant.  On all the others, however, Charlottetown falls
somewhat short of meeting the Royal's tests.  Where is Charlottetown on
national fiscal policy?  On tax and regulatory harmony (GST, for
example)?  Is the bank happy with Charlottetown's plan to turn billions
of federal training funds over to the provinces and the Bob Raes of the
nation? 

On two issues that the Royal has championed over the past couple of
years, Charlottetown appears to be an OUTRIGHT FAILURE.  One,
interprovincial free trade and the free movement of people, goods,
services, and capital, has virtually been shut down as an objective.

A second high-profile constitutional focus of the Royal has been
telecommunications, No. 8 above.  Three years ago, the bank produced
another major analysis, Telecommunications Issues and Options for
Canada, a forceful argument in favour of telecommunications as an
EXCLUSIVE FEDERAL CONSTITUTIONAL RESPONSIBILITY.

"The time has come", the report said, "for the federal government,
particularly now that the Supreme Court has decided that it alone has
responsibility, to develop a new national telecommunications policy."

Does Charlottetown further this objective?  In the view of one of the
authors of the bank's original report -- Hudson Janisch, University of
Toronto law professor -- Charlottetown take Canadian telecommunications
in the other direction, away from federal responsibility and national
standards of competition, towards provincial controls and regionalism.

In an interview yesterday, Prof. Janisch said that since the Supreme
Court ruled in 1989 that Ottawa has authority to regulate the industry,
Ottawa has been gradually abandoning its constitutional powers,
conceding more and more telecom responsibility to the provinces.

Communications Minister Perrin Beatty has already announced
"unprecedented" provisions for consultations.  The provincially owned 
telephone companies in Saskatchewan and Manitoba have been given
five-year monopoly guarentees.  The CRTC has been bowing toward
provincial demands recently.  And now Charlottetown appears to take
provincialization of telecom a major step forward.

Charlottetown reinforces provincial powers and promises to further
restrict, if not remove altogether, federal responsibility.  The
telecommunications provisions of the Charlottetown report says Ottawa
"should be committed to negotiate agreements with the provincial
governments to co-ordinate and harmonize the procedures of their
respective agencies."

Further, it says, "the Constitution should be amended to provide a
mechanism to insure that designated agreements between governments are
protected from unilateral change."

What does this mean?  Prof. Janisch agrees it appears to say that the
federal government's existing exclusive responsibility for
telecommunications is being abandoned to the provinces, or if not
abandoned then certainly shared.  So much for the Royal Bank's
insistance ---and the national business community's insistance over the
past three years --- that federally set national telecom standards are
ESSENTIAL TO CANADA'S FUTURE ECONOMIC SUCCESS.
	

Xref: sparky soc.culture.canada:6952 can.politics:7419