Newsgroups: soc.culture.canada,can.politics
Subject: Re: Internal passports
From: emd@ham.almanac.bc.ca
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 92 21:45:21 PDT
Distribution: can
Organization: Robert Smits

golchowy@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca (Gerald Olchowy) writes:

> In article <5s3NsB2w164w@ham.almanac.bc.ca> emd@ham.almanac.bc.ca writes:
> >grayt@Software.Mitel.COM (Tom Gray) writes:
> >
> >> 
> >> There are already limits on the mobility rights of Canadian citizens which
> >> have nothing to do with aboriginal rights. Certain provinces have
> >> legislated residence requirements for the practice of certain trades.
> >> Tradesmen must be resident in Quebec to work on Quebec construction
> >> projects as one example. This has caused real resentment in Eastern Ontari
> >> as Quebec workers come into Ontario to work but Ontario workers are
> >> barred from Quebec.
> >> 
> >> This restriction is now to be specifically allowed under the Charlottetown
> >> agreement.
> >> 
> >> We don't have to wait for the world of internal Canadian passports. They e
> >> currently and are now to be placed under constitutional protection.
> >> 
> >
> >How do you arrive at this conclusion? When I read the following:
> >
> >The policy objective in the Social and Economic Union....
> >
> >  . the free movement of persons, goods, services and capital;
> >
> 
> This is only a goal, and it has been a goal of first minister for
> half-a-century, yet restrictions still exist in labour mobility,
> and internal trade barriers which are estimated to cost business
> and extra $6 billion dollars a year.
> 

All the more reason to begin doing something about it, instead of hiding 
your head in the sand and hoping it will go away. Voting No certainly 
isn't going to help solve this kind of problem - just the contrary is 
true.

> >
> >The clause above would seem to rule out this sort of restriction 
> >(although there may well be other "rules" that could be invoked here to 
> >give the same effect.)
> >
> 
> This is a non-justiciable clause, with a monitoring mechanism to
> be set up, but the political accord on the economic union allows
> for exemptions for almost every one of the existing internal trade
> barriers, and the provisions for training are inevitably going to
> create more barriers to labour mobility.
> 

There's nothing inevitable about it at all. That's simply an assumption 
on your part. There's no reason why labour training programs should erect 
more barriers to labour mobility. Indeed, when the dispute resolution 
agency is created, we will at last have some method of dealing with these 
kinds of problems when they arise.

> >Also, when I read the political accords that are supposed to follow, it 
> >says,
> >
> >" The Parliament and Government of Canada, the provincial legislatures 
> >and governments and territorial legislative authorities and governments 
> >shall not erect interprovincial trade barriers by a law or practice that,
> >(a) arbitrarily discriminates on the basis of province or territory of 
> >residence, origin or destination, and
> >(b) impedes the efficient functioning of the Canadian economic union
> >
> 
> You should read the list of exceptions in the associated political
> accord...which were part of the July constitutional text, but which
> was removed to a political accord in Charlottetown.  The economic 
> union provisions are a complete fraud, the first ministers made
> zero progress, and many commentators including Michael Wilson and
> Don Mazankowski were appalled at the initial July agreement which
> made things worse and not better, and which was why the entrenchment
> of barriers provision (which was what the July free market clause 
> really was) was removed in August.
> 
> Gerald

Nonsense, Gerald. The political accords don't contradict the provisions 
of the Charlottetown agreement - they support it. Instead of focusing on 
what might possibly, under some bizarre circumstance be wrong with the 
agreement, we should look at all the things that are right with it.
Ensuring that our country is committed to, for example, our health care 
system, adequate social services and benefits, decent access to 
education, and the rights of workers to unionize are just some of the 
reasons to support the agreement.

emd@ham.almanac.bc.ca  (Robert Smits, Ladysmith B.C.)

The way to get things out of a government is to back them to the wall, 
put your hands to their throats, and you will get all that they have. 
- Agnes McPhail