Mr. Speaker, I thank you for the opportunity to speak to Bill C-375, an act to amend the Agreement on Internal Trade Implementation Act. I would like to thank the hon. member for his hard work in presenting his case to support this.
This bill reflects worthy intentions and concerns which I am sure the hon. member will share. Most of us in the House are very directly aware of the importance of trade to Canada. Each of us represents constituents who are in some way involved in trade, be it business, banking, retailing, agriculture, construction or some other exchange of goods and services, capital or labour. Canada is a trading nation.
Trade, the efficient exploitation of our natural resources and effective use of our innate abilities and skills, has enabled us to grow and prosper both as individuals and as a nation. We trade, both internationally and internally.
Internationally, we operate in an increasingly exciting world market, one that is continuing to become more and more open, dynamic and demanding. We have benefited, and will continue to benefit, from the opening of that market and the opportunities it gives us to sell and to make the best of ourselves and what we have.
Internally, we are blessed with being an economic union that has a high degree of coherence and integration. The relative openness, freedom and efficiency of our domestic market, compared to international markets in many other parts of the world, has served us well. Our internal trade is worth over $300 billion a year and accounts for 1.9 million jobs.
In many, indeed most, areas or sectors of economic activity, our internal market has made it possible to develop the abilities and to increase the areas of competitive advantage, expertise and experience. It has given Canadians, business and industry the basis on which to become strong and effective competitors in both foreign markets and against foreigners and foreign suppliers here at home.
That said, it remains evident that our domestic market is not quite perfect. In the past, national business, industry and professional associations have cited numerous examples of companies, businesses or individuals being unable to invest or supply goods or services in certain parts of the country.
Many individual workers have found that their ability to work anywhere in the country is hampered by the fact that some local authorities refuse to recognize their qualifications, skills or experience. Such problems are not unnatural where jurisdiction over trade, commerce and economic matters are shared between different levels of government.
That was one of the reasons why the federal, provincial and territorial governments negotiated the agreement on internal trade in 1994. That agreement reflected the readiness of governments in Canada to try to deal with the problems of conflict, overlap and duplication of their measures without entering into discussion of, or affecting, their respective constitutional powers. The substance of that argument treats how governments agreed to exercise their respective powers. It does not change those powers.
The agreement on internal trade, as the minister of industry emphasized in 1994, was a consensual agreement. It is important to remember in considering this bill that the basis of the agreement on internal trade was voluntary acceptance by each of the governments that signed it. That is the main reason for the weaknesses and shortcomings of the agreement and perhaps why it has failed to
live up to the expectations of many since it came into effect in July 1995.
Those weaknesses have been analysed and reported a great deal in the last year. The hon. member who proposed the bill before us has elaborated on several at length and on numerous occasions. What he has said is not without basis and many of his criticisms of the agreement are backed in very respectable and respected quarters.
When they testified before the House committee concerning the Agreement on Internal Trade Implementation Act, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, the Canadian Manufacturers' Association, the Certified General Accountants Association of Canada and others all identified a range of problem areas: the decision making process; the dispute settlement mechanism; the exceptions and exemptions; the putting off of issues to future negotiations; and the failure to meet the deadlines set for those negotiations.
The intent of this bill is to correct at least one of those problem areas, the decision making process. Unfortunately the proposed changes cannot accomplish that. Indeed, no action by this House alone can change that agreement.
The question might be asked then, why did the government introduce the Agreement on Internal Trade Implementation Act last year and why was it passed into law? The short answer is that the legislation the House passed was necessary to give the government the tools it needed to meet its own responsibilities, obligations, and commitments under the agreement.
The fundamental flaw of the bill before us is that it fails to recognize that simple fact. The legislation could not and did not pretend to make the agreement binding on any of the other parties. The provinces and the territories are bound to the agreement on internal trade by their acceptance of and signature to that accord. Changing the Agreement on Internal Trade Implementation Act, as the bill proposes, could not affect how the agreement works.
This bill is inappropriate because it fails to recognize that the agreement on internal trade is a consensual agreement and not just a federal creation. Besides that, the proposed amendment is unviable because it is based on simplistic analysis and cloudy assumptions regarding constitutional powers. It unwittingly mixes apples and oranges where it joins the exercise of federal constitutional powers with proposals being negotiated among the provinces in the context of the agreement on internal trade.
Many, if not most, matters under the jurisdiction of the agreement are sectors or areas where jurisdiction is shared with the provinces. Some areas are exclusively within provincial constitutional power. Where provinces are negotiating a proposal but one or more do not agree, this bill would have the federal government impose a majority view on all.
If the matter under negotiation were clearly or even arguably within provincial jurisdiction, the ability of the government to impose a solution would at best be open to challenge in the courts. Instead of being a way around the impasse, this amendment is more likely a recipe for protracted legal wrangling. It could make matters worse, but the intention of the person submitting this bill are honourable.
Even if, suspending all critical faculties, we were to allow that the kind of action envisaged by this amendment might be legally sustainable, it is not necessary. The government already has the power to regulate under sections 91 and 121 of the Constitution Act where it considers that doing so would be desirable and practical. Not only would the amendment be unnecessary but it would have the perverse effect of restricting government's ability to act in the national interest by limiting its powers in two ways.
First, the amendment makes the exercise of that power contingent on a majority of the provinces being in favour. The government's record in consulting interested parties before taking action speaks for itself. However, limiting our ability to take actions in areas within our jurisdiction to the approval of the majority of provinces as this bill would do is an unreasonable and unnecessary constraint.
Second, the amendment would further constrain the government's ability to take action in circumstances where both sections 91 and 121 of the Constitution Act would be invoked. Given the intent of the bill, the specific linkage would limit even further the practical scope of the kind the government action envisaged. It is difficult to determine whether that particular linkage is intentional or inadvertent. It is certainly poor drafting.
It is clear that there are several reasons this bill does not merit the support of the House. First and foremost it is not viable. It is inappropriate. It is unnecessary. It is poorly conceived and drafted. But the intent is honourable.
There is another reason this bill is wanting. It is coercive and divisive in a context where co-operation is necessary to achieve practical results for workers and companies.
In summary, this bill would amend section 9 of the Agreement on Internal Trade Implementation Act, the section that gives the government authority to make orders pursuant to the dispute settlement procedures of the agreement on internal trade. The intent is to fix unilaterally a major AIT weakness by applying to or in all provinces any measure under negotiation in the AIT on which the provinces cannot reach consensus but for which there is
majority support, that is, two-thirds of the province and 50 per cent of the population.
The bill misconstrues both the nature of the AIT and the real scope for unilateral action under federal constitutional powers. New personnel and financial resources would probably be required to enforce any regulations made under the agreement.