Well criminal law is a partial exception but still there are requirements for the particular province. It is imperative to the consumers of the legal profession that local bars protect them from free floaters who would like to practise everywhere or anywhere in the country but would not have a degree of knowledge of the provincial laws that would allow for a proper and responsible practice.
I will admit that things might be easier to manage if the credential process were centralized if the feds took it over, or regulated credentialing. Easier is not necessarily better.
Yes, professionals and those with specialized trade skills are protected to some degree from overseas competition by strict credentialing. Granted, professionals in each province might even be protected to some degree by the control local professional guilds have over credentials but so is the consumer and so are standards of quality. The system is not perfect. Professional guilds can become protective and inward looking and there is no question about that. We have seen several examples of the barriers that are imposed.
However, we must ask the philosophical question: Who can do a better job of looking after quality standards of a profession and the interests of consumers of specialized services, professional guilds or the federal government? Who should be allowed to impose regulations, those who are intimately involved in the delivery of the specialized service or product, or the federal government?
Where should the onus for protection of consumers and the regulations of local standards be located? Locally or in Ottawa? Needless to say the Reform Party believes that things affecting provinces directly must be under the direct purview of the provinces. The more local the better; the more decentralized the better.
There is a fundamental philosophical difference between myself and my party and my hon. colleague from Winnipeg North. We believe Ottawa should play as small a role as possible in the affairs of the provinces and in the affairs of business and the professions.
We believe consumers must be protected from abuse not by Ottawa but by the provinces. Where the private sector can do an adequate job of something we believe the government at any level has no business whatsoever getting involved. I know that is not the opinion of my colleague. Obviously not.
The proof is in the pudding. The motion if passed, which I hope it never will be, would establish a bureaucrat monster not unlike so many of the bureaucratic monsters that currently lurk in this town.
In closing I applaud the intentions of my colleague but this will not work and it should not be allowed to happen.