Mr. Speaker, I gave away a little of my firepower in questions to the hon. member opposite. I indicated to the hon. member that it was very clear when I read the documents relating to the bill that nobody on this side of the House believes this is the be all and end all.
The Prime Minister in his remarks last year when this was all done clearly indicated that he thought it was a step, albeit a small but very necessary step, toward the full removal of internal trade barriers in Canada.
I understand what the hon. member was speaking about. I also understand that sometimes we have to crawl before we walk and walk before we run. There is no question the bill is long overdue. There is no question that the internal trade barriers perpetuated by various provincial governments, with the blessing of the federal government because perhaps in the past the federal government has not shown the necessary leadership, have caused a real mishmash of provincial trade barriers not just in the movement of goods and services but also of people. It is fair to say to individuals watching that the bill is a step in the right direction.
The hon. member opposite mentioned that it did not apply to the energy sector. That is exactly right. By the time the agreement was signed last year there was no agreement among the 13 players on how we should treat the energy sector. If my reading of the memorandums of last year is correct, it was agreed that there would be some framework to deal with the energy sector by the end of this month.
The hon. member raised some good points. If he waits 10 days-and perhaps we could wait 10 days-he will see the process concluded and there will be some guidelines, rules and framework for the energy sector.
It is clear the bill is long overdue. It does not impose anything on the provinces. It simply reaffirms the requirement in legislation of the federal government to fulfil the commitments made last year when the agreement was made. The bill provides a federal legislative framework. It does not impose anything on anyone. It encourages the type of debate that has taken place in the past and the consensus building that has arrived at the framework of today.
I mentioned that perhaps it was easier to conclude the free trade deal with the United States because there were only two partners, or the NAFTA because there were only three partners, than it was to deal with the Canadian provinces and territories.
Everybody knows there is a problem within Canada. Everybody knows there are certain things that must be done to make us more competitive. One only has to look at some of the areas that are covered. The agreement covers 10 very specific areas: procurement of goods, services and construction; investment; labour mobility; consumer related measures; agricultural and food goods; alcoholic beverages; natural resource processing;
communications and transportation; and environmental protection. It is a step in the right direction.
I want to focus my speech a little away from the bill per se and at a microcosm of some of the problems in Canada. I want to specifically focus on Atlantic Canada. There are four Atlantic provinces including the three maritime provinces of P.E.I., New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. It is very clear to me as a student of history and a student of Murray Beck, a political scientist who has written some very good and thought provoking accounts of the political history of Nova Scotia, that Nova Scotia has always felt it was at a disadvantage in Confederation.
Prior to Confederation we were free traders. All one has to do is look at our location. We are stuck out on the northeastern coast of North America. We have the closest deep water, ice free port in Halifax to the great circle route. We were great world traders. When we got into Confederation it started to change because the trading patterns were forced by regulation and by legislation to be east-west when we normally should have been trading across the ocean and north-south.
My friends from the Bloc Quebecois might be interested to know that the first secessionist movement in Canada did not happen in the province of Quebec but in the province of Nova Scotia. There was great debate shortly after Confederation on whether or not the province should stay. We chose the right course and we chose to stay even though there were some restrictions to our growth. We decided the way to deal with it was to stay in a larger unit and to try to address the problems.
Since the 1970s the Council of the Maritime Premiers realized that three small provinces, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick, had less than two million people and had far too many barriers to internal trade in that small region. Each of those provinces had its own professional accreditation boards. A pipe fitter in New Brunswick may not have been able to work on a job in P.E.I., or a barber in P.E.I. may not have been able to cut hair in Nova Scotia. Those were the barriers to trade set up during that many decade period of protectionism in an effort to create jobs and keep them in each area.
We have had much talk in Atlantic Canada about how we must become more competitive and less reliant on government. If we go back to 1989 there was a gentleman by the name of Dr. Charles McMillan who wrote a very good document called "Standing Up to the Future" in which he talked about the need for maritime Canada to take up the challenge of integrating our economies. He said very clearly that governments must pursue a strategic program and that economic integration is a key to economic prosperity. He said:
The strategy must be based on eliminating trade barriers, encouraging new investment and being outward oriented.
Back in 1989, after almost 19 or 20 years of having the Council of Maritime Premiers, it was clear we recognized the requirement of reducing internal barriers to trade.
In 1991, after Dr. McMillan's paper had been around for about a year and a half, the Council of Maritime Premiers responded very forcefully and effectively. It came up with the Maritime Procurement Act which stated that for goods tendered for $25,000 or more, for services of $50,000 or more and for construction contracts of over $100,000 there would be no more discrimination based on where the company that bid for those contracts came from in Maritime Canada. Clearly the movement had begun to reduce those barriers to trade.
In 1992 the council came up with the Maritime Economic Co-operation Act. It has been working on a number of major projects since then. The Council of Maritime Premiers has a number of boards, organizations and bureaucrats working for the continued removal of barriers to the mobility of apprenticeship trades people. The primary goal of this whole focus in maritime Canada is to become more competitive.
Everybody in maritime Canada knows one of the stumbling blocks to removing internal trade barriers has been the free movement of beer in Canada. Although this may not seem like a big deal to some people it is a big deal in Atlantic Canada for two reasons. We had come out of a period when individual provinces had restrictions on the movement of beer between provinces. They did that to protect brewing industry jobs in their areas.
With some of the agreements in the past, we found products were flooding into Nova Scotia but perhaps Nova Scotia or New Brunswick products did not have equal access to the most lucrative market which is in Ontario.
My point in all of this is the maritime provinces, the traditional have nots, the ones which seem to be left out of the economic cycle when it is on the up swing but always first included when it is on the down slide, have long since recognized the key to competitiveness is to remove internal barriers to trade.
I have always been a free trader. People in my area and all over Canada will only prosper and be able to recognize their potential and our potential as a nation if we work aggressively to remove those barriers to trade.
This is not a perfect bill, but it is closer to perfection than anything I have seen in the six years I have been here. I urge members of the Reform Party opposite who seek a perfect bill to support the direction of the bill and to work with us on this side and with members of the Bloc Quebecois to ensure the people we represent have access to markets unfettered by regulatory and non-regulatory barriers to free trade.