Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to participate this afternoon. Now that we have gotten past all the lawyer self-adulation, we can get back to some blue-collar debate about beer.
Today's motion by our hon. colleague from Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola kind of highlights the dilemma that we have in Canada, the dilemma of the federation itself. Canada is a country made up of 10 provinces and three territories that in many ways operate quite independently, but we still fall under Confederation and under the country of Canada.
We have gone through some cycles in our 149 years. It was not that long ago that we had the federal government playing a fatherly role to the provinces, and I can think of programs such as the national energy program, the Canada Health Act, and so on. However, then we went through what I believe was 10 years where we had a Conservative government that believed that there was federal jurisdiction and there was provincial jurisdiction. By and large, under the leadership of our previous prime minister, it was felt that the federal government's responsibility was to stay out of the jurisdiction of the provincial governments.
It is pretty obvious, by some of the actions we have seen happen so far with the current government, that we are probably moving back more into a time when the federal government will be trying to play that fatherly role with provinces again. I am thinking about things like discussions we are hearing today about a carbon tax. We are also talking at various committees about looking at bringing in pharmacare. We always have the debate in this House about supply management. In some ways it is timely that we have this debate about the motion that has been brought forward today.
As has been been mentioned on several occasions, it is clearly pointed out in the Constitution in section 121 that free trade between provinces is part of our Canadian Constitution. However, there are clearly a number of examples of how that has moved over the past number of years. The most recent debate relative to my colleague's “free the beer” campaign is but one issue that tends to rear its ugly head, on more than one occasion.
As an example, labour mobility has become a big issue between provinces. While we have the Agreement on Internal Trade, there are still varying degrees of constraints around labour mobility. I think about the health care field where we have scope of practice, which is not the same from border to border. There are also certain professions that are regulated differently from province to province. Then if we move more into the apprenticeship role, clearly the certification around different apprenticeships varies from province to province. We have issues relative to food inspections and food safety. Then of course, the one that is probably the most troubling is that certain provinces prevent out-of-province companies from competing for government contracts. We all know that takes place on a fairly regular basis across the country.
However, I want to talk a bit about the successes that I am aware of. In a previous life I had the opportunity to serve in a provincial legislature of Alberta. At that time there were a number of agreements that we managed to negotiate. First, with the Province of British Columbia, the Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement was very popular in our two provinces; so much so that Saskatchewan came on board in 2010. I believe a number of issues have been resolved through TILMA. The issue that comes to mind was when the provinces of British Columbia and Alberta decided that to have a weigh station, or a truck regulation stop, in each province did not make any sense as the trucks were travelling either across the Trans-Canada Highway or the Yellowhead Highway. They had to stop in Alberta and get inspected. Then they crossed the B.C. border, and another inspection had to take place.
What Alberta and B.C. did on the Trans-Canada Highway was jointly set up an inspection station to make sure that regulations were adhered to, but it was a joint initiative. It not only saved money but saved a lot of hassle for the trucking industry. Those are the kinds of issues to which the provinces could find some resolution, if they were prepared to work together.
I do have some concern as we move forward. I have to admit that I think it is in the Liberals' DNA that they become protective and more parochial in the way they do business. We all know that we have a number of Liberal governments across the country today. I hope that in the so-called negotiations that are under way, which the federal government is talking about, that the message can be sent that we should be opening up borders, not working to close them.
Coming back to the particular motion that is before the House today, I clearly support the concept of what my colleague is attempting to do relative to the reference to the Supreme Court. I am not one who would normally suggest that the court is the right place to handle these kinds of decisions, but this particular case is a classic case of where a reference to the Supreme Court would give direction to provincial governments in a number of other areas.
I would strongly urge government members to reconsider their position and support the motion that is before us today. With that, I appreciate the opportunity to contribute.