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TILMA
May 2, 2007
Business in Vancouver Column
by Jim Sinclair, President, B.C. Federation of Labour
April 20, 2007
It may have been Economic Development Minister Colin Hansen’s idea of an April Fool’s joke: an inter-provincial trade agreement effective April 1, negotiated in secret, that will unleash $4.8 billion in new GDP and 78,000 jobs.
Who knew inter-provincial trade arteries were so sclerotic? No one, actually. The numbers come from a Conference Board report that Hansen commissioned, but won’t release.
The BC-Alberta Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement (TILMA) is a triumph of ideology over common sense, a dubious "solution" in search of a problem that most British Columbians never knew existed, probably because it didn’t.
TILMA proponents have a lengthy checklist of potential benefits. Chiropractors and occupational therapists, for example, will now be able to practice on both sides of the Alberta-BC line without cumbersome paperwork. (This will end the shame of some border towns, which have seen an illicit trade in unregulated massages and manipulations.)
But if Western Canada’s two fastest-growing economies were crippled by trade rules, it wasn’t obvious to anyone. The problems that did exist were amenable to straightforward bilateral solutions.
But TILMA is not really about assisting business; it’s about hobbling elected officials. Its provisions cover municipalities, school boards and health authorities despite the total absence of consultation with politicians at those levels.
As a result of TILMA, offended corporations are entitled to damages of up to $5 million from taxpayers if a complaint against an elected body is upheld. There is no appeal to the courts. All TILMA complaints are handled by a review panel staffed with provincial appointments.
Because of the secrecy surrounding TILMA, it is difficult to predict its impact with certainty. We do know this much:
- Municipal local-purchase buying policies could be eliminated to the detriment of local businesses;
- Civic bylaws and zoning could be undermined or challenged by corporations claiming discrimination; and
- Professional and trades qualifications could be reduced to a lowest common denominator rather than raised to a better standard.
A school board, for example, could be stopped in its tracks if it sought to replace junk food with local produce or healthier processed food from local suppliers.
A municipality like Houston, which normally purchases civic vehicles locally, could be required to offer the business up to Edmonton or Calgary auto dealers.
These threats, of course, pale next to the province’s earlier legislation allowing to override municipal decisions to move ahead projects like Gateway or independent power production.
But these decisions, if made, would at least be implemented by elected provincial officials accountable to BC voters. TILMA processes will occur in closed-door sessions of paper-shuffling lawyers, unaccountable to voters or the courts. If you liked how NAFTA has resolved our softwood lumber problems, you’ll love TILMA.
The threat to labour standards should also concern business leaders.
The provincial government likes to trumpet that BC is "the best place on earth." We may have the best teachers on earth, because our requirements for K-12 teachers are higher than Alberta’s. Our plumbers, however, do not require the same stringent standards established in Alberta. (They are undoubtedly the best plumbers on earth, but we can’t prove it.)
Surely a competitive economy should reach for the highest standards. TILMA appears to head in the opposite direction.
Like many provincial initiatives hatched behind Victoria’s closed doors, TILMA is producing a slow, steady backlash among municipal leaders, who are poised to debate the matter at their fall UBCM convention.
Ratification of this agreement should be put before the Legislature for a full debate.
Sooner or later, Premier Campbell and his business backers will have to learn that democracy is part of the solution, not part of the problem.
