It's all about the economic union. "In many respects, barriers to trade and to mobility are being eliminated more rapidly outside our borders than within them," Flaherty's Finance Department gnomes write. Time to fix that. The provinces will have to recognize each others' professional credentials, as well as those of immigrants, so a dentist doesn't have to become a cabbie when he moves to Calgary, whether he's from France or Moncton. Provinces will be asked to allow neighbouring provinces to transmit electricity through their territory to a third market. They'll be asked, for the umpteenth time but with more urgency, to permit a single securities regulator for the whole country. And non-Atlantic provinces will be asked to harmonize their sales taxes with the GST, just as the Atlantic provinces did, to cut administration costs.The urgency behind Confederation in 1867 was largely due to the end of the US Civil War, and the fear that a number of well-armed and newly-unemployed Americans might come North. But the underlying drive was an economic one - the desire to make a single market out of British North America.
One hundred and forty years later, it's still incomplete. If Harper & Flaherty manage to tie the Provinces closer together, then I say good on them. Oh, and the idea that there's no Federal regulator for Securities in this country is bizarre.
1 comment:
Yeah, I saw that too and had the same reaction. But keep in mind that so far you (and I) are just agreeing with Paul Wells' interpretation of what Harper plans.
So Wells might be projecting his own sense of what should be done onto what Harper and Co. are actually planning to do. But I hope not.
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