Do you care what size the creamers are during Sunday brunch? Didn’t think so. Corporate Canada, on the other hand, believes the biggest problem facing the Canadian economy today is that those creamers aren’t the same height, width and volume in Vancouver as they are in Whitehorse, Red Deer, Regina, Yellowknife, Brandon, Welland, Iqaluit, Trois-Rivières, Edmunston, Wolfville, Summerside and Saint John’s. It’s what they call a barrier to internal trade. Actually, it’s one of their only examples of a truly existing barrier to inter-provincial trade (see yesterday’s post), so they must feel really strongly about their cream or else what’s all the fuss about?
The Council of Canadians — Toronto Chapter recently asked Erin Weir, economist with the United Steelworkers union, for his views on the corporate campaign against so-called inter-provincial trade barriers, how it related to the Canada-EU free trade negotiations, and why we should be very concerned with a proposal from the Macdonald Laurier Institute, a new (ironically) libertarian think tank, to create an Economic Charter of Rights and Economic Freedom Commission.
Part 1: Crying over spilled milk
Part 2: The inter-provincial trade agenda, CETA and corporate power in Canada
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To see a back-and-forth between Weir and Robert Knox, one of three people to write the Macdonald Laurier Institute proposal for an Economic Charter of Rights, see Weir’s blog on the Progressive Economic Forum.
