Tuesday July 17, 2018
Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday July 17, 2018
Premiers’ much-hyped internal trade deal hasn’t amounted to much
June 28, 2018
On the day they released the Canadian Free Trade Agreement in 2017, all the provincial and territorial trade ministers were given a symbolic pair of golden scissors to remind them to start cutting interprovincial trade barriers.
The trouble is, they aren’t using them.
The scissors were gifts from the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, a relentless advocacy group for whom harmonizing — and ideally, cutting — government regulations is a mantra.
Its president and CEO, Dan Kelly, said he’s seen his snippy trophies proudly displayed in ministers’ offices across Canada. But one year after the trade deal took effect on Canada’s 150th birthday, July 1, 2017, has any tangible progress been made?
Well …
August 5, 2010
“It’s slow-going,” he said. The process lacks concrete timelines. He’s still waiting for the interprovincial trade committee to set priorities, let alone roll back barriers.
“I don’t think there’s anything that has changed, other than a commitment to start some work,” he said, laughing a bit when asked to identify which specific irritants have been settled between provinces in the deal’s first year of operations.
It’s easier to point to reasons things stalled.
There’s the pipeline debate in British Columbia and Alberta’s threat to retaliate, for starters, which risks “undermining the whole spirit of this agreement,” Kelly said. (Saskatchewan, another energy exporter, jumped into this fight too.)
It’s also hard to maintain momentum across 13 governments. During its time as chair of Canada’s internal trade committee, Ontario’s Liberal government (and specifically minister Brad Duguid) was a driving force in finalizing CFTA, which was announced at the premiers conference in Yukon in 2016 but not actually unveiled until the following spring in Toronto.
The chair has changed hands twice since then. First it swung to New Brunswick — home of the much-discussed Comeau case, in which that province’s right to stop its citizens from stocking their personal beer fridges across a provincial boundary was upheld by the Supreme Court. Now it’s Quebec’s turn.
Ontario’s recent change of government also delayed the distribution of a working group report on alcoholic beverages that was due by July 1 (more on that later). (Continued: CBC)
![Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator Ð Thursday January, 14, 2016 Canadian dollar will drop to 59 cents US in 2016, Macquarie forecasts A day after the loonie slipped below the 70-cent US level for the first time since 2003, a forecaster at investment bank Macquarie says he expects the loonie to lose another 10 cents to reach an all-time low of 59 cents by the end of 2016. David Doyle of Macquarie Capital Markets Canada Ltd. lowered his Canadian dollar forecast to 59 cents US on Tuesday. That would eclipse the all-time low for the loonie, set on Jan. 21, 2002, at 61.79 cents US. Doyle knows of what he speaks. Last February, when the Canadian dollar was valued at just over 80 cents, he Ñ correctly, as it turns out Ñ predicted the loonie would hit 69 cents US at some point in the next 12 months. It did so Tuesday. "Once [the loonie] reaches this level," Doyle said, "it should remain subdued through [the end of] 2018 and potentially even longer." Doyle's new forecast doesn't see the loonie above 65 cents US at any time between the end of 2016 and the two years that follow. The loonie has been whipsawed of late by oil and the U.S. dollar. Oil prices can't find a bottom, with a barrel of the North America crude oil benchmark dipping below $30 a barrel for the first time in 13 years on Tuesday. That's dragging the loonie down with it, as Canada's dollar is widely considered to be a play on oil prices. But strength in the U.S. dollar is making the loonie look even worse. Economic uncertainty makes investors flock to assets perceived as safe, and for the most part none are perceived to be safer than the U.S. dollar. That drives up the greenback's value. So while the Canadian dollar is sliding lower compared to most currencies, it looks especially cheap compared to the U.S. buck. (Source: CBC News) http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/macquarie-loonie-forecast-1.3401644 Canada, USA, dollar, loonie, currency, George Washington, bridge, cross, borde](https://i2.wp.com/mackaycartoons.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/2016-01-14.jpg?resize=700%2C574&ssl=1)
David Doyle of Macquarie Capital Markets Canada Ltd. lowered his Canadian dollar forecast to 59 cents US on Tuesday. That would eclipse the all-time low for the loonie, set on Jan. 21, 2002, at 61.79 cents US.
