The Yukon government wants (wanted) to sign on to the BC/Alberta Trade, Investment, and Labour Mobility Agreement. I would like to support the ongoing discussion about TILMA in the Yukon with seven observations.
1. There was no participation in the negotiations, no input from the Yukon.
Long lists of items that may harm private and public sectors as well as communities in the Yukon have been cited. The concept of transferring large areas of government authority to TILMA dispute resolution panels, who are not elected, could be illegal.
2. Governments and organizations that deal with professional standards consult, with or without signing on to TILMA, regarding harmonization of job qualifications. TILMA creates more bureaucratic layers that any process of change is then forced to work through and it would not be surprising if it would make the labour shortage worse. 39 pages of terrible reading, a somewhat untypical legal document with a lot of simplistic platitudes that really don't address anything. Its so much easier to break things than to make things. There is no incentive in TILMA to produce anything positive, there are no accountability tools in it. However it is designed to stick like cancer cells. Article 20: Accession and Withdrawal spells out a notice of cancellation period that is twice as long as in NAFTA.
The Conference Board of Canada was a primary lobbyist in favour of TILMA but doesn't have the numbers to prove anything. Away from their TILMA papers they themselves in their own current, economic forecasts for BC and Alberta do not predict the slightest growth based on TILMA, but work along the lines of previous years.
3. BC and Alberta parliaments have voted on TILMA, there were no community consultations which is unusual for a sweeping legislation. Only after the fact, simultaneously with the implementation phase, which is now, have a range of BC municipalities had the opportunity of passing resolutions against TILMA.
Aspects like improving the labour mobility are elements of a false language that is meant to hide troublesome facts real people are left to struggle with.
4. Negative effects are and were being felt in BC communities before implementation. School boards already have refrained from removing vending machines with harmful foods fearing future TILMA litigation. These school boards have a very real concern. Different to NAFTA there is no burden of proof to describe the damage one claims to have suffered. TILMA is different in its ability to supersede any civic structures arbitrarily simply through pitching the categories of irrational market fundamentalism versus the common good. TILMA is bound to breed an unheard of level of inflation in the litigation industry. Not only will this negatively effect the bringing up of healthy children in schools, it is clearly introducing many new disadvantages to the typically smaller businesses who produce and manufacture healthy foods. Its an element of a command economy, a government manipulation of the market on behalf of manufacturers for sugar and chemical saturated soft drinks and other useless stuff that cannot compete on its own merit. The agribusiness and food giants run a big part of their "business" out of vast legal departments. These lobbyists have a permanent foot in the door of governments and work against food safety, against meat inspections etc. It doesn't appear to be healthy to further strengthen these shadowy and excessively bureaucratic schemes. This type of market interference has nothing to do with the kind of conventional market regulations for infrastructure and social security purposes, a context in which stable markets evolved since the Great Depression. My concern is that the BC/Alberta trend towards a modern form of aristocratic domination will in the long term weaken the entrepreneurial economy that people rely on to survive.
5. "Appendix 1 - Regulatory Bodies with established Dispute Resolution Procedures",
as the only appendix exhausts itself in three lines below the aforementioned headline that states:
"British Columbia Utilities Commission
British Columbia Oil and Gas Commission
Alberta Energy Utilities Board"
That means no business that suffers through the protectionism and subventions by the Alberta or Federal Governments in the tar sands will be allowed to apply for the assembly of a TILMA dispute resolution panel. An extraordinary and solitary exception. This really is aristocratic, class justice, no false language in the straightforward Appendix 1. The tar sands industry is permamently protected within TILMA but not subject to TILMA actions. This is exposing the entire TILMA as very phoney because it is in violation of its own omnipotent definitions. The tar sands conglomerat doesn't want to get mixed up in the expected turmoil caused by the anti democratic TILMA sweep. Different to Wal-Mart and Monsanto, Suncor and the Alberta Energy Utilities Board cannot become more protectionist than they already are. The protection within TILMA might over time increase the precedence weight favouring the tar sands conglomerate in their numerous legal situations outside of TILMA, why should that become the Yukon's dirty business?
The Appendix of the document is most permanent, its set apart from the list of exceptions which are temporary to various degrees.
6. "Article 22: Further Co-operation", in its second paragraph is quoted here complete because it determines the direction of the agreement:
" 2. Parties shall continue to jointly advocate for the removal of any Federal Government measures that operate to restrict, impair or distort trade, investment and labour mobility between the parties."
Article 22 effectively renders every exception temporary, which also means the agreement provides the power to nullify land claims in the Yukon. It might not happen, but unbelievably so, under TILMA it could happen. Remember, different to NAFTA, TILMA does not put a burden of proof on the applicant, whether government entities or other parties. As it once was in the Inquisition trials, it can then be sufficient to project an accusation with the goal of obtaining a final ruling. Canada Council for the Arts, the National film Board, public broadcasters, medicare and public schools could over time be abolished, many things that we hold dear could disappear.
7. I refuse to believe the Yukon Government has the mindset of Gordon Campbell and Ralph Klein who signed TILMA, or shares their intentions in the most destructive areas. Its enough if the YG lawyers don't read the information.
TILMA comes along as a real bastard, no matter how one looks at it there is absolutely nothing on it that says Yukon.
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