Thursday, December 7, 2023
No Result
View All Result
  • Media
Support Us
Macdonald-Laurier Institute
  • Home
  • About
    • Who We Are
    • Who Makes MLI Work
    • Tenth Anniversary
  • Experts
    • Experts Directory
    • In Memoriam
  • Issues
    • Domestic Policy
      • Agriculture and Agri-Food
      • Canada’s Political Tradition
      • Economic policy
      • Health Care
      • Innovation
      • Justice
      • Social issues
      • Telecoms
    • Energy Policy
      • Energy
      • Environment
    • Foreign Policy
      • Foreign Affairs
      • National Defence
      • National Security
    • Indigenous Affairs
  • Projects
    • The Promised Land: The Israel-Hamas war and the future of the Jewish community in Canada
    • The Great Energy Crisis
    • Centre for Advancing Canada’s Interests Abroad
    • Dragon at the Door
    • Canada and the Indo-Pacific Initiative
    • The Transatlantic Program
    • DisInfoWatch.org
    • Competition Policy in Canada
    • Speak for Ourselves
    • Justice Report Card
    • COVID Misery Index
      • Provincial COVID Misery Index
      • Beyond Lockdown
      • COVID and after: A mandate for recovery
    • Indigenous Prosperity at a Crossroads
      • Aboriginal Canada and Natural Resources
    • Past Projects
      • The Eavesdropping Dragon: Huawei
      • Talkin’ in the Free World with Mariam Memarsadeghi
      • An Intellectual Property Strategy for Canada
      • Munk Senior Fellows
      • A Mandate for Canada
      • Confederation Series
      • Fiscal Reform
      • The Canadian Century project
      • Fixing Canadian health care
      • Internal trade
      • From a mandate for change
      • Size of government in Canada
      • Straight Talk
      • Labour Market Report
      • Leading Economic Indicator
  • Events
    • Upcoming Events
    • Past Events
      • MLI Dinners
      • Great Canadian Debates
  • Latest News
  • Libraries
    • Inside Policy
    • Papers
    • Commentary
    • Columns
    • Books
    • Video
  • Home
  • About
    • Who We Are
    • Who Makes MLI Work
    • Tenth Anniversary
  • Experts
    • Experts Directory
    • In Memoriam
  • Issues
    • Domestic Policy
      • Agriculture and Agri-Food
      • Canada’s Political Tradition
      • Economic policy
      • Health Care
      • Innovation
      • Justice
      • Social issues
      • Telecoms
    • Energy Policy
      • Energy
      • Environment
    • Foreign Policy
      • Foreign Affairs
      • National Defence
      • National Security
    • Indigenous Affairs
  • Projects
    • The Promised Land: The Israel-Hamas war and the future of the Jewish community in Canada
    • The Great Energy Crisis
    • Centre for Advancing Canada’s Interests Abroad
    • Dragon at the Door
    • Canada and the Indo-Pacific Initiative
    • The Transatlantic Program
    • DisInfoWatch.org
    • Competition Policy in Canada
    • Speak for Ourselves
    • Justice Report Card
    • COVID Misery Index
      • Provincial COVID Misery Index
      • Beyond Lockdown
      • COVID and after: A mandate for recovery
    • Indigenous Prosperity at a Crossroads
      • Aboriginal Canada and Natural Resources
    • Past Projects
      • The Eavesdropping Dragon: Huawei
      • Talkin’ in the Free World with Mariam Memarsadeghi
      • An Intellectual Property Strategy for Canada
      • Munk Senior Fellows
      • A Mandate for Canada
      • Confederation Series
      • Fiscal Reform
      • The Canadian Century project
      • Fixing Canadian health care
      • Internal trade
      • From a mandate for change
      • Size of government in Canada
      • Straight Talk
      • Labour Market Report
      • Leading Economic Indicator
  • Events
    • Upcoming Events
    • Past Events
      • MLI Dinners
      • Great Canadian Debates
  • Latest News
  • Libraries
    • Inside Policy
    • Papers
    • Commentary
    • Columns
    • Books
    • Video
No Result
View All Result
Macdonald-Laurier Institute

MLI’s Crowley welcomes ruling in NB beer smuggling case

April 29, 2016
in Latest News, Releases
Reading Time: 3 mins read
A A

MLI Managing Director Brian Lee Crowley welcomes judge’s ruling in Comeau beer smuggling trial defending founders’ intentions on interprovincial trade

OTTAWA, April 29, 2016 – A judge’s decision in the case of a New Brunswick man who bought beer in Quebec is threatening to tear down barriers to internal trade in Canada – and the Macdonald-Laurier Institute’s Brian Lee Crowley says it’s about time.

“The Fathers of Confederation forcefully argued that one of the chief reasons for Confederation was to create a single market that would unite Canadians and sweep away the petty and destructive trade barriers that divided us,” says Crowley. “150 years later this job remains unfinished, but the judge in this case has struck a courageous blow for our founders’ vision. Wherever they are, today there are smiles on the faces of Sir John A. Macdonald and his colleagues.”

Gerard Comeau was charged for transporting 12 cases of beer and three bottles of liquor across the Quebec-New Brunswick border in 2012. On Friday provincial court judge Ronald LeBlanc ruled in Comeau’s favour, writing that “the Fathers of Confederation wanted to implement free trade as between the provinces of the newly formed Canada.”

Comeau fought the charge on the grounds that laws preventing the transportation of alcohol across provincial boundaries — laws that exist all over the country — are an unconstitutional barrier to trade, something the Macdonald-Laurier Institute has repeatedly established in its work on internal trade.

“This case is a welcome opportunity to help tear down the unconstitutional barriers to internal trade that continue to disfigure the economy”, says Crowley, the Managing Director of MLI.

Logo_Placeholder_Red

He says the case promises to hold far-reaching implications for internal trade barriers, which create problems far larger than just for those related to beer and liquor. For example, companies’ ability to bid on cross-border contracts and workers’ eligibility for jobs are also affected.

The Macdonald-Laurier Institute has established itself as a thought leader on how to liberate trade between the provinces.

Lawyer Ian A. Blue wrote the 2010 MLI paper “Free Trade Within Canada: Say Goodbye To Gold Seal”, which showed that barriers to trade between the provinces are unconstitutional.

Crowley, meanwhile, has authored several columns and co-authored a paper proposing solutions for a problem that has for too long impeded the free movement of goods, labour and trade within Canada.

History has repeatedly shown, he says, that the premiers are unwilling to take a stand on the issue. Leaving it up to them has produced little other than the ineffective 1994 Agreement on Internal Trade, which has proved useless at solving the problem.

Crowley has argued that the federal government needs to take the issue out of the hands of the provinces. Instead, he says, the feds should get tough by establishing a charter of economic rights that the courts would enforce.

“What makes it worthwhile for local communities to join a federation is at least partly the promise of higher prosperity made possible by larger national markets; but to realise that promise, you must create a nation-building federal government with the power and the will to give all citizens access to opportunity wherever it may be on the national territory”, wrote Crowley in column in the Globe and Mail.

***

Brian Lee Crowley is the Managing Director of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.

The Macdonald-Laurier Institute is the only non-partisan, independent national public policy think tank in Ottawa focusing on the full range of issues that fall under the jurisdiction of the federal government.

For more information, please contact David Watson, communications director, at 613-482-8327 x103 or email at david.watson@macdonaldlaurier.ca.

Share this:
Tags: Comeauinterprovincial
Previous Post

The dark arts of deliverology will only get you so far: Brian Lee Crowley in the Globe

Next Post

The Macdonald-Laurier Institute’s Leading Economic Indicator returns, shows sluggish economy ahead

Related Posts

Commentary

An overview of water delivery systems and barriers to provision

December 7, 2023
Detractors of Indigenous compensation are entrenching public disinformation: Ken Coates for Inside Policy
Columns

Federal emissions cap a slap in the face to Indigenous peoples: Stephen Buffalo in the Edmonton Journal

December 6, 2023
Diamonds may be forever but diamond mines aren’t. N.W.T. needs to find a replacement fast: Darrell Beaulieu, Paul Gruner and Heather Exner-Pirot in the Financial Post
Columns

Diamonds may be forever but diamond mines aren’t. N.W.T. needs to find a replacement fast: Darrell Beaulieu, Paul Gruner and Heather Exner-Pirot in the Financial Post

December 6, 2023
Next Post
Macdonald-Laurier Institute

The Macdonald-Laurier Institute’s Leading Economic Indicator returns, shows sluggish economy ahead

Newsletter Signup

  Thank you for Signing Up
  Please correct the marked field(s) below.
Email Address  *
1,true,6,Contact Email,2
First Name *
1,true,1,First Name,2
Last Name *
1,true,1,Last Name,2
*
*Required Fields

Follow us on

Macdonald-Laurier Institute

323 Chapel Street, Suite #300
Ottawa, Ontario, K1N 7Z2 Canada

613.482.8327

info@macdonaldlaurier.ca
MLI directory

Support Us

Support the Macdonald-Laurier Institute to help ensure that Canada is one of the best governed countries in the world. Click below to learn more or become a sponsor.

Support Us

  • Inside Policy Magazine
  • Annual Reports
  • Jobs
  • Privacy Policy

© 2023 Macdonald-Laurier Institute. All Rights reserved.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • About
    • Who We Are
    • Who Makes MLI Work
    • Tenth Anniversary
  • Experts
    • Experts Directory
    • In Memoriam
  • Issues
    • Domestic Policy
      • Agriculture and Agri-Food
      • Canada’s Political Tradition
      • Economic policy
      • Health Care
      • Innovation
      • Justice
      • Social issues
      • Telecoms
    • Energy Policy
      • Energy
      • Environment
    • Foreign Policy
      • Foreign Affairs
      • National Defence
      • National Security
    • Indigenous Affairs
  • Projects
    • The Promised Land: The Israel-Hamas war and the future of the Jewish community in Canada
    • The Great Energy Crisis
    • Centre for Advancing Canada’s Interests Abroad
    • Dragon at the Door
    • Canada and the Indo-Pacific Initiative
    • The Transatlantic Program
    • DisInfoWatch.org
    • Competition Policy in Canada
    • Speak for Ourselves
    • Justice Report Card
    • COVID Misery Index
      • Provincial COVID Misery Index
      • Beyond Lockdown
      • COVID and after: A mandate for recovery
    • Indigenous Prosperity at a Crossroads
      • Aboriginal Canada and Natural Resources
    • Past Projects
      • The Eavesdropping Dragon: Huawei
      • Talkin’ in the Free World with Mariam Memarsadeghi
      • An Intellectual Property Strategy for Canada
      • Munk Senior Fellows
      • A Mandate for Canada
      • Confederation Series
      • Fiscal Reform
      • The Canadian Century project
      • Fixing Canadian health care
      • Internal trade
      • From a mandate for change
      • Size of government in Canada
      • Straight Talk
      • Labour Market Report
      • Leading Economic Indicator
  • Events
    • Upcoming Events
    • Past Events
      • MLI Dinners
      • Great Canadian Debates
  • Latest News
  • Libraries
    • Inside Policy
    • Papers
    • Commentary
    • Columns
    • Books
    • Video

© 2023 Macdonald-Laurier Institute. All Rights reserved.