On June 30, 2011, The Windsor Star published Ian Blue’s op-ed discussing how a single wrong-headed legal decision from Canada’s distant past has obscured and virtually destroyed our Constitution’s strong guarantees of free trade within the country. The op-ed is based on MLI’s recent paper, Free Trade within Canada: Say Goodbye to Gold Seal, written by Ian Blue and has appeared in a number of other media sources since its June 15th release.
In the paper, Mr. Blue argues that section 121 on the Constitution Act 1867 was deliberately worded by the Fathers of Confederation in such a way as to guarantee free movement of goods and services across provincial borders. He shows how a single decision of the Supreme Court in 1920, the Gold Seal Limited v. The Attorney General of the Province of Alberta case, created a wrong-headed precedent that has led to severe limitations in free trade among provinces — the exact opposite of the intentions of the founders of Canada.
Ian Blue concludes, “There is no question from the wording, legislative history, scheme, or legislative context that section 121 is meant to create free internal trade and rightly so. Next time section 121 comes before the Supreme Court, Gold Seal should be decisively overruled and the barriers it has upheld should be dismantled.”
Read the full op-ed by Ian Blue here (PDF version)
Read MLI’s paper by Ian Blue here: Free Trade within Canada: Say Goodbye to Gold Seal
