Roundup: Beer still imprisoned

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The Supreme Court of Canada delivered their ruling in the Comeaucase yesterday, which deals with the subject of interprovincial trade barriers – in particular, those around alcohol. While this case has been widely championed as “free the beer,” what we got came down to an exploration on the nature of federalism in this country – and many observers were keenly unimpressed as they chose to uphold those particular barriers.

https://twitter.com/InklessPW/status/986964159530057728

First of all, read this Q&A with University of Ottawa vice-dean of law Carissima Mathen about the decision, so that you get some sense of how the constitution operates here, and why the Court is loathe to interfere in something of this magnitude. It’s not just alcohol sales that could be affected – its knock-on effects include supply management schemes (which the Conservatives have yet to reconcile with their “free the beer!” sloganeering), public health prohibitions, environmental regulations, and so on. And more technically, the case that led up to this decision was a lower court judge making an interpretation of settled law that they felt wasn’t robust enough to justify overturning that jurisprudence – not enough had changed – and they upbraided said judge in the ruling. This is also something that can’t be taken trivially in the decision.

https://twitter.com/cmathen/status/986988440163143681

https://twitter.com/kylekirkup/status/986968367205634048

https://twitter.com/cmathen/status/987022846936473602

https://twitter.com/cmathen/status/986988440163143681

https://twitter.com/cmathen/status/987059335623618560

https://twitter.com/cmathen/status/986971152353460224

And then there are the critics. University of Alberta law professor Malcolm Lavoie says the decision privileges some parts of the Constitution over the other, while John Ibbitson looks at what the knock-on effects could be and wonders if the result wasn’t for the best. Emmett Macfarlane is not sold on that, and feels that the Court feels too bound by old JCPC decisions that undermined the text of the constitution when they should instead be upholding it – that the intent of the Founding Fathers was indeed a centralized economic union. Some commentators think that the decision could legitimize Alberta’s bill to limit oil exports to BC, but frankly I think that analysis is beyond absurd. I do have to say that I have a degree of sympathy for the Court in not looking to overturn the entire federal order, because there would be monumental blowback. But it’s not like they said that it couldn’t be done – what it needs is the political will for the legislatures to come to an agreement on this, and there is a new internal free trade framework that is coming into place where there’s a better forum for having these discussions than we’ve had in 150 years of confederation. And I think that perhaps those who felt that the Court needed to do the work of the legislatures on this issue were doing so a bit inappropriately because we keep insisting that the Court do the hard work that the legislatures won’t, and perhaps this is another wake-up call that we need to do the actual work of making tough decisions in this country on our own.

https://twitter.com/AaronWherry/status/986991062584582144

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/986975038652821506

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/986976381794861061

https://twitter.com/PhilippeLagasse/status/986968227556179968

https://twitter.com/PhilippeLagasse/status/987049703526187008

Good reads:

  • At the Commonwealth meeting in London, Trudeau endorsed Prince Charles to succeed the Queen as leader of the institution.
  • Trudeau also wouldn’t commit to banning drinking straws (but looked forward to more conversations), but did advocate for LGBT rights in Commonwealth countries.
  • Chrystia Freeland says that new auto sector rules will be at the heart of a new NAFTA deal.
  • Amarjeet Sohi insisted that the government has rolled out 20,000 infrastructure projects as promised, not the 10,000 that the PBO found.
  • Facebook executives went before a Commons committee to give some additional apologies and assurances over privacy breaches.
  • Facebook’s not registering as lobbying also came up, and given their excuse is that they haven’t met the threshold, this analysis points out that it could be true.
  • Apparently the government’s Plan B for the Trans Mountain expansion is to find another buyer for the pipeline if Kinder Morgan walks away.
  • Charities – particularly environmental ones – are concerned there’s been silence from the government on reforming rules around political activities.
  • Michelle Rempel wants the whole Canada-US border declared an official port of entry to stop irregular asylum seekers, and I just can’t even.
  • Here’s a look at some of the policies up for debate at the Liberal convention this weekend.
  • Liberal MP Scott Simms was removed as committee chair for voting with the Conservatives condemning the Canada Summer Jobs attestation; he has no regrets.
  • Andrew Scheer says that he doesn’t feel betrayed by Maxime Bernier, but he doesn’t like the accusation of “fake conservatives.” (Was he paying attention?)
  • Here are some further thoughts from a former Conservative staffer about the need for Bernier in the party in spite of his book blunder.

Odds and ends:

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2 thoughts on “Roundup: Beer still imprisoned”

  1. Re: Free the beer decision.

    1. link problem: the link to Carissima Mathen’s article instead leads to the one by Macfarlane

    2. I sadly agree with Ibbitson: ” It reveals Canada to be a balkanized country, a collection of 10 provincial fiefdoms, with a feeble federal government that is unable to override the parochial provinces in the national interest.”

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