National Post (National Edition)
Enough on the plate (wars)
An Alberta-Saskatchewan licence plate war is starting to get ugly, as well as outright ridiculous.
The latest move in this comedy of errors is that Alberta’s Deron Bilous, the minister of economic development and trade, on Thursday filed a trade injunction against Saskatchewan that could cost the province millions.
It follows a week of interprovincial gamesmanship.
Last week, Saskatchewan fired the first shot when it declared that all Alberta contractors working on government highway and building projects in the province would have to get a local licence plate.
Saskatchewan Transportation Minister Dave Marit said he had heard Saskatchewan contractors were being barred from Alberta work sites because they did not have Wild Rose Country plates.
“There could be 10, 15, 20 different vehicles on a job site on a highway job. Now they’re going to have to have a Saskatchewan plate instead of an Alberta plate,” he said.
Bilous countered that there was no such rule in Alberta.
“(Saskatchewan Premier) Brad Wall needs to smarten up. He has one week to kill this ridiculous restriction or we’re going to be taking them to court,” steamed Bilous.
Enter Brad Wall: “We won’t be backing off on it,” he said the day after Bilous’s threat.
Enter Alberta Premier Rachel Notley on the comedy circuit during a speech to the Edmonton Chamber of Commerce: “If any of you drove here, and have a Saskatchewan licence plate, you might want to move your car, because we are towing.”
Then this week Bilous upped the ante with a Wednesday night deadline.
“They have until midnight (Wednesday) to smarten up, come to their senses and walk this back or we will be filing a trade injunction,” he said.
Apparently, no one smartened up. When the deadline came and went, Bilous announced he had informed the free trade New West Partnership’s trade secretariat, kicking off a dispute resolution process.
If Saskatchewan loses — and Bilous is confident it will — that province could be on the hook for up to $5 million. But it may take until the fall to resolve.
“This petty and ridiculous restriction has real consequences for businesses and hard-working people,” said Bilous. “We are going to end it.”
But someone should have told Saskatchewan Economy Minister Steven Bonk that there was a problem because on Thursday it all seemed like news to him.
He said he was “taken aback” by talk of a trade injunction, and said he thought the dispute could be settled amicably.
“No one’s looking for a trade war or a trade spat. I thought that we agreed to meet in January to discuss all issues,” he said.
Does Bonk not read the newspapers?
It may well be that this is a shot in a nascent trade war between arch-Conservative Wall and Socialist Notley. Over the past year, Notley has taken steps to create a protectionist market around Alberta’s craft beer industry — a move that has hit some Saskatchewan breweries pretty hard.
Wall may now be retaliating with this bizarre licence plate rule.
However, it’s all very juvenile and one can only hope that the arbitration process under the New West Partnership involves taking two trade ministers into a room and banging their heads together.
Oh, and by the way: Bonk is paid about $140,000 and Bilous earns about $170,000.
You’d think for that money the governments would have got grown-ups.