Alberta, Saskatchewan spar over job site licence plate ban

COMMENT

Alberta’s minister of economic development has an ultimatum for the government of Saskatchewan. And a deadline.

“Brad Wall needs to smarten up,” Deron Bilous told reporters Wednesday. “We’re giving him one week to kill this ridiculous restriction or we’ll be taking him to court.”

Them’s fighting words. But then, it was Saskatchewan that fired the first shot in this latest trade war between the two rival provinces.

Wednesday morning, Saskatchewan’s ministry of highways and infrastructure banned all vehicles with Alberta licence plates from the job site of any new Saskatchewan public infrastructure project.

“New contracts awarded by the ministry will require suppliers to ensure that no vehicles displaying Alberta licence plates are present on ministry-funded work sites,” said the ministry’s release. “This will include contractors, sub-contractors, consultants and workers. Ministry staff will enforce the contract provision through job site monitoring.”

Vehicles driven by workers from Manitoba, British Columbia or any other province will be quite welcome.

“Saskatchewan contractors tell us that vehicles with Saskatchewan plates are not welcome on Government of Alberta job sites,” David Marit, the province’s minister of highways and infrastructure said in the release. “Saskatchewan operators feel forced to register their vehicles in Alberta if they want to do business there.”

Later, Marit went even further, telling reporters that Saskatchewan contractors who work in Alberta are forced to “buy permits” to do so.

Nobody in Alberta seems to know what Marit is talking about.

Brian Mason, Alberta’s minister of transportation, insisted Alberta has no such rules or policies.

Paul Cashman, who speaks for the Alberta Roadbuilders and Heavy Construction Association, said they’ve never heard of such a practice.

Terry Parker is executive director of Buildings Trades of Alberta and the former business manager for the Saskatchewan Building Trades. He’s never heard of such a rule either.

“And being from Saskatchewan, I’ve never heard that a person from Saskatchewan couldn’t drive onto an Alberta work site.”

Parker was incredulous that Saskatchewan could announce such a rule.

“After we’ve given them so many employment opportunities here, they’re saying Albertans can’t go to work in Saskatchewan? Are we sure it’s not a hoax? It seems too far-fetched.”

But Wednesday afternoon, Marit made plain that the licence plate ban is straightup protectionism, explicitly designed to help local construction companies obtain a larger share of the Saskatchewan construction marketplace.

“This is an action we took to support Saskatchewan contractors,” Marit told reporters in Regina. “We are here to protect the business community of Saskatchewan and the contractors of the province of Saskatchewan.”

Alberta-based companies, Marit insisted, have an unfair advantage because Alberta has no provincial sales tax.

“Alberta companies aren’t paying six per cent on their vehicles. This is to level the playing field.”

Saskatchewan isn’t even pretending to honour the New West Partnership trade agreement that links British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. Under that deal, the western provinces have non- discriminatory procurement for all provincial construction contracts worth more than $ 100,000. Protecting local companies simply isn’t allowed.

Eric Adams is a professor of constitutional law at the University of Alberta. He believes the measures also violate Section 6.2 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the mobility rights provision, which has been held by the Supreme Court to protect the rights of Canadians to be employed outside their resident province.

“I think it’s clear the Saskatchewan government is trying to limit workers from Alberta from gaining a livelihood as part of the Saskatchewan economy.”

Now, as an Alberta columnist, I’m happy to offer a full- throated defence of the rights of Alberta workers and Alberta businesses. But Saskatchewan taxpayers are also being hosed by this cockamamie ban. The whole point of free trade and free markets is that competition helps to moderate prices.

If Alberta companies are handicapped in bidding for work in Saskatchewan, if Alberta workers are de facto prevented from accessing Saskatchewan job sites, prices go up and labour efficiency goes down. And it’s Saskatchewan that will pay for that.