An update on the Quebec and Ontario Economic Partnership Agreement (OQEPA)

[Stop TILMA!]

All,

More developments on the Quebec and Ontario Economic Partnership
Agreement (OQEPA) from Regional Organizer Stuart Trew. Stuart can be
reached at st...@canadians.org.

The framework has been posted to: http://tinyurl.com/5pek4z
and the Nov 2007 Joint Statement has been posted to: http://tinyurl.com/6hgs9a

Best,
Carleen

On June 2, 2008, at a joint cabinet meeting in Quebec City, the
premiers of Quebec and Ontario announced that they were pursuing an
Economic Partnership Agreement (OQEPA) to “make it easier for goods to
move seamlessly and safely between the provinces,” and, with regard to
labour mobility, “to build on existing effective mutual recognition
agreements and go even further by pursuing automatic recognition for
professionals between the two provinces.” The OQEPA appears to be
strongly based on the Alberta-B.C. Trade, Investment and Labour
Mobility Agreement, which both premiers Dalton McGuinty and Jean
Charest have praised over the past year. While the premiers stated
they had released the framework for negotiations of the new trade pact
on June 2, the Council of Canadians only acquired a copy after several
requests to the Ontario government. It is not available on either
government’s website.

The OQEPA framework follows a November 2007 joint statement confirming
“the intent of Ontario and Quebec to prepare a modern, comprehensive
economic and trade agreement that will build on existing bilateral
procurement and construction labour mobility agreements and the two
provinces’ co-operation agreements. The agreement will focus on the
specifics of bilateral trade between the two provinces and
opportunities for improving economic activity on a day-to-day basis.”
This statement, in turn, follows a June 2006 Protocol for Cooperation
between Ontario and Quebec, much like the 2003 protocol between the
governments of Alberta and B.C., which eventually led to the signing
of TILMA in 2006.

To date, 11 Ontario municipalities have passed resolutions either
questioning or flat out rejecting the justifications for signing TILMA
or a TILMA-like agreement with Quebec. Many of these councils have
taken their concerns to the Association of Municipalities of Ontario,
which is currently consulting the McGuinty government on the OQEPA as
per a Memorandum of Understand with the province requiring that
municipal governments be consulted on all provincial policies that
will impact on local decisionmaking. Even though the current municipal
consultation in Ontario is a step up from what happened in Alberta and
B.C., the provincial government is not being completely open about the
contents of its agreement with Quebec. Municipal councilors attending
this year’s AMO annual convention in Ottawa (August 24-27) will have a
chance to ask questions about the OQEPA after a presentation from the
province.