Vision Vancouver councillor Tim Stevenson had to pick up the Georgia Straight before he could learn more about the potential impacts of the Trade, Investment, and Labour Mobility Agreement.

The two-term councillor and former provincial cabinet minister asked for a memo from city staff several weeks ago regarding TILMA, the agreement between the provincial governments of B.C. and Alberta. TILMA came into effect April 1 to liberalize trade, investment, and labour mobility between the two provinces.

According to the Web site www.tilma.ca –the official TILMA site for the B.C. and Alberta governments–this agreement creates "the second largest economic region in Canada". Municipalities and other provincial "government entities" will come onboard officially in April 2009 after a two-year phase-in.

"The more I looked over the documentation, the more concerned I became," Stevenson said. "So I thought we'd better take a long, hard look at this and get the city manager to come back with a report. That's been sitting now for quite some time, and at various times [COPE councillor David] Cadman and I keep asking where it is. We keep getting a response that it's an in-depth issue with many components to it and that they were in the process of completing it. Then, boom, I pick up the Georgia Straight."

The Straight reported last week that park board corporate-services director Anita Ho had sent an e-mail to park board staff and commissioners about the deal. Ho's message stated that the City of Vancouver legal department advised her: "TILMA is an agreement between BC and Alberta and has no legal effect on the City of Vancouver unless and until BC enacts or amends legislation which applies to or affects the City."

"In short, the City is not subject to this agreement under the Vancouver Charter," Ho wrote.

Ellen Gould, research associate with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, told the Straight she disagrees.

"There is no question that, unless Vancouver gets an exemption, within two years the city will automatically be covered by TILMA regardless of what the Vancouver Charter says," she said. "This point has been made absolutely clear in AIT [Agreement on Internal Trade] cases, where panels have ruled repeatedly that it matters not a whit if a government is acting completely legally within its delegated authority–it can still be found in violation of the agreement."

B.C. Economic Development Minister Colin Hansen told the Straight he believes that Gould is "unequivocally" wrong.

"She has been spreading a lot of misinformation that is not based on any legal foundation," Hansen said. "There is nothing in TILMA that affects the ability of municipalities to pass bylaws, with one exception. That is, if they put in place procedures or bylaws at a municipal level–when municipalities become subject to it in two years–that discriminate against a company or an individual based on which province that province or company or individual is from. Then it would be a violation of TILMA."

Gould said she is concerned that TILMA's Article 3 states: "each party shall ensure its measures do not impair or restrict" trade, investment, or labour mobility. She said this leaves a very "low threshold" for complaints against government entities such as municipal governments in the event of a dispute.

"What NAFTA panels have said is, you pretty much have to take someone's property, seize it or regulate it in a way that they are deprived of the benefit of it–so it means a substantial interference with someone's property," Gould said. "So you read that language and that's different from saying restrict. Restrict seems to be less [of a barrier] to me. It's such extreme language that nobody's ever stuck it in a trade agreement before. So we don't know what a panel would say. Saying you can't restrict or impair seems to be setting the bar a lot lower for complaints."

Hansen said the TILMA dispute-resolution panel consists of 10 panellists–five from each province. He said he is responsible for choosing the five from B.C.

"It's in everybody's best interests to proceed with TILMA," he said. "If everybody reads the information coming out of the Council of Canadians and some of the other fear-mongering that is going on, I would have concerns if I were a municipal councillor. Unfortunately, that stuff is not based on fact."

Meanwhile, the British Columbia School Trustees Association held its annual convention from April 19 to 22 and passed a motion demanding public meetings on TILMA and an exemption for school districts from all provisions of the agreement.

In response to the issue of general awareness of TILMA, Hansen dismissed criticisms that he has not made information public enough. (There was no debate in the legislature when TILMA came into being.)

"Our Web site has a plethora of information about TILMA," he said. "We've been adding to it constantly over the past year with information."

If that is not enough, Hansen said, he invites anyone with concerns to e-mail him directly at edminister@gov.bc.ca .