The BC Trucking Association says it does not support the legislation presented by the BC government that would give the province to apply rates to US commercial traffic that travels to and from Alaska.
On Thursday, the province approved the first reading of its sweep Economic stabilization (Rate response) The law, which Prime Minister David Eby has characterized as “enabling legislation”, giving the Government the power to respond to the economic threats of the United States as they arise.
The bill includes a section that allows tolls, rates or charges to apply both traffic to traffic that travel along the coast.
That power, said the president of the Dave Earle association, is one of those who cares for many of its members.
“The free circulation of goods throughout North America is the nucleus of our business,” he told CBC Radio to the west Host Sarah Penton. “Anything that puts at risk, be it a barrier, time, rate, taxes, whatever … that is always a very serious concern.”
Radio to the west8:13The BC truck association does not support BC government plans for legislation that could paste US trucks traveling through BC to Alaska because it will be bad for the economy in general
The BC Trucking Association does not support BC government plans for legislation that could paste US trucks traveling through BC to Alaska because it will be bad for the economy in general.
He questioned the practicality of the measure, given how many different entry points there are in BC of several provinces and states, any of which could eventually connect to Yukon and then to Alaska.
He also noted that the province’s own figures, provided by the Ministry of Transportation, show that less than 10,000 trucks travel through BC to Alaska annually, a lowercase figure compared to those traveling through the United States to deliver goods between Mexico and Canada that, he said, raises “the prospecting of reprisals.”
“The US president has been very chaotic, I think it is fair to say, in his focus on things,” said Earle.
“While there are hundreds of vehicle movements through British Columbia in a week given to the state of Alaska, there are tens of thousands of truck movements through America from Mexico to Canada that move fruits and vegetables and other products.”
“We need to be very, very attentive about what are the impacts of our decisions.”
In fact, federal numbers show that Mexico is the third largest commercial partner in Canada, with a relationship that includes more than $ 2 billion in fruits and vegetables that reach the country every year.
On the contrary, most of Alaska’s foreign trade is with China, with most goods, more than 90 percent, which enter the state by boat instead of road, which makes any action by BC more symbolic than practice, Ear said.
Eby admitted the point when journalists asked him, saying that the main reason why he would go to Alask
The legislation will only be used as necessary, says Premier
Eby has said that it would only use the legislation as necessary and that there are provisions built in the proof that any action taken through it is the result of the reasonable belief that the province is threatened by a foreign government.
To that end, he said, he had no immediate plans to establish tolls instead, but saw them as an important option if the commercial war initiated by the president of the United States, Donald Trump, increased even more, threatening to undermine the provincial economy.
“The current US administration is unpredictable,” he said Thursday. “We, as a government, must be ready to answer.”
The opposition leader, John Rustad, is critical, characterizing the bill as giving the government “the power to do what they want without supervision.”
In tolls, he said, the bill could not specify that rates would be aimed at American vehicles and, in fact, could be applied to Canadian drivers, which called “a very slippery slope.”
Hamish Telford, an assistant professor of Political Science at the University of the Valle de Fraser, said he understood the concerns of potential overreach, but said that the proposed legislation seemed to have integrated reasonable safeguards.
“We are in unprecedented times,” he said. “It does not seem to me to be out of line to have legislation that gives our executive the agility to respond more quickly to the actions than the president of the United States can take against us.”
Like Earle, he wondered if Trump could obtain wind from the possible road rates and increase in kind, pointing out the recent experience of the Prime Minister of Ontario, Doug Ford, around electricity prices.
“Commercial wars tend to increase,” he said, emphasizing that the root cause of the dispute was Trump. “Many people are going to hurt.”
