OTTAWA – The Supreme Court of Canada has unanimously ruled there is no “constitutional guarantee of free trade” within Canada and has upheld a New Brunswick liquor control law.The highly-anticipated ruling reinforces provincial powers to make laws within their jurisdiction that may “incidentally” limit interprovincial trade.All nine judges sided with the provincial N.B. government against Gerard Comeau, a plainspoken retired 64-year-old linesman from Tracadie, who became the unlikely champion of a national “free-the-beer” campaign. Read more:The N.B. retiree whose border-beer battle could change ConfederationThursday’s ruling is a defeat for Comeau, and leaves interprovincial trade barriers within Canada intact.The judges said the constitution cannot be read as requiring “full economic integration” in Canada, saying that kind of interpretation “would significantly undermine the shape of Canadian federalism, which is built upon regional diversity within a single nation.”The Comeau ruling is about liquor not oil, and the decision did not deal with the scope of any federal law to limit or broaden interprovincial movement of goods, such as oilsands crude. But the ruling could bolster the determination of British Columbia’s NDP government which is now in a war of words over B.C.’s intention to restrict the movement of Alberta heavy crude supplies across B.C.The high court said that while the Canadian constitution prevents provinces from blocking the movement of goods across provincial borders, it does not prevent laws that have “incidental” effects on trade, such as N.B.’s Liquor Control Act. The high court concluded the main purpose of the province’s liquor law wasn’t to block alcohol imports completely but “to enable public supervision of the production, movement, sale, and use of alcohol within New Brunswick” by the liquor control board.The ...
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