MSS TRACK TEAM PLACES THIRD AT ZONES /PAGE 8
FRIENDSHIP CENTRE FIGHTS FOR FUNDING /PAGE 2
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TUESDAY, MAY 17, 2016 • MERRITT NEWSPAPERS
PROVINCIAL TRADE
FIREARM FOUND
ALBAS CHAMPIONS BEER RULING Charter challenge in shotgun case
How a beer run in the Maritimes could have lasting impact on the way Canadians trade with each other
Cam Fortens KAMLOOPS THIS WEEK
Michael Potestio/Herald Cole Wagner THE MERRITT HERALD
It almost seems like an inevitability sometimes — all topics of conversation in Canada invariably end up being related (tangentially, at least) to beer. Take interprovincial trade and the Canadian constitution for example — earlier this month, Central OkanaganSimilkameen-Nicola MP Dan Albas pushed for the federal government to refer to the Supreme Court of Canada, the case of a man fined for bringing beer over the QuebecNew Brunswick border. The tinder that ignited the dispute was a $292 ticket — but Albas believes the case from the Maritimes could have an
impact on trade from coast-tocoast. Gérard Comeau, a retired line worker, was returning to his home in New Brunswick when he was pulled over with 15 cases of beer and three bottles of liquor purchased in Quebec. New Brunswick’s liquor control act forbids residents from purchasing more than 12 pints of beer from outside the province, which meant Comeau was facing a $292 ticket for his liquor run. But provincial Justice Ronald LeBlanc ruled in Comeau’s favour — striking down the ticket, and affirming the constitutional right of Canadians to the freedom of movement of goods between
LeBlanc’s decision on the Comeau case in late April, he added. Province-specific regulations on safety equipment for work vehicles for example, have impacted businesses like Merritt’s Emcon Services, said Albas. The company purchased a number of maintenance vehicles from an auction in Quebec, only to later discover that due to conflicting regulations across the provinces, some of the trucks would require pricey engineering reports to be certified as safe. They were put into storage instead, said Albas.
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provinces. “Basically [Justice LeBlanc] went into the debates for confederation and found that countless politicians from Brown to Cartier, and McDonald — names we read about in history books — all espoused that Canada should be an economic union as much as a political one,” said Albas. The right to unfettered economic trade between provinces is enshrined in section 121 of the Constitution Act of 1867, said Albas. But a string of court decisions over the past century narrowed the focus of the section, allowing regulations and trade boards to pop up across Canada — until Justice
A Merritt man who stumbled upon a shotgun hidden under a lumber pile and sold it for $80 hours later faces at least three years in jail unless his lawyer wins a constitutional argument in B.C. Supreme Court. The hearing will be the first in B.C. to challenge the mandatory three-year minimum sentence for sale of illegal firearms. Rodney Boesel pleaded guilty to trafficking a weapon in connection to the incident that occurred on May 1, 2014. Crown prosecutor Neil Flanagan outlined the events that morning, when Boesel was doing renovations at the apartment building where he lived in Nicola Valley. He came across a hidden Browning shotgun wrapped in plastic in a weedy lumber pile beside a shed. Boesel immediately called his drug dealer, who he had only recently met, and offered to sell the gun. “It was a very poor timing opportunity to make a dollar,” Boesel testified during the sentencing hearing. RCMP had arrested the drug dealer the day before and an officer answered his cellphone. Boesel arranged to sell the gun for $80 and about $20 worth of crack cocaine. An undercover Mountie made the deal the same morning and police immediately arrested Boesel. Under laws brought in by the previous Conservative government in 2008, weapons trafficking carries a three-year minimum jail sentence. That law has been found in other provinces, including Ontario, to be unconstitutional, but Flanagan said the law remains standing in B.C.
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