SAME RESPECT FOR THE COMMON LAW

Posted on 11/10/2015

Some people are big thinkers.  Some are less so.  James Skinner is a big thinker.  The man has lived in the UK and Melbourne and recently moved to Vancouver. He had difficulty obtaining residency status when he was in Australia so he moved to Canada and now fears having the same struggle.  He is asking Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the UK to change the rules so it would be easier to move between these countries.  It would be a solution to his personal problem and allow him to skip the bureaucracy.  

The man is not asking for this for himself. He wants the four countries to loosen restrictions on visa and work permits for all their residents.

Skinner sites the success of the 28 members of the European Union as the model for his plan.

He notes that there is an agreement between Australia and New Zealand already, why not just add Canada and UK?

Skinner’s reasoning is the fact that the four countries are within the Commonwealth. "We are virtually the same people," he told The Early Editions’ Rick Cluff (CBC radio) "the only thing that divides us is the cover of our passports."

Oceans.  I thought a lot of oceans divided us, but that’s obviously the reflection of a small thinker.

Skinner said "We've had that Commonwealth tie for generations and decades in the past, we've stuck together through thick and thin, share the same head of state, the same native language, the same respect for the common law.”

Skinner, is the founder and executive director of the Commonwealth Freedom of Movement Organization. People can go onto his site and sign a petition to move this plan forward.

While I agree (and applaud) that all four of his favourite countries are in the Commonwealth, there are 49 other countries and I suspect that one of the aspects of Commonwealth partnership is inclusiveness.  

So, if four countries want freedom of movement (implying that Skinner’s views reflect that of the nations involved) they may have a right to seek changes. But under the Commonwealth name?

This trailblazer does not think his proposal is completely out there. He said "It's not something completely out there that we're proposing."

In fact he has 35,000 signatures already.

This next step is to send the petitions to New Zealand and Australia and then to the Canadian and British governments to see who else is onboard with the new Commonlaw agreement.