[hurley_108]

Jeffrey Simpson wrote:

An excellent diplomat, winding up his years in this country, was saying last week that Canada has everything at its command. Huge geographic spaces. Enormous natural resources. A well-educated population. Good governance. Chests were undoubtedly swelling in his audience. He made us all feel very good about being Canadian.

He was talking about Big Canada, and its great prospects. He was kind enough not to speak of Little Canada, and its discontents.

Little Canada, alas, makes its appearance all the time in the parochialism that besets us and prevents Big Canada from fulfilling its potential.

Big Canada, like market-oriented countries everywhere, has an internal market. That’s important for all countries, but especially important for a small country such as Canada. Instead, we have provincial governments that epitomize Little Canada thinking, blocking the creation of a national securities regulator of the kind all other industrialized countries have.

Quebec’s opposition is predictable. The province has already achieved de facto sovereignty association within Canada, and cares little about Canada as a political entity. By voting Bloc Québécois six elections in a row (soon to be seven), French-speaking Quebeckers have withdrawn from the governance of Canada. All they apparently want from the federation is a passport and money. They are almost exclusively interested in Quebec, period.

In the next provincial election, they’re likely to return the Parti Québécois to office. The country will be plunged once again into internal debates that are boring manifestations of the Little Canada syndrome that has dragged down the country for so long.

But outside Quebec, on the securities file, Little Canada is apparent. Alberta wants to protect its small oil and gas firms, Manitoba its mutual fund industry, B.C. its own sectors. Rather than working to make the national regulator sensitive to these particular elements of the Canadian whole, these provinces are only interested in their particularisms – that is, Little Canada.

So here we have the federal government proposing a perimeter around North America to facilitate the flow of goods and services, and prevent further thickening of the Canada-U.S. border, while, inside Canada, manifestations of Little Canada – the securities regulator being only one – are everywhere apparent.

Take energy and the environment. We have energy surpluses galore, but rather than the federal government’s working with provinces to spread that energy around Canada, Ottawa absents itself and the provinces can think of nothing more than how to ship their surpluses south.

Quebec, thinking only of itself, has screwed Newfoundland for 50 years over hydro, resting its case for creaming the profits from Labrador power on contract law. Law is law, as courts have found; but justice is not necessarily law, as Shakespeare (“a pound of flesh”) taught everyone a long time ago.

There’s been no justice in the contemptuous way Quebec has stiffed Newfoundland, then and even today, since Quebec’s hydro regulator won’t let its neighbour’s power flow through Quebec to Ontario. That Newfoundland is asking Ottawa for money to support a cable to Nova Scotia is directly related to Quebec’s screwing of Newfoundland.

A federal government with gumption and money would have at least tried to expedite a three-province (win-win-win) solution, but Little Canada was allowed to prevail.

The same applies to climate change, where the Harper government hasn’t even tried to formulate a national policy. Instead, Little Canadas have gone in different directions, some bringing emissions down, others allowing emissions to rise.

Or take health care. Canada doesn’t have a national health-care plan. Instead, it has some federal dollars to help finance a series of provincial plans that may or may not pay attention to nominal national norms.

Big Canada can be Ottawa acting alone, or Ottawa acting in harmony with provinces, or the provinces working constructively together. There’s no “one size fits all” definition of Big Canada in such a sprawling, diverse country.

Little Canada is easy to define: parochialism working against other parochialisms, or parochialism sharpening itself by working against Ottawa, with provincial politicians appealing to the lowest common denominator of local prejudices.

In a hypercompetitive international world, the internal dynamics of Little Canada are a recipe for a slow, debilitating slide toward complacency, irrelevance and mediocrity. There are, alas, on the political and economic landscape of contemporary Canada, plenty of preachers of Little Canada but no one articulating and defending a vision of Big Canada.

A dreary, but I'm afraid accurate, picture of Canada.

[andyt]

We're not really a country. The provinces have way too much power. Resource income should be shared equally across the country, not create winners and losers. We should have a national education and medical system. And interprovincial trade barriers should be erased.

[BartSimpson]

It's something that needs to be resolved. Perhaps an amendment to the Charter prohibiting secession could help. What would help more, I think, is summing up the courage for Canada to adopt one language as its official language.

[andyt]

BartSimpson wrote:

It's something that needs to be resolved. Perhaps an amendment to the Charter prohibiting secession could help. What would help more, I think, is summing up the courage for Canada to adopt one language as its official language.

Fuggedaboudid. You're slowly moving toward Spanish becoming an official language. Meanwhile here there have been serious proposals to add Punjabi and Mandarin as official languages, and the more of them we import, the more the pressure will grow. But that's not fair to our First Nations of course, so we'd have to also make all their languages offical. Maybe the bible was right about Babel.

[hurley_108]

BartSimpson wrote:

It's something that needs to be resolved. Perhaps an amendment to the Charter prohibiting secession could help. What would help more, I think, is summing up the courage for Canada to adopt one language as its official language.

Did you READ the article? If so you'd see that the problem isn't only Quebec.

The problem is that any time Ottawa tries to do anything about anything all the provinces scream JURISDICTION and then sit on their hands.

[DrCaleb]

Excellent article Hurley.

[BartSimpson]

hurley_108 wrote:

BartSimpson wrote:

It's something that needs to be resolved. Perhaps an amendment to the Charter prohibiting secession could help. What would help more, I think, is summing up the courage for Canada to adopt one language as its official language.

Did you READ the article? If so you'd see that the problem isn't only Quebec.

The problem is that any time Ottawa tries to do anything about anything all the provinces scream JURISDICTION and then sit on their hands.

I appreciate that. But with Quebec getting what it wants then why shouldn't the other provinces act the same way?

It's a complex problem that can be solved one step at a time. In the cae of Quebec the underlying issue is language. Fix that and most of the issues in Quebec will fix themselves. Then go from there to start resolving provincialism elsewhere.

[Thanos]

If a 'Little Canada' attitude is what's needed to keep provincial rights intact, to prevent things like a virtual ass-raping courtesy of Big Canada programs like the National Energy Program from continually being shoved onto the provinces by Ottawa, then long live Little Canada. I have no interest in interfering in other provinces balliwicks as long as they, (a) don't diminish my rights as a citizen, or (b) don't cost me any extra tax money on things that aren't going to benefit me and mine. This is why I complain very little about what Quebec does inside their own borders. I don't live there, it doesn't affect me personally, and they have every provincial sovereign right to govern their own jurisdiction as they see fit.

Big Canada is just another way of saying that the vision of the Liberals and Dippers is the only acceptable one for the entire country, as if Toronto (and that's who this column is really directed at and for anyway) still has some sort of cosmic prerogative and overwhelming right to dictate everything, down to the smallest of the fine print, to everyone else about everything else. Screw that, and may the much better and much more just anti-centralization vision of the founders of Confederation prevail for as long as Canada exists.

[Zipperfish]

There's an ongoing ebb and flood of power between the federal government and the provinces. Right now we're in a cycle where the provinces hold a lot more power than they used to. But there's a price to be paid for that, as Mr. Simpson points out. Quebec is now virtually a sovereign country (not that stops the feds from shovelling money over to them in the vain hope that they'll come back). Alberta has figured it can do the same thing.

They are both annoying as hell because all they ever want to talk about is how important they are to everyone else and how shitty Canada has been to them. Your average Hooters has more intellect and culture than the whole of Alberta, and Quebec is filled with a bunch of cheese-eating surrender monkeys.

[CommanderSock]

Agreed with Thanos.

The provincial power structure is what makes a large, vibrant, and diverse such as Canada function in the first place.

We all have different politics. No point having a powerful leviathan to antagonize separatist stimuli.

Trudeau's attempt to centralize power in Canada backfired. Canada works best as provinces doing their own thing.

[DrCaleb]

Zipperfish wrote:

Your average Hooters has more intellect and culture than the whole of Alberta, and Quebec is filled with a bunch of cheese-eating surrender monkeys.

Maw, git mah gun. The Smith and Whatshisname.

[Thanos]

A virtual +1 to Zippy for a very funny comment, although the Alberta-slagging portion of it really only applies to the redneck apes that live NORTH of Calgary.

Centralization and concentration of power is one of the biggest engines of stagnation and the enemy of genuine liberty. And a huge problem in Canada is that instead of taking care of their own internal responsibilities, the provinces have surrendered large portions of their own sovereignty to the federal government out of lack of interest in governing certain areas and out of lack of appropriate levels of financing to do so. Once gone, as the cities in Alberta have found out ever since Ralph Klein began to strip away rights of local taxation and concentrated most of the power in the Legislature, such power is practically impossible to take back. This is a dangerous trend that's gone on for far too long at all levels all across Canada.

(I'll pre-emptively surprise Bart here by saying that I fully 100% agree with the concept of state's rights as correctly limited by the US Constitution. It's when 'state's rights' becomes the banner of the regurgitated neo-Confederate racists from Old Dixie, or that disgusting collection of barely-concealed white supremacists in places like Arizona, that I want the feds and courts to come in and stomp down on them hard. They might babble about state's rights but all they're really doing is using the cover of legitimate state sovereignty to strip away real individual rights from people whose skin colour or religions (or lack of religion) they hate. I've seen very little from the current crop of state's rights activists/maniacs in the US to convince me otherwise.)

[Gunnair]

Quote:

The West ascendant: Canada's new political power

Ted Rhodes/Postmedia News
Alberta, B.C. and the other western provinces are playing a bigger and bigger role in the Canadian economy.
.CommentsTwitterLinkedInDiggBuzzEmail.Kenyon Wallace, National Post · Thursday, Dec. 16, 2010

Canada’s rising west, now accounting for over a third of Canada’s national economic output and sitting at No. 26 on the list of the world’s largest exporters — ahead of even India and Thailand — is sparking, albeit slowly, a political sea change away from the historical Ontario-Quebec power base, experts say.

With a combined population now of more than 10 million and climbing, and an economy that now ranks 18th in the world, political scientists say Canada’s westernmost provinces — Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia — are carrying more weight in debates over national issues, such as pension reform, health and social transfers, and foreign investment, and will continue to do so as their economies grow.

The prognosis comes on the heels of the release of a new study Thursday by the Canada West Foundation that pegs Western Canada as the country’s fastest-growing region — a region that accounts for over a third of Canada’s economy, and which has one of the highest rates of college and university education in the world.

“In terms of federal-provincial relations I think you’re going to see a shift to western Canada but I think that’s going to take a while to catch up in the House of Commons itself,” said David McGrane, a political science professor at the University of Saskatchewan. “You have places like Saskatchewan and Alberta having increasing amounts of weight when it comes to national questions, and I think you’re going to see this when you talk about re-negotiating the health and social accords.”

Prof. McGrane points to last month’s decision by Industry Minister Tony Clement to deny a $40-billion US takeover bid by BHP Billiton to buy PotashCorp. as an indication of a growing provincial influence in federal circles. Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall is credited by many for pressuring the federal government not to go through with the deal.

“I didn’t know anybody could change Stephen Harper’s mind, but apparently Brad Wall can,” he said.

With Stephen Harper now one of the longest-serving Western prime ministers in decades, combined with a federal cabinet of which Western MPs make up more than 30%, the region’s interests are becoming harder to ignore.

Researchers at the Canada West Foundation, a Calgary-based think tank that dubs itself “the voice for issues of vital concern to Western Canadians,” note that while the West’s growth in both economic and political power has not gone unnoticed, the region’s dependency on natural resources could mean significant declines in growth should global commodity prices fall.

“How long can we rely on our natural resource base and how do we make sure we continue to diversity and become a place that has other things going for it economically?” said Robert Roach, a Canada West Foundation senior researcher and principal author of State of the West 2010: Western Canadian Demographic and Economic Trends. The report uses data collected by Statistics Canada, Industry Canada, the OECD and a number of other sources to produce a snapshot of western Canadian economic and population trends.

“Saskatchewan is enjoying an economic renaissance right now and has finally reversed an outflow of population. It’s urbanizing and doing well right now because of things like potash, uranium and oil, but it faces the question Alberta has faced for a long time — can it sustain long-term future on that?” he said.

The challenges don’t end there. The report notes that Western Canada is home to 60% of the country’s Aboriginal population — a population that continues to be faced with low employment, low income and low rates of education.

“While problems facing the Aboriginal population are not new, this report highlights once again that public policy is not getting the traction it needs to on that issue,” Mr. Roach said.

The report also raises the possibility for further economic diversification in light of the fact that both B.C. and Manitoba attracted more immigrants in 2008 than their share of the national population, while two-thirds of immigrants to Western Canada fall under the “economic” class, meaning they are selected for their potential to contribute to the economy. B.C. now has the largest visible minority population in the country, and the overall western visible minority population is expected to grow faster than the rest of population.

If Western Canada was a country, its annual exports of $180-billion would place it 26th on a list of the world’s largest trading regions, ahead of such countries as India, Thailand, Norway and Indonesia, according to the report.

“We don’t tend to toot our own horn. We tend to see ourselves as small and not that important,” Mr. Roach said. “Yes, we’re nowhere near as big as China, Germany and Japan, but we’re not exactly this tiny little backwater. I bet if you asked Western Canadians if India trades more than Canada, they’d say for sure. And yet that’s not the case.”

University of Calgary economist Ronald Kneebone says the recent economic downturn shone a light on the importance of the West.

“I think there probably is a recognition now that Alberta and Saskatchewan, and to a lesser extent, B.C., have really been driving the Canadian economy,” he said. “I would be betting that a large part of the reason we came through this recession in not so bad shape is because of the strength of those three provinces. We sell resources the rest of the world wants and has continued to want even through this recession. That’s kept the whole boat afloat.”
..

Read more: http://www.nationalpost.com/news/canada ... z18PYci1TA

Regionalism is ganing in strength and changing it's political colours.

[BartSimpson]

Thanos wrote:

A virtual +1 to Zippy for a very funny comment

I didn't exactly agree with the comment, but I got that +1 covered for you so you can take out that 'virtual' thing.

The part I disagree with is that a Hooter's can't have a higher IQ than Alberta does since Hooter's girls tend to be Albertans. At least the cute ones are.

[Thanos]

You should see some of the ones up in Ft. McMurray. "Hooters" literally as big around as hard hats.