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Nov
25
What the Tories could be saying; but won’t
November 25, 2005 |
Kevin Brennan has a wee post up at Blogs Canada in which he notes, with disapproval, the regional aspects of Canadian politics,
our system incentivizes regionalism as the best way to build a political career, with the only counterbalance being the desire to sit in the Prime Minister’s office. It’s a powerful counterbalance, to be sure–most of the history of the Reform/Alliance/Conservative party has been shaped by it–but the effects on our national discourse have been corrosive
blogs canada
I comment,
And what, pray, is wrong with regionalism?
The entire idea of a federal state is, or should be, that different regions have different interests which are not effectively dealt with by a one size fits all central government. Many of the reasons the Fathers, in those none too sober 13 days in Charlottetown, created a federal nation was that religion, language, relative economic success (the Maritimes din’t want to fund the poor bumpkins in Upper Canada), culture and sheer distance militated against any important powers being given to the central government. And so they weren’t.
My nearly five year old asked me what the federal government did. Well, there is defence and foreign policy….ummm. Now the feds have systematically encroached upon the provinces’ powers using the golden carrot of the WWI finagled temporary income tax revenues. They have poked their nose into education and healthcare and all manner of other activities which are not, in fact, any of their business.
The myth of the utility of the central government is, to a large degree, a by-product of Trudeau’s mentor, FR Scott’s run ins with the excretable Maurice Duplesiss. The general idea was that provincial politics, producing as they did Duplesiss, Smallwood, Levesque, Aberhart, Douglas and Bennett pere, were too weird to be entrusted with the critical functions of the State such as healthcare and education. The brilliant solution to the minor problem of the apportionment of powers in 91 and 92 was the invention of tax point and the conditional transfer payment.
The rest is the last forty years of Canadian history.
Now, here’s the sad part, only the BQ is willing to suggest that the massive transfer of power away from the provinces to the central government has been a bad thing. All the rest of the time servers who purport to be politicians in the country take the primacy of the central government as Holy Writ.
The Liberal revel in it while the poor CPC is so intimidated by Central Canadian media that they cannot bring themselves to suggest that perhaps returning power and tax dollars to the provinces might be, er, not at all a bad idea. Which means the Tories are doomed to their current brilliant strategy of yelling (in a cuddley sort of a way) “Corrupt fag lovers” at the Liberals and wondering why they are only going to win fifty seats this time out.
It is possible, though not at all likely, that the Tories may, some day, realize that embracing regionalism and rejecting the Trudeaupian idea of the strong, benevolent, central government might actually win votes….Naw, never happen.
Comments
3 Comments so far
Jay,
Is it illegal to bet money on election results?
Because if it weren’t, hypothetically speaking, I’d point out that I can’t see the Conservatives getting less than 90 seats in the coming election. Split the difference and you have 70. So, hypothetically, I would would bet you $10 that they’d get 71 or more. Hypothetically, would you agree to that?
Or how about winner buys the loser a beer when they meet at some point.
Done James, see my email….
Jay, if Canada had a shortage of institutions to express our regional differences, I might agree with you. As it is not so much.
The longer version is that I fear we’re all fucked if we don’t learn to co-operate better. And I mean that…I think Canadians are at risk of being nothing more than hewers of wood and drawers of water for the United States. And that way lies membership in the Third World.
Although I agree with you about the Conservatives…if they’d talk about the issue, at least, there’d be a chance to actually discuss it.