Decentralism and provincial power appeals to the Canadian right for the obvious reason that the smaller the government, the less powerful and capable it is. Provinces do have the advantage of being "closer to the people," but that is of little use if they have no money to spend on the people, as was the case during the Great Depression. That economic cataclysm spurred the creation of Canada's equalization program, subsequently entrenched in the 1982 Constitution, and designed to ensure all Canadians enjoy reasonably comparable government services at reasonably comparable levels of taxation.(Edit: fixed typo.)
Should Bernier, and presumably Harper, get their wish and cancel all shared-cost programs, replacing them with individual provincial tax points of vastly unequal value, the social and economic devastation in every province, with the possible exception of Alberta, would be calamitous.
All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Well said
Frances Russell nicely summarizes the outcome if the Cons get their way in decentralizing and defunding social programs:
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