Provincial Separatist Movements
Jul. 7th, 2004 07:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
c9There's been a lot of talk about provincial secession lately, mostly due to the erroneous belief that Ontario "stole" the election from the Conservatives. First, this is untrue: the Liberal vote went up almost everywhere *except* Ontario, including Alberta! But many groups are musing about how much simpler it would all be if they just left Canada, and became the Republic of Alberta, for example.
Chopping Canada into smaller pieces would do several bad things, and one tiny good thing. The tiny good thing is: each province would suddenly get to make all their own decisions, free of federal oversight/pressure.
The bad things about secession include:
- they'd have to pay for it all.
- they'd have to negotiate with all the other provinces to maintain things like national defence (or build their own armed forces), coast guard, fisheries and oceans management, Canadian Heritage, CBC, international relations (UN, NATO, NORAD, WTO, ...), with suddenly ten different answers to each situation.
- eight out of ten provinces (and all territories) would suddenly be poorer,including Quebec. Transfer payments would end, driving all those provinces into higher taxation, lowering of services, greater debt, and thereby causing worse economics, unemployment, and finally people would leave in droves (as they do already, but more) to find work, further weakening each province.
- provinces with just hundreds of thousands of people (SK, MB, NS, NB, PEI, NL) would be increasingly pressured by the media behemoth of the USA, and unable to effectively maintain cultural institutions.
- First Nations (huge issue). $, treaty enforcement across provincial boundaries, huge groups who refuse to secede (in Quebec this is a big worry for the PQ), the transitions to self-government.
Many of the things that are "Canada" are spread out across the country, and they would be damaged. To wit:
-bilingualism: NB would keep it but lower services due to cost, QC would drop any English except in Mtl, entire rest of country would drop any and all French services except in Ottawa and outside Winnipeg, if there. Bye bye two languages.
-universal health care: each province would delist services as their tax burden increased, leading to completely different coverage depending on your province, and two-tier coverage providing better health for the wealthy (who already are healthier, studies show). Bye bye universal health care.
-peacekeeping: gone, unless ten provinces and three territories agree to keep funding DND, which several would not.
-Parks Canada? no more well-maintained heritage sites.
-bank regulation? hello mergers and less service!
-the list goes on and on. Many of those would be gone (Commissioner of Official Languages) but what about the trade commissioner? Wheat Board? Space Agency? Census? Environment Canada - who's gonna give you the weather forecast??
Now maybe there are arguments to be made that provinces are not powerful enough (though I'm not convinced yet), and there are certainly arguments to be made about government accountability (although the Tories were scandal-ridden in the late 80's and early 90's, so they're no angels), but secession is a very poor option. It's even, in my opinion, a less-evolved option. Humans come to together to achieve more by sharing resources. Why would we assume that we can achieve more by dropping everyone on the other side of an imaginary line?
Remember, provincial borders were drawn by mapmakers and politicians, and have little to do with people. There are people who speak French in Ontario and New Brunswick. There are conservative reformers outside of the West. Canadians live everywhere, and chopping up Canada is going to do just that: chop up Canada, into smaller, unrecognizeable pieces.
Chopping Canada into smaller pieces would do several bad things, and one tiny good thing. The tiny good thing is: each province would suddenly get to make all their own decisions, free of federal oversight/pressure.
The bad things about secession include:
- they'd have to pay for it all.
- they'd have to negotiate with all the other provinces to maintain things like national defence (or build their own armed forces), coast guard, fisheries and oceans management, Canadian Heritage, CBC, international relations (UN, NATO, NORAD, WTO, ...), with suddenly ten different answers to each situation.
- eight out of ten provinces (and all territories) would suddenly be poorer,including Quebec. Transfer payments would end, driving all those provinces into higher taxation, lowering of services, greater debt, and thereby causing worse economics, unemployment, and finally people would leave in droves (as they do already, but more) to find work, further weakening each province.
- provinces with just hundreds of thousands of people (SK, MB, NS, NB, PEI, NL) would be increasingly pressured by the media behemoth of the USA, and unable to effectively maintain cultural institutions.
- First Nations (huge issue). $, treaty enforcement across provincial boundaries, huge groups who refuse to secede (in Quebec this is a big worry for the PQ), the transitions to self-government.
Many of the things that are "Canada" are spread out across the country, and they would be damaged. To wit:
-bilingualism: NB would keep it but lower services due to cost, QC would drop any English except in Mtl, entire rest of country would drop any and all French services except in Ottawa and outside Winnipeg, if there. Bye bye two languages.
-universal health care: each province would delist services as their tax burden increased, leading to completely different coverage depending on your province, and two-tier coverage providing better health for the wealthy (who already are healthier, studies show). Bye bye universal health care.
-peacekeeping: gone, unless ten provinces and three territories agree to keep funding DND, which several would not.
-Parks Canada? no more well-maintained heritage sites.
-bank regulation? hello mergers and less service!
-the list goes on and on. Many of those would be gone (Commissioner of Official Languages) but what about the trade commissioner? Wheat Board? Space Agency? Census? Environment Canada - who's gonna give you the weather forecast??
Now maybe there are arguments to be made that provinces are not powerful enough (though I'm not convinced yet), and there are certainly arguments to be made about government accountability (although the Tories were scandal-ridden in the late 80's and early 90's, so they're no angels), but secession is a very poor option. It's even, in my opinion, a less-evolved option. Humans come to together to achieve more by sharing resources. Why would we assume that we can achieve more by dropping everyone on the other side of an imaginary line?
Remember, provincial borders were drawn by mapmakers and politicians, and have little to do with people. There are people who speak French in Ontario and New Brunswick. There are conservative reformers outside of the West. Canadians live everywhere, and chopping up Canada is going to do just that: chop up Canada, into smaller, unrecognizeable pieces.
