I wish to claim immediately I am not a bigot(probably lost most of you to continue reading), but can we please get back to our roots as a nation founded under British rule and law. Our nation welcomed millions of immigrants who built this country into what it once was. Of late the immigration has been less in those who would assimilate to those that bring conflict, grudges, religious zealotry, and a desire for revenge. They do not assimilate into the Canadian mosaic, but rather form ethnic neighborhoods where like minded can cohabitate. Yes in the early years after the war we had Italian, German, Portuguese, Asian and South African communities but they were intertwined within the mosaic. but today that is not the case. I for one would preclude anyone coming to this country with the express purpose of radicalizing existing elements already in this country. We have seen the recent photo's of a Iman calling for the slaughter of Jews spewing this hatred from a balcony in a Canadian city. This is the type of individual who should not and never be allowed into this country. We need immigration but immigration from like minded peoples who will bring their talents and hopes to this country and add to the mosaic that is Canada. We need not those who wish to tear us apart from within.
We need to get back to the basics, PEACE, ORDER, AND GOOD GOVERNMENT
I enjoyed this article and agree that the Federal Government needs to realign itself with its core purposes and stop meddling in areas of Provincial jurisdiction. For example, Ottawa cracks a big stick with the Canada Health Act, but the system is desperate for innovation and news areas of funding. The Provinces should be encouraged to pursue innovation, but instead Ottawa plays the “no two-tier, American style” healthcare card and the mediocrity continues.
One topic that is left out of this fine article is the continuing influence of the Family Compact or Laurentian elites view of Canadiana. Confederation was designed by and for these groups but unfortunately, nobody could foresee a sprawling Canada from sea to sea to sea and adjust the political institutions to reflect a new reality of population and economic growth that demands change. In my view, that is what is really broken about Canada and we can’t seem to confront the absurdity of the situation and make it effective to work for all Canadians.
Actual fixes require grunt work and a bit of forward thinking. Both Trudeau and Trump are populists, just on different sides of the political spectrum. They focus on hot button topics just before elections in desperation. The real work in managing the country is technical, boring, but extremely necessary.
Fully agree that the country is profoundly broken, and have extremely low confidence that it will be repaired. Some may be of the view that all we need do (as if this was not already a monumental challenge) is repair or reconstitute our institutions and the quality of our leadership. If only it were that simple.
Canada is broken because Canadians are broken.
Our leadership is beyond incompetent, and our institutions decrepit and dysfunctional as a consequence. But the leadership we have reflects the voting choices of Canadians. Trudeau, surely the most incompetent, divisive, contemptible, and vacuous PM in Canada's history, is not the problem, he is simply the manifestation of the problem. Canadians replaced a plodding and somewhat dull economist with a drama teacher whose sole qualifications for PM were his last name, a stylish coiffure, a "sunny ways" personality that was all show, and colourful socks. They removed a PM who at least paid heed to monetary policy, with one who asked to be forgiven for not thinking about monetary policy, and said the budget would balance itself (how did that one work out, Trudeau voters?). Canadians got exactly what they deserved. I see no point to continue the litany of Trudeau's incompetence and the dysfunction of our institutions - that litany is well known (or should be), plus it is the incompetence of Canadians as a whole that is the root of what ails this broken country. We got precisely the governance we voted for. Our democracy worked!
Some now-chastened Trudeau voters could well point to the alternatives and defend themselves with the legitimate question "what choice did we have?". If all choices were unpalatable, then that makes my case - those were the choices Canadians themselves provided - Canadians are broken, but at least their democracy worked!
Let's consider another prominent issue, very much in the news these days, that reflects not only the dysfunction of our leadership and institutions - but the collective psychosis of Canadians - our "cherished" health care system. Once upon a time, a great many Canadians pointed to our universal healthcare system as one of key pillars of Canada's identity. I was a skeptic of that belief, but have now come to understand it to be exactly correct (https://www.queensu.ca/gazette/stories/how-healthy-canadian-health-care-system). A plurality of Canadians set their hair on fire at the mere mention of allowing a parallel private system similar to those functioning in such heartless and backward countries as Australia, the UK, Sweden, Germany, and others in Europe. Any such heresy is seen as adopting an American-type health care system - that is the level of discourse in this country - intellectual bankruptcy. Reasoned debate is shut down by name-calling and promises of a health care apocalypse (frightening to imagine given the current state of affairs....).
Canadian courts seem to "think" similarly - look at the case in B.C. where the B.C,. Supreme Court decided that prevention of a private health care alternative does indeed deprive some patients of the right to security and life, but that such deprivations, as a matter of government policy, satisfy the tenets of "fundamental justice". Well, so much for the charter of rights and freedoms. This was of course appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada, which refused to even consider the appeal (https://vancouversun.com/news/ian-mulgrew-supreme-court-ducks-on-providing-needed-guidance-on-medicare), and gave no reasons, despite the fact that the appellant's case essentially duplicated a successful challenge, and positive Supreme Court verdict, in Quebec in 2005. Those same Supreme Court justices, coincidentally, go to the front of the line with any health issues in Canada's so-called universal, equal access health care system. https://www.fraserinstitute.org/blogs/supreme-court-ruling-ends-hope-for-many-patients-waiting-for-care-in-canada
The response to all of this from many if not most Canadians? Nary a shrug at the Supreme Court, presumably the guardians of Canadians' charter rights, punting without comment on an issue rather topical these days. Instead, it is back to the "tried and true" Canadian approach of tossing more borrowed money at a system that has proved conclusively, time and time again, that more money does nothing to resolve its problems. https://www.fraserinstitute.org/sites/default/files/comparing-performance-of-universal-health-care-countries-2022-execsum.pdf
If Canadians truly want to fix Canada (assuming sufficient awareness to realize it is broken and thus in dire need of fixing), they should look not to their elected officials - they should look first to themselves. I suspect a great many of will not, or should not, like what they see.
We either hang together or hang separately. The provincial fiefdoms should consider this and dismantle the absurdity of internal trade barriers. I'm no fan of federal interference in provincial matters, but unless those trade barriers are removed, our very productivity will continue to decline. Perhaps we should revisit federalism, but this would likely provoke the provinces into demanding more barriers not fewer ones.
Disagreeing with the last paragraph: You can’t live in a place while you gut it and rebuild it on the original foundations. You have to live somewhere else while you do that. If you are going to live somewhere during a major renovation, it has to be done piecewise, with a good plan, and it will require some compromises. It will be more expensive, take longer, and test your patience.
Hopefully I didn’t take the analogy too far.
Some solid points in the body of the article, though. An essential thing you need to do before a major reno is make sure your foundation and primary structure is sound. We should remind ourselves and each other what is great about Canada. Why did ‘we’ start this country? why do we care about it? What do we want to achieve? Big picture, clear-eyed, serious, core value type stuff. Then we can get to work.
Oh my-- colour me intrigued. Given that we got here mostly as a result of our own doing, I'm more than a little skeptical of our ability to get ourselves out of this mess. At least not until things get much, much worse.
I think convincing the bulk of Canadians that they need to care about politics and the direction the country is heading - and maybe become educated about economics and other things beyond the MEME's that show up on social media is the first challenge.
The number of people who take sound bites from political parties and then repeat them as if they are experts, is astounding.
Recently, I watched part of an ad for an NDP provincial leader candidate. In it, there was a claim about the CPI in Alberta and that it was higher in AB than the rest of Canada. I found this interesting because I knew that last year, Alberta's inflation had trended below the Canadian average, so I immediately suspected cherrypicking of data. Turns out, I was right - the year as a whole in 2023 had Alberta inflation (based on the CPI) running below the Canadian average. I will note that AB had the same provincial government last year, as it does this year - while there has been a policy change in the form of no longer waiving 100% of the provincial fuel tax, there has also been an influx of population both from other provinces in Canada and from immigration - all of which would predictably increase prices and inflation.
But anyone who watches that ad without looking at history or having context, would think that the current AB government is causing higher inflation than the Canadian average. These are the dumb sorts of things that politicians use media and marketing messages to get Canadians to care about. If someone is busy arguing and debating over how government policies have caused a small amount of inflation (ignoring all other factors) - well how on earth can we hope to get informed citizens who are motivated to improve the state of Canada. Heck a large number of people that I know, don't celebrate Canada day in any way shape or form, find the flag offensive, and have exactly zero national pride.
I share the desire to improve the situation - but I often see the conversations happening on facebook, and think to myself that we have a long ways to go. I don't know how we get the government driving change to improve the current situation until the population is also supportive of it and demanding it. (Our politics seems sort of backwards lately - where politicians stir up and amplify what is already popular opinion, rather than informing people of important things and then encouraging them to support needed programs and policies. This is one area where I sincerely hope that Pierre Pollievre steps up if he wins the next election.)
You are mostly correct Andrew. The main issue (zeroing in a bit from the longer historical lens) now is that the Feds have almost zero funds left over to do Federal “stuff” — after having spent them mostly on aspects that should have been left to the provinces or municipalities. The other issue is that, as some have said, how will this be fixed? Who will start that process? This is a major aspect and recognizes the inertia that (constantly?) afflicts us currently.
I just dont see how PEI will ever agree to having their constitutional political power lowered to the level of Guelph Ontario. Things will have to break much more before we change how we do business with each other. I just dont see the political leadership to bring any sort of semblance of consensus.
Very insightful commentary. I suggest reading this back to back with Jamie Sarkonak's piece published yesterday in the National Post on the massive failings of Ontario's public education system. When you realize that nobody in the next generation will be intellectually equipped to solve any of our problems, the need get on with it NOW becomes frighteningly obvious.
Confederation predated the rise of the modern welfare state by a good 70-80 years, which explains the constant federal excursions into provincial areas of responsibility. The powers that Confederation reserved for the federal government were the significant, substantive areas of responsibility before health and education became the major focus of governments. In the meantime, the nation has also changed significantly in character with the population shifting heavily towards cities.
If I had my way, I'd raise the major urban regions of Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver to the status of provinces. I'd combine the Maritimes into a single provincial level entity. That would level out a lot of the size disparity between regions and ensure they've got appropriate representation. I'd also transfer responsibility for health and education to the federal level. The provincial levels could take on more of the character of local health authorities or school boards. Hopefully that would address some of the siloing that happens between jurisdictions, where provinces don't share learning and expend resources developing bespoke solutions to common problems.
All of this would require a constitutional amendment that would have to be negotiated by the provinces who'd be stripped of power by the process, so it's not likely to happen.
That may well be the first paper Andrew has written in years that actually makes complete sense. I have said since my teens (that would be quite a few decades ago) that Ottawa needs to do the very few international things we need done: Defence, embassies, Canada Post, international trade treaties, Criminal law (actual crimes not made up ones like "you forgot a piece of paper to own something"), salt water Fisheries, Fed jails and very little if anything else. Supply & Services needs to go away, it is the antithesis of what it claimed to be on arrival: efficient contracting. It is the biggest cash sucking impediment in Ottawa. After maybe MultiCulturalism. The Provinces need to grow a (few) set(s) and take over their own tax collection. And right after that Federal Income Tax needs to go to zero and with it the bloated cash sucking (literally) mob in Rev Can. The Mint needs to re-introduce the $1000 bill and the federal government needs to revise the GST to a two tier: 5% for the basics and 15% for luxuries (like say a car over $50,000 is a luxury, a truck over $70,000 is a luxury, but your groceries, gas, etc. is basic). That's WAY more than enough revenue to run a government and corporate tax needs to be based on top line revenue. And it needs to be flat. You make up to $1 million send 1%, $10 million send 2%, over $100 million send 5%. Every company wants to grow sales so use a number THEY want as big as possible for your base. And let company employees and owners KEEP the rest! We need to fire the UN - 100% get out and dump that bunch of cash sucking ingrates - , actually contribute to NATO, and eliminate for at least 5 years "refugees". You want to immigrate, integrate, and contribute; show us what you got, we'll get back to you, and yes you can wait right where you are until we decide. Everyone else look elsewhere. Harsh? Maybe but its time WE Canadian Citizens took back our country and divesting 75% to 90% of the Federal bureaucracy is a solid start. If a province wants a MultiCulturalism Ministry have at it, we'll give it to you free. But its yours. No returns. Provinces can run tourism, Securities, power, agriculture, anything to do with "things". They can take care of internal Law Enforcement just fine. And yes, dump the CBC.
Exhibit 1: Quebec law prohibits architecture firms to be majority owned by non-quebec residents. The result? QC firms freely open offices in other provinces and any architect who is not willing to move to Québec cannot be a majority owner of a Quebec firm.
This is but ONE example of protectionism I know of. I can't even begin to imagine how many of these protectionist laws we have on the books... reminds me of the French... Pouah!
Peace, order and good government have been disappearing from Canada under Justin Trudeau’s Liberals. Candidates for MP should emerge from constituencies, not from Trudeau’s wedding party, office staff, ethnic pressures and the “Laurentian elite”.
Vote inducing in 2015 dangled the carrot of Proportional Representation. Post election, that idea was stopped before being considered. After the scandals, ethics violations and wasting tax payer dollars, how much worse than First past the Post could PR be?
Dear Pessimist ....I believe Canada et al is a work in progress and can not have such a final judgement until the process is over (pray tell that never happens), however looking to tear down and go back is ridiculous. That is not to say there are no problems and some big ones. It's only because of the past that we have got here, so looking back to LEARN and not going back with tearing down, in order to create in hope a somewhat unified vision for the future. Creating a vision, a goal and striving towards it as a team is the "hope of Canada" and that hasn't changed since 1864. To say that "Canada is a slo-mo train 'wreck' to the inevitable "is more of a sign of your and perhaps many others view of choice and has more to say about you than Canada. I dare say that most of us see Canada as a slo-mo train 'TRIP' to a future than can be envisioned. I would plead with you to use your powers of observation to help us see a vision of hope. In reality , looking around Canada is not a bad place to live......
I wish to claim immediately I am not a bigot(probably lost most of you to continue reading), but can we please get back to our roots as a nation founded under British rule and law. Our nation welcomed millions of immigrants who built this country into what it once was. Of late the immigration has been less in those who would assimilate to those that bring conflict, grudges, religious zealotry, and a desire for revenge. They do not assimilate into the Canadian mosaic, but rather form ethnic neighborhoods where like minded can cohabitate. Yes in the early years after the war we had Italian, German, Portuguese, Asian and South African communities but they were intertwined within the mosaic. but today that is not the case. I for one would preclude anyone coming to this country with the express purpose of radicalizing existing elements already in this country. We have seen the recent photo's of a Iman calling for the slaughter of Jews spewing this hatred from a balcony in a Canadian city. This is the type of individual who should not and never be allowed into this country. We need immigration but immigration from like minded peoples who will bring their talents and hopes to this country and add to the mosaic that is Canada. We need not those who wish to tear us apart from within.
We need to get back to the basics, PEACE, ORDER, AND GOOD GOVERNMENT
I enjoyed this article and agree that the Federal Government needs to realign itself with its core purposes and stop meddling in areas of Provincial jurisdiction. For example, Ottawa cracks a big stick with the Canada Health Act, but the system is desperate for innovation and news areas of funding. The Provinces should be encouraged to pursue innovation, but instead Ottawa plays the “no two-tier, American style” healthcare card and the mediocrity continues.
One topic that is left out of this fine article is the continuing influence of the Family Compact or Laurentian elites view of Canadiana. Confederation was designed by and for these groups but unfortunately, nobody could foresee a sprawling Canada from sea to sea to sea and adjust the political institutions to reflect a new reality of population and economic growth that demands change. In my view, that is what is really broken about Canada and we can’t seem to confront the absurdity of the situation and make it effective to work for all Canadians.
Actual fixes require grunt work and a bit of forward thinking. Both Trudeau and Trump are populists, just on different sides of the political spectrum. They focus on hot button topics just before elections in desperation. The real work in managing the country is technical, boring, but extremely necessary.
Fully agree that the country is profoundly broken, and have extremely low confidence that it will be repaired. Some may be of the view that all we need do (as if this was not already a monumental challenge) is repair or reconstitute our institutions and the quality of our leadership. If only it were that simple.
Canada is broken because Canadians are broken.
Our leadership is beyond incompetent, and our institutions decrepit and dysfunctional as a consequence. But the leadership we have reflects the voting choices of Canadians. Trudeau, surely the most incompetent, divisive, contemptible, and vacuous PM in Canada's history, is not the problem, he is simply the manifestation of the problem. Canadians replaced a plodding and somewhat dull economist with a drama teacher whose sole qualifications for PM were his last name, a stylish coiffure, a "sunny ways" personality that was all show, and colourful socks. They removed a PM who at least paid heed to monetary policy, with one who asked to be forgiven for not thinking about monetary policy, and said the budget would balance itself (how did that one work out, Trudeau voters?). Canadians got exactly what they deserved. I see no point to continue the litany of Trudeau's incompetence and the dysfunction of our institutions - that litany is well known (or should be), plus it is the incompetence of Canadians as a whole that is the root of what ails this broken country. We got precisely the governance we voted for. Our democracy worked!
Some now-chastened Trudeau voters could well point to the alternatives and defend themselves with the legitimate question "what choice did we have?". If all choices were unpalatable, then that makes my case - those were the choices Canadians themselves provided - Canadians are broken, but at least their democracy worked!
Let's consider another prominent issue, very much in the news these days, that reflects not only the dysfunction of our leadership and institutions - but the collective psychosis of Canadians - our "cherished" health care system. Once upon a time, a great many Canadians pointed to our universal healthcare system as one of key pillars of Canada's identity. I was a skeptic of that belief, but have now come to understand it to be exactly correct (https://www.queensu.ca/gazette/stories/how-healthy-canadian-health-care-system). A plurality of Canadians set their hair on fire at the mere mention of allowing a parallel private system similar to those functioning in such heartless and backward countries as Australia, the UK, Sweden, Germany, and others in Europe. Any such heresy is seen as adopting an American-type health care system - that is the level of discourse in this country - intellectual bankruptcy. Reasoned debate is shut down by name-calling and promises of a health care apocalypse (frightening to imagine given the current state of affairs....).
Canadian courts seem to "think" similarly - look at the case in B.C. where the B.C,. Supreme Court decided that prevention of a private health care alternative does indeed deprive some patients of the right to security and life, but that such deprivations, as a matter of government policy, satisfy the tenets of "fundamental justice". Well, so much for the charter of rights and freedoms. This was of course appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada, which refused to even consider the appeal (https://vancouversun.com/news/ian-mulgrew-supreme-court-ducks-on-providing-needed-guidance-on-medicare), and gave no reasons, despite the fact that the appellant's case essentially duplicated a successful challenge, and positive Supreme Court verdict, in Quebec in 2005. Those same Supreme Court justices, coincidentally, go to the front of the line with any health issues in Canada's so-called universal, equal access health care system. https://www.fraserinstitute.org/blogs/supreme-court-ruling-ends-hope-for-many-patients-waiting-for-care-in-canada
The response to all of this from many if not most Canadians? Nary a shrug at the Supreme Court, presumably the guardians of Canadians' charter rights, punting without comment on an issue rather topical these days. Instead, it is back to the "tried and true" Canadian approach of tossing more borrowed money at a system that has proved conclusively, time and time again, that more money does nothing to resolve its problems. https://www.fraserinstitute.org/sites/default/files/comparing-performance-of-universal-health-care-countries-2022-execsum.pdf
If Canadians truly want to fix Canada (assuming sufficient awareness to realize it is broken and thus in dire need of fixing), they should look not to their elected officials - they should look first to themselves. I suspect a great many of will not, or should not, like what they see.
We either hang together or hang separately. The provincial fiefdoms should consider this and dismantle the absurdity of internal trade barriers. I'm no fan of federal interference in provincial matters, but unless those trade barriers are removed, our very productivity will continue to decline. Perhaps we should revisit federalism, but this would likely provoke the provinces into demanding more barriers not fewer ones.
Disagreeing with the last paragraph: You can’t live in a place while you gut it and rebuild it on the original foundations. You have to live somewhere else while you do that. If you are going to live somewhere during a major renovation, it has to be done piecewise, with a good plan, and it will require some compromises. It will be more expensive, take longer, and test your patience.
Hopefully I didn’t take the analogy too far.
Some solid points in the body of the article, though. An essential thing you need to do before a major reno is make sure your foundation and primary structure is sound. We should remind ourselves and each other what is great about Canada. Why did ‘we’ start this country? why do we care about it? What do we want to achieve? Big picture, clear-eyed, serious, core value type stuff. Then we can get to work.
Oh my-- colour me intrigued. Given that we got here mostly as a result of our own doing, I'm more than a little skeptical of our ability to get ourselves out of this mess. At least not until things get much, much worse.
I think convincing the bulk of Canadians that they need to care about politics and the direction the country is heading - and maybe become educated about economics and other things beyond the MEME's that show up on social media is the first challenge.
The number of people who take sound bites from political parties and then repeat them as if they are experts, is astounding.
Recently, I watched part of an ad for an NDP provincial leader candidate. In it, there was a claim about the CPI in Alberta and that it was higher in AB than the rest of Canada. I found this interesting because I knew that last year, Alberta's inflation had trended below the Canadian average, so I immediately suspected cherrypicking of data. Turns out, I was right - the year as a whole in 2023 had Alberta inflation (based on the CPI) running below the Canadian average. I will note that AB had the same provincial government last year, as it does this year - while there has been a policy change in the form of no longer waiving 100% of the provincial fuel tax, there has also been an influx of population both from other provinces in Canada and from immigration - all of which would predictably increase prices and inflation.
But anyone who watches that ad without looking at history or having context, would think that the current AB government is causing higher inflation than the Canadian average. These are the dumb sorts of things that politicians use media and marketing messages to get Canadians to care about. If someone is busy arguing and debating over how government policies have caused a small amount of inflation (ignoring all other factors) - well how on earth can we hope to get informed citizens who are motivated to improve the state of Canada. Heck a large number of people that I know, don't celebrate Canada day in any way shape or form, find the flag offensive, and have exactly zero national pride.
I share the desire to improve the situation - but I often see the conversations happening on facebook, and think to myself that we have a long ways to go. I don't know how we get the government driving change to improve the current situation until the population is also supportive of it and demanding it. (Our politics seems sort of backwards lately - where politicians stir up and amplify what is already popular opinion, rather than informing people of important things and then encouraging them to support needed programs and policies. This is one area where I sincerely hope that Pierre Pollievre steps up if he wins the next election.)
You are mostly correct Andrew. The main issue (zeroing in a bit from the longer historical lens) now is that the Feds have almost zero funds left over to do Federal “stuff” — after having spent them mostly on aspects that should have been left to the provinces or municipalities. The other issue is that, as some have said, how will this be fixed? Who will start that process? This is a major aspect and recognizes the inertia that (constantly?) afflicts us currently.
I just dont see how PEI will ever agree to having their constitutional political power lowered to the level of Guelph Ontario. Things will have to break much more before we change how we do business with each other. I just dont see the political leadership to bring any sort of semblance of consensus.
Very insightful commentary. I suggest reading this back to back with Jamie Sarkonak's piece published yesterday in the National Post on the massive failings of Ontario's public education system. When you realize that nobody in the next generation will be intellectually equipped to solve any of our problems, the need get on with it NOW becomes frighteningly obvious.
Confederation predated the rise of the modern welfare state by a good 70-80 years, which explains the constant federal excursions into provincial areas of responsibility. The powers that Confederation reserved for the federal government were the significant, substantive areas of responsibility before health and education became the major focus of governments. In the meantime, the nation has also changed significantly in character with the population shifting heavily towards cities.
If I had my way, I'd raise the major urban regions of Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver to the status of provinces. I'd combine the Maritimes into a single provincial level entity. That would level out a lot of the size disparity between regions and ensure they've got appropriate representation. I'd also transfer responsibility for health and education to the federal level. The provincial levels could take on more of the character of local health authorities or school boards. Hopefully that would address some of the siloing that happens between jurisdictions, where provinces don't share learning and expend resources developing bespoke solutions to common problems.
All of this would require a constitutional amendment that would have to be negotiated by the provinces who'd be stripped of power by the process, so it's not likely to happen.
That may well be the first paper Andrew has written in years that actually makes complete sense. I have said since my teens (that would be quite a few decades ago) that Ottawa needs to do the very few international things we need done: Defence, embassies, Canada Post, international trade treaties, Criminal law (actual crimes not made up ones like "you forgot a piece of paper to own something"), salt water Fisheries, Fed jails and very little if anything else. Supply & Services needs to go away, it is the antithesis of what it claimed to be on arrival: efficient contracting. It is the biggest cash sucking impediment in Ottawa. After maybe MultiCulturalism. The Provinces need to grow a (few) set(s) and take over their own tax collection. And right after that Federal Income Tax needs to go to zero and with it the bloated cash sucking (literally) mob in Rev Can. The Mint needs to re-introduce the $1000 bill and the federal government needs to revise the GST to a two tier: 5% for the basics and 15% for luxuries (like say a car over $50,000 is a luxury, a truck over $70,000 is a luxury, but your groceries, gas, etc. is basic). That's WAY more than enough revenue to run a government and corporate tax needs to be based on top line revenue. And it needs to be flat. You make up to $1 million send 1%, $10 million send 2%, over $100 million send 5%. Every company wants to grow sales so use a number THEY want as big as possible for your base. And let company employees and owners KEEP the rest! We need to fire the UN - 100% get out and dump that bunch of cash sucking ingrates - , actually contribute to NATO, and eliminate for at least 5 years "refugees". You want to immigrate, integrate, and contribute; show us what you got, we'll get back to you, and yes you can wait right where you are until we decide. Everyone else look elsewhere. Harsh? Maybe but its time WE Canadian Citizens took back our country and divesting 75% to 90% of the Federal bureaucracy is a solid start. If a province wants a MultiCulturalism Ministry have at it, we'll give it to you free. But its yours. No returns. Provinces can run tourism, Securities, power, agriculture, anything to do with "things". They can take care of internal Law Enforcement just fine. And yes, dump the CBC.
Exhibit 1: Quebec law prohibits architecture firms to be majority owned by non-quebec residents. The result? QC firms freely open offices in other provinces and any architect who is not willing to move to Québec cannot be a majority owner of a Quebec firm.
This is but ONE example of protectionism I know of. I can't even begin to imagine how many of these protectionist laws we have on the books... reminds me of the French... Pouah!
Peace, order and good government have been disappearing from Canada under Justin Trudeau’s Liberals. Candidates for MP should emerge from constituencies, not from Trudeau’s wedding party, office staff, ethnic pressures and the “Laurentian elite”.
Vote inducing in 2015 dangled the carrot of Proportional Representation. Post election, that idea was stopped before being considered. After the scandals, ethics violations and wasting tax payer dollars, how much worse than First past the Post could PR be?
Dear Pessimist ....I believe Canada et al is a work in progress and can not have such a final judgement until the process is over (pray tell that never happens), however looking to tear down and go back is ridiculous. That is not to say there are no problems and some big ones. It's only because of the past that we have got here, so looking back to LEARN and not going back with tearing down, in order to create in hope a somewhat unified vision for the future. Creating a vision, a goal and striving towards it as a team is the "hope of Canada" and that hasn't changed since 1864. To say that "Canada is a slo-mo train 'wreck' to the inevitable "is more of a sign of your and perhaps many others view of choice and has more to say about you than Canada. I dare say that most of us see Canada as a slo-mo train 'TRIP' to a future than can be envisioned. I would plead with you to use your powers of observation to help us see a vision of hope. In reality , looking around Canada is not a bad place to live......