An issue is that no one has an answer to the next part: "harmonize", but to what standard? Alberta has less regulation in many sectors than most other provinces; is Alberta supposed to become *more* burdensome? Probably not, but "de-regulation" carries such negative connotations (especially with Trump-context) that it's difficult to see many or most Premiers spending that kind of capital. I've yet to see a deep thinker put forward low-hanging fruit ideas that wouldn't involve some form of political sacrifice that no politician will do willingly.
Start a hot line for suggestions. Trevor Tombe, when pressed on a podcast, threw out cross-provincial vehicle inspections. Good start! Those are a scam. What else?
Yes, Jason Kenney tried this approach in 2019 which was a change from the previous Alberta premier who did not play well with her neighbours. It’s interesting that Trudeau appointed that former premier to his Canada-Us Relations Council instead of say Jason Kenney who already tried to go down that road.
I’m certain Premier Smith would take the lead on this but the initiative would likely thunder in badly by the time it reached the Manitoba-Ontario border.
Why does it have to be ‘de-regulation’ or ‘harmonization’ to start? I think simple acceptance of other provinces standards. Build some comfort then de-regulation or harmonization might actually follow.
I don't know how we got here, but I know where we are, and I don't see a way it ever changes.
There are so many "workers" in Canada that are employed in the giant useless machine called public service that it's become a rapidly expanding life form that is consuming the productive parts of our economy. Even now entire departments are being created across the country at the municipal level to "fight climate change" - Calgary and Vancouver being two egregious examples I know of. Every level of government thinks it needs to expand its reach, and with it more rules and regulations. How are we going to do something nationally when Calgary and Airdrie have different building codes and the staff to "enforce" them?????
I can already see how this is going to play out. I mean what I say, but if anyone reading this thinks I am directing my comments directly at them - you are wrong. I will never trivialize anything individuals are going through as a result of our incompetent political class, regardless of where they are from. As I was saying:
1. Quebec will get to do what it wants. Every political party in Ottawa would sacrifice anything in this country to appease Quebec. And the worst caricatures of QC politicians will sneer in our collective faces while it's happening.
2. The Maritimes will mill around like schoolgirls, not really doing anything but pretty confident that another Liberal version of the federal government will continue to pour just enough money into the region to keep everybody kind of whole. There's always government programs and employment insurance - just have to keep relaxing the requirements to collect.
3. Who knows what Ontario will do. If the car industry starts to get hit hard, then the pressure will be on for Alberta and Saskatchewan to be subjected to an export tax so that the funds can flow east.
4. Manitoba is kind of inconsequential economically.
5. David Eby in BC will flop around like a beached dolphin, almost incoherently contradicting everything he has said and done since he entered politics. He will however continue to grow the distribution of excess safe supply narcotics into his communities via an elaborate system designed by the very type of bureaucrats that have got Canada into the mess we are.
6. What are the names of those places north of the 60th parallel again?
7. Alberta and Saskatchewan will try to do something, but when Mark Carney is in power after the next election, it will be chaos in those two provinces as his Net Zero wet dream is finally revealed. Most of us in AB/SK already understand Carney is a bigger risk than Trump ever will be.
So what I am I going to do on a personal level? Continue my very successful economic bet against the Bank of Canada and the federal government and firm up whether I will spend two or three months stateside this summer. I have lived in Alberta my entire life and this isn't the first economic rodeo. My "country" inflicts it upon us with predictable regularity.
Some of your questions I could get on board with, but then you lost me at #7. Why would you think that Mark Carney is going to be in power after the next election? He's not a serious leader and he doesn't have serious policies. He may be a new face, but that's not enough to win an election. We've historically swapped between parties many times over the decades I've been alive. Conservatives would have to work to lose the federal election. (sure they could lose it, but it's unlikely)
You are aware polls indicate a dead heat between the CPC and LPC with Carney as leader, correct?
Carney appeals to the swing voter that doesn't grasp how tenuous the country's position in the world is. He's promising how easy it's going to be. I think there's lots of those voters and I think it will at least get him a minority government.
To me, Carney looks a lot like Kim Campbell 2.0. He replaces a historically unpopular leader who's been dragging the party down, feels like a breath of fresh air and enjoys a burst of popularity. Meanwhile, the opposition leader who'd looked to be a shoo-in starts to look like yesterday's man. The problem is that the governing party still has a lot of baggage, and that's the party they're leading rather than some happy sunshine and unicorns alternative.
If Carney's got any political sense, he'll call an election immediately after winning the leadership to try to coast on his political honeymoon. If he sticks around, he rapidly acquires feet of clay as he's mired in all the dysfunctions of a government that's been in power far too long. Even then, he's actually going to have to start answering questions and performing as a politician, and he's going to be up against a Conservative Party led by an experienced and deadly political attack dog.
I think he will call an immediate election, with the required 37 day minimum campaign period. I think he will try to avoid a leader's debate and I think he will try to hide his agenda behind sloganeering and echo chamber appearances.
If tariffs have truly hit, he can distract us all during a campaign by handing out Covid type relief targeted at ridings Liberals need to win. We could have a newly elected PM who has never told us his position on anything.
...the really fun part is - even if they go with the 37 day minimum election campaign timeline... if Carney drops writ March 9th, the Carbon Tax is going to increase 20% right in the middle of the campaign.
...an election campaign in which the two main contenders will be running on removing that particular tax.
The strength of the Liberal brand is that it is easy for voters to project their ideals onto the party regardless of reality. The same goes for Carney. Voters can imagine him as the ideal PM even though he is an unknown.
This is not a compliment to a very large part of the voters, nor to the "Liberal" party's reputation, erroneously called as a "brand". Sidenote: Cheapening of language results in cheapening of thought, and of meaning.
It doesn't take much to find out everything one needs to know about him. He is literally the biggest pusher of Net Zero, and the two countries in which he was a superstar central banker are both basket cases.
I don't know if people heard him utter this yesterday. I hope Trump hasn't.
"Fentanyl is an absolute crisis in the United States. It’s a challenge here, but it’s a crisis there”.
The fentanyl comment plays perfectly to Canada's traditional sense of moral superiority which the Liberals have expertly wrapped into their brand: "Fentanyl is an absolute crisis in the United States, but is only a challenge here as Canadians value the social safety net conferred on them by the Liberal Party. Pursuing Americanisms like high per capita GDP and leadership in high growth industries would only bring problems like fentanyl and guns into Canada, so the Liberal Party supports oligopolies to keep the Americans out."
I haven't looked at the polls this week, the last I heard was the discussion Matt had with the statistics guy from 338 which said the Carney lead was an outlier. I'm on a number of polling panels, including Ekos. I didn't actually see the one with the Carney question, which is unfortunate - it does mean that they polled a different group of members than they have previously polled as I've been polled on voting intentions multiple times in the last year. Changing the group of people they're polling means they have a completely different data set, and it may be capturing the change in population rather than an actual change in sentiment in the population.
BUT above and beyond that, asking people how they'll vote when they have barely heard of someone? I don't really think the polls are all that realistic right now. Just in case something had changed in the last week, I went to 338 to see, and they're still projecting a conservative majority government. https://338canada.com/
The west forgets that ON has voted conservative in the past and traditionally flips every 8 to 10 years. I don't think even a new leader is going to make the party shiny and exciting again. There may be pollsters who want you to believe that - like Ekos (who is left leaning even in the way they ask questions,) but that doesn't necessarily reflect the views of Canadians from coast to coast. There are always outliers.
Ontario Conservatives are Liberals in blue ties. Boss Ford’s slavish aping of Liberal policies and polite enjoyment of the aroma of Trudeau’s farts are prime examples. The last real Ontario conservative was Mike Harris IMO.
Not sure those polls are worth much above toilet paper. That many canadians switching their vote in only a month to accept the current government and forgive everything just because the man at the top is different, is ridiculous. Go look up their samples , where they took, them and these companies histories .They are not very credible and it smells of a co ordinated effort to gaslight everyone like the US media tried to do with Kamala Harris to get people to think she would win in a landslide.
In keeping with the theme of the original piece by Matt, the best thing Carney could do is put off calling an election as long as possible and use the time to actually get real stuff done, like what he advocates in his book. That's the only way he's going to develop any real credibility with voters.
Exactly because you know darned well that without that happening and even if that does happen not a damned thing is going to change. Canada, after all, is only a pretend country now.
Matt I am going to tie your observations in this post to your reporting on that Security conference held last year. Then you had said something along the lines of this world order was not based on some international rules being followed in a void, but by American enforcement and leadership (regardless of whether you agree with it or not).
If I were to extrapolate here, I can easily make a case that Canada continues to exist as a sovereign country simply because the US has let it be so far. With piss poor leadership (especially in the past ten years), no real sense of national identity, woefully unprepared military, and an inherent tendency to handcuff all growth industries - the circumstances have always been highly favourable for a takeover. The fact it hasn't happened already is really just because the US did not see it worthwhile - till now.
I'm not sure this is what the facts will show once we get further down the road and the dust settles from all the court cases. I suspect that due to court cases and general resistance, that many of the big announcements won't necessarily amount to actual measurable change in a quick way.
Actually - I think each provincial chamber of commerce/business organization, should immediately (as in 5 business day or less turn around time) turn in a list of top 10 provincial regulations that interfere with interprovincial trade, and then premiers should address 5 on that list in a meaningful way through removing the barrier.
If the chamber of commerce or whatever business organizations are active in a province can't do it, then university business departments (where case competitions happen) should have a quick-run competition for submissions for deregulation strategy and pathway. Again - short turn around, but make use of all the strategic and creative thinking that university students bring to case competitions. (I've been part of them - there are unique and innovative ideas that are brought forward, regardless of what anyone thinks about university education.)
Provide a background brief of interprovincial trade barriers, make the problem clear, and let the creativity of current students and their mentors come up with multiple plans forward that the premier must then select the top 3. (The best case competitions have cash prizes, but we're talking less than $25k in total prize money, so this is something the provinces could easily budget.)
Better yet - take the best provincial recommendations and then have a national competition. Short timelines, yes, but incentivize, pay travel expenses if needed (within reason), and generate ideas that take the bigger strategic issues into account.
My premise is that maybe we're approaching this from the wrong direction by waiting for political leadership. Maybe the leadership can come from other competent and functioning pockets such as students and business leaders who can present the top ideas to the premiers of their respective provinces with speed. (Yes I know businesses and universities also move slow - but with proper incentives people CAN break barriers and move fast. And the strategic analysis process I've learned in my business degree can be applied in the timeframe of hours - so things could happen fast if there was the will and incentives)
This makes sense. It's a damn complicated mess of trade barriers, from what I gather. The people who are forced to deal with the pain should fill in the rest of who need to know.
The added benefit is that because it's coming from citizens rather than politicians, public buy in may be higher and quicker, and industry resistance may be lower.
Manitoba is the seat of northern ambitions, particularly sea lanes. It can provide tidewater access to three landlocked provinces and is a significant producer of hydroelectric power.
There is potential there, especially if Canada ever got around to using world class icebreakers and nuclear submarines.
Nice thought, but a goofy social media driven campaign approach stands little chance against the entrenched parochialism of Canadian provinces. I’ve lived in the 3 westernmost provinces, and I’ve seen how even next door neighbors resist harmonization and remain willfully oblivious to policy innovations or alternatives just on the other side of the border. What’s needed here is a federal government that provides leadership and starts using the stick of trade & commerce power plus disallowance instead of trying to bribe these petty regional warlords into compliance.
When I moved to BC in 2000, it was eye-opening to hear school boards and the teachers' union railing against ideas like open catchment schools and charter schools, talking about how unworkable and terrible those ideas would be. In contrast, I'd seen those things in practice and working rather nicely in Alberta over a decade of living there.
Teachers' Unions are one of the biggest barriers to progress in Canada. Unfortunately, they wield a suprising amount of political power and government seems largely unwilling to take them on.
Yes. And governments need to hear from the voters loud and clear and often that the government has the support of majority of voters to take on the teachers unions, and why and how.
Matt, as you've often mentioned, Canadians struggle with managing expectations. These expectations are deeply rooted in regional parochialism, leading to micro-ecosystems where individuals invest significant effort to carve out their niche. Altering the fundamentals of such an ecosystem compels its inhabitants to adapt, which is typically unpopular. Ask a beaver how it feels after its dam is blown up.
I agree provincial leaders should have the vision to harmonize regulations and tear down inter-provincial trade barriers, but they are creatures of the enviroment which they helped to create.
There is no willingness to be the honey badger that excavates the termite mound.
Wow! Just as creative as the "Riviera of the Middle East", just as challenging to our lethargic premiers and seriously reflective of the moment to boot!
Smith for Prime Minister. "The Line" for CBC replacement. Gurney for Honourary Scribe of Canada.
This is, one might say, another litmus test. When someone tells me they're concerned about the climate, I use nuclear power as a litmus test of their seriousness. Don't want a CANDU, then you're a grifter who's milking the environmental cash cow.
If they're concerned about Trump's plans, our politicians need to do what's suggested here. Otherwise, they're not serious. They're just taking free trips to Washington or Mara Lago to enjoy the weather and nice food. Virtue signaling.
Pick alcohol. Start with that. It's an easy one (relatively).
I like this idea, and liked it when it was proposed in the podcast, but it's not new. Jason Kenney unilaterally cut regulations and asked other provinces to do the same in 2019 https://www.policyschool.ca/news/alberta-is-changing-the-game-on-internal-trade/ (no one really cared).
An issue is that no one has an answer to the next part: "harmonize", but to what standard? Alberta has less regulation in many sectors than most other provinces; is Alberta supposed to become *more* burdensome? Probably not, but "de-regulation" carries such negative connotations (especially with Trump-context) that it's difficult to see many or most Premiers spending that kind of capital. I've yet to see a deep thinker put forward low-hanging fruit ideas that wouldn't involve some form of political sacrifice that no politician will do willingly.
Start a hot line for suggestions. Trevor Tombe, when pressed on a podcast, threw out cross-provincial vehicle inspections. Good start! Those are a scam. What else?
Yes, Jason Kenney tried this approach in 2019 which was a change from the previous Alberta premier who did not play well with her neighbours. It’s interesting that Trudeau appointed that former premier to his Canada-Us Relations Council instead of say Jason Kenney who already tried to go down that road.
I’m certain Premier Smith would take the lead on this but the initiative would likely thunder in badly by the time it reached the Manitoba-Ontario border.
Interprovincial licensing for trades.
Beer sales
All alcohol sales for alcohol produced in Canada.
Why does it have to be ‘de-regulation’ or ‘harmonization’ to start? I think simple acceptance of other provinces standards. Build some comfort then de-regulation or harmonization might actually follow.
I don't know how we got here, but I know where we are, and I don't see a way it ever changes.
There are so many "workers" in Canada that are employed in the giant useless machine called public service that it's become a rapidly expanding life form that is consuming the productive parts of our economy. Even now entire departments are being created across the country at the municipal level to "fight climate change" - Calgary and Vancouver being two egregious examples I know of. Every level of government thinks it needs to expand its reach, and with it more rules and regulations. How are we going to do something nationally when Calgary and Airdrie have different building codes and the staff to "enforce" them?????
I can already see how this is going to play out. I mean what I say, but if anyone reading this thinks I am directing my comments directly at them - you are wrong. I will never trivialize anything individuals are going through as a result of our incompetent political class, regardless of where they are from. As I was saying:
1. Quebec will get to do what it wants. Every political party in Ottawa would sacrifice anything in this country to appease Quebec. And the worst caricatures of QC politicians will sneer in our collective faces while it's happening.
2. The Maritimes will mill around like schoolgirls, not really doing anything but pretty confident that another Liberal version of the federal government will continue to pour just enough money into the region to keep everybody kind of whole. There's always government programs and employment insurance - just have to keep relaxing the requirements to collect.
3. Who knows what Ontario will do. If the car industry starts to get hit hard, then the pressure will be on for Alberta and Saskatchewan to be subjected to an export tax so that the funds can flow east.
4. Manitoba is kind of inconsequential economically.
5. David Eby in BC will flop around like a beached dolphin, almost incoherently contradicting everything he has said and done since he entered politics. He will however continue to grow the distribution of excess safe supply narcotics into his communities via an elaborate system designed by the very type of bureaucrats that have got Canada into the mess we are.
6. What are the names of those places north of the 60th parallel again?
7. Alberta and Saskatchewan will try to do something, but when Mark Carney is in power after the next election, it will be chaos in those two provinces as his Net Zero wet dream is finally revealed. Most of us in AB/SK already understand Carney is a bigger risk than Trump ever will be.
So what I am I going to do on a personal level? Continue my very successful economic bet against the Bank of Canada and the federal government and firm up whether I will spend two or three months stateside this summer. I have lived in Alberta my entire life and this isn't the first economic rodeo. My "country" inflicts it upon us with predictable regularity.
Some of your questions I could get on board with, but then you lost me at #7. Why would you think that Mark Carney is going to be in power after the next election? He's not a serious leader and he doesn't have serious policies. He may be a new face, but that's not enough to win an election. We've historically swapped between parties many times over the decades I've been alive. Conservatives would have to work to lose the federal election. (sure they could lose it, but it's unlikely)
You are aware polls indicate a dead heat between the CPC and LPC with Carney as leader, correct?
Carney appeals to the swing voter that doesn't grasp how tenuous the country's position in the world is. He's promising how easy it's going to be. I think there's lots of those voters and I think it will at least get him a minority government.
To me, Carney looks a lot like Kim Campbell 2.0. He replaces a historically unpopular leader who's been dragging the party down, feels like a breath of fresh air and enjoys a burst of popularity. Meanwhile, the opposition leader who'd looked to be a shoo-in starts to look like yesterday's man. The problem is that the governing party still has a lot of baggage, and that's the party they're leading rather than some happy sunshine and unicorns alternative.
If Carney's got any political sense, he'll call an election immediately after winning the leadership to try to coast on his political honeymoon. If he sticks around, he rapidly acquires feet of clay as he's mired in all the dysfunctions of a government that's been in power far too long. Even then, he's actually going to have to start answering questions and performing as a politician, and he's going to be up against a Conservative Party led by an experienced and deadly political attack dog.
Very insightful George.
I think he will call an immediate election, with the required 37 day minimum campaign period. I think he will try to avoid a leader's debate and I think he will try to hide his agenda behind sloganeering and echo chamber appearances.
If tariffs have truly hit, he can distract us all during a campaign by handing out Covid type relief targeted at ridings Liberals need to win. We could have a newly elected PM who has never told us his position on anything.
...the really fun part is - even if they go with the 37 day minimum election campaign timeline... if Carney drops writ March 9th, the Carbon Tax is going to increase 20% right in the middle of the campaign.
...an election campaign in which the two main contenders will be running on removing that particular tax.
Only in Canada...
The strength of the Liberal brand is that it is easy for voters to project their ideals onto the party regardless of reality. The same goes for Carney. Voters can imagine him as the ideal PM even though he is an unknown.
This is not a compliment to a very large part of the voters, nor to the "Liberal" party's reputation, erroneously called as a "brand". Sidenote: Cheapening of language results in cheapening of thought, and of meaning.
It doesn't take much to find out everything one needs to know about him. He is literally the biggest pusher of Net Zero, and the two countries in which he was a superstar central banker are both basket cases.
I don't know if people heard him utter this yesterday. I hope Trump hasn't.
"Fentanyl is an absolute crisis in the United States. It’s a challenge here, but it’s a crisis there”.
The fentanyl comment plays perfectly to Canada's traditional sense of moral superiority which the Liberals have expertly wrapped into their brand: "Fentanyl is an absolute crisis in the United States, but is only a challenge here as Canadians value the social safety net conferred on them by the Liberal Party. Pursuing Americanisms like high per capita GDP and leadership in high growth industries would only bring problems like fentanyl and guns into Canada, so the Liberal Party supports oligopolies to keep the Americans out."
I like this comment. Cheeky and and pointed sarcasm aimed right at the very mistakenly "natural" governing party.
I haven't looked at the polls this week, the last I heard was the discussion Matt had with the statistics guy from 338 which said the Carney lead was an outlier. I'm on a number of polling panels, including Ekos. I didn't actually see the one with the Carney question, which is unfortunate - it does mean that they polled a different group of members than they have previously polled as I've been polled on voting intentions multiple times in the last year. Changing the group of people they're polling means they have a completely different data set, and it may be capturing the change in population rather than an actual change in sentiment in the population.
BUT above and beyond that, asking people how they'll vote when they have barely heard of someone? I don't really think the polls are all that realistic right now. Just in case something had changed in the last week, I went to 338 to see, and they're still projecting a conservative majority government. https://338canada.com/
The west forgets that ON has voted conservative in the past and traditionally flips every 8 to 10 years. I don't think even a new leader is going to make the party shiny and exciting again. There may be pollsters who want you to believe that - like Ekos (who is left leaning even in the way they ask questions,) but that doesn't necessarily reflect the views of Canadians from coast to coast. There are always outliers.
Ontario Conservatives are Liberals in blue ties. Boss Ford’s slavish aping of Liberal policies and polite enjoyment of the aroma of Trudeau’s farts are prime examples. The last real Ontario conservative was Mike Harris IMO.
Not sure those polls are worth much above toilet paper. That many canadians switching their vote in only a month to accept the current government and forgive everything just because the man at the top is different, is ridiculous. Go look up their samples , where they took, them and these companies histories .They are not very credible and it smells of a co ordinated effort to gaslight everyone like the US media tried to do with Kamala Harris to get people to think she would win in a landslide.
Sad but true.
In keeping with the theme of the original piece by Matt, the best thing Carney could do is put off calling an election as long as possible and use the time to actually get real stuff done, like what he advocates in his book. That's the only way he's going to develop any real credibility with voters.
Exactly because you know darned well that without that happening and even if that does happen not a damned thing is going to change. Canada, after all, is only a pretend country now.
Matt I am going to tie your observations in this post to your reporting on that Security conference held last year. Then you had said something along the lines of this world order was not based on some international rules being followed in a void, but by American enforcement and leadership (regardless of whether you agree with it or not).
If I were to extrapolate here, I can easily make a case that Canada continues to exist as a sovereign country simply because the US has let it be so far. With piss poor leadership (especially in the past ten years), no real sense of national identity, woefully unprepared military, and an inherent tendency to handcuff all growth industries - the circumstances have always been highly favourable for a takeover. The fact it hasn't happened already is really just because the US did not see it worthwhile - till now.
Well said. We as a "nation" are long overdue for an honest talk with ourselves and an honest evaluation of our importance to other nations.
There is no sense of urgency. Our politicians are always in a reactive mode. Awful and all as it is, Trump is getting things done, and fast!
I'm not sure this is what the facts will show once we get further down the road and the dust settles from all the court cases. I suspect that due to court cases and general resistance, that many of the big announcements won't necessarily amount to actual measurable change in a quick way.
Actually - I think each provincial chamber of commerce/business organization, should immediately (as in 5 business day or less turn around time) turn in a list of top 10 provincial regulations that interfere with interprovincial trade, and then premiers should address 5 on that list in a meaningful way through removing the barrier.
If the chamber of commerce or whatever business organizations are active in a province can't do it, then university business departments (where case competitions happen) should have a quick-run competition for submissions for deregulation strategy and pathway. Again - short turn around, but make use of all the strategic and creative thinking that university students bring to case competitions. (I've been part of them - there are unique and innovative ideas that are brought forward, regardless of what anyone thinks about university education.)
Provide a background brief of interprovincial trade barriers, make the problem clear, and let the creativity of current students and their mentors come up with multiple plans forward that the premier must then select the top 3. (The best case competitions have cash prizes, but we're talking less than $25k in total prize money, so this is something the provinces could easily budget.)
Better yet - take the best provincial recommendations and then have a national competition. Short timelines, yes, but incentivize, pay travel expenses if needed (within reason), and generate ideas that take the bigger strategic issues into account.
My premise is that maybe we're approaching this from the wrong direction by waiting for political leadership. Maybe the leadership can come from other competent and functioning pockets such as students and business leaders who can present the top ideas to the premiers of their respective provinces with speed. (Yes I know businesses and universities also move slow - but with proper incentives people CAN break barriers and move fast. And the strategic analysis process I've learned in my business degree can be applied in the timeframe of hours - so things could happen fast if there was the will and incentives)
This makes sense. It's a damn complicated mess of trade barriers, from what I gather. The people who are forced to deal with the pain should fill in the rest of who need to know.
The added benefit is that because it's coming from citizens rather than politicians, public buy in may be higher and quicker, and industry resistance may be lower.
Manitoba is the seat of northern ambitions, particularly sea lanes. It can provide tidewater access to three landlocked provinces and is a significant producer of hydroelectric power.
There is potential there, especially if Canada ever got around to using world class icebreakers and nuclear submarines.
Nice thought, but a goofy social media driven campaign approach stands little chance against the entrenched parochialism of Canadian provinces. I’ve lived in the 3 westernmost provinces, and I’ve seen how even next door neighbors resist harmonization and remain willfully oblivious to policy innovations or alternatives just on the other side of the border. What’s needed here is a federal government that provides leadership and starts using the stick of trade & commerce power plus disallowance instead of trying to bribe these petty regional warlords into compliance.
I live in BC. I think our province is often just a real asshole towards Alberta.
When I moved to BC in 2000, it was eye-opening to hear school boards and the teachers' union railing against ideas like open catchment schools and charter schools, talking about how unworkable and terrible those ideas would be. In contrast, I'd seen those things in practice and working rather nicely in Alberta over a decade of living there.
Teachers' Unions are one of the biggest barriers to progress in Canada. Unfortunately, they wield a suprising amount of political power and government seems largely unwilling to take them on.
Yes. And governments need to hear from the voters loud and clear and often that the government has the support of majority of voters to take on the teachers unions, and why and how.
Matt, as you've often mentioned, Canadians struggle with managing expectations. These expectations are deeply rooted in regional parochialism, leading to micro-ecosystems where individuals invest significant effort to carve out their niche. Altering the fundamentals of such an ecosystem compels its inhabitants to adapt, which is typically unpopular. Ask a beaver how it feels after its dam is blown up.
I agree provincial leaders should have the vision to harmonize regulations and tear down inter-provincial trade barriers, but they are creatures of the enviroment which they helped to create.
There is no willingness to be the honey badger that excavates the termite mound.
Wow! Just as creative as the "Riviera of the Middle East", just as challenging to our lethargic premiers and seriously reflective of the moment to boot!
Smith for Prime Minister. "The Line" for CBC replacement. Gurney for Honourary Scribe of Canada.
Perhaps the 'harmonization' could start with a Canadian DOGE. It looks like we need one: https://www.theaudit.ca/p/tracking-federal-funding-through?r=265jx&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
BINGO !BINGO! BINGO!
Finally, some one said it! Choosing “process over action” has been the Canadian approach and action for far too long!
Maybe one of the Eastern premiers can go nuclear and just sign up for the New West Partnership trade agreement?
They don't want to make it easier for their residents to flee to greener pastures.
I love optimism, Matt, particularly unfounded optimism. Go for it, guys.
The entertainment value, at least, will be very high!
This is, one might say, another litmus test. When someone tells me they're concerned about the climate, I use nuclear power as a litmus test of their seriousness. Don't want a CANDU, then you're a grifter who's milking the environmental cash cow.
If they're concerned about Trump's plans, our politicians need to do what's suggested here. Otherwise, they're not serious. They're just taking free trips to Washington or Mara Lago to enjoy the weather and nice food. Virtue signaling.
Pick alcohol. Start with that. It's an easy one (relatively).
Just getting that first domino to fall.....