Jason Kenney has been talking Alberta's independence. He's been suggesting Alberta take Quebec's approach to federalism. But that approach has evolved. Chantal Hebert writes:
Quebec has operated its own system since the Canada Pension Plan was introduced in 1966.
At the time of the inception of the CPP every province had the option of going it alone. The main rationale behind Quebec’s choice of a separate route was to give its government the ability to use the pension fund to play a leadership role in the shaping of the province’s economic fabric.
That may be a goal worth pursuing in Alberta, but it does come with the need to set up a bureaucracy to administer a system that ultimately — for reasons of labour mobility — would offer relatively identical benefits to those on offer under the CPP.
Ditto in the case of having the province run its own police force — something, for the record, that Quebec was doing decades before the RCMP as we know it was created in 1920 — or taking over the collection of all income tax from the federal government.
The problem with setting up these individual entities is that administrative costs cut deeply into provincial revenues:
The reason Quebec is currently pursuing the latter option [having the federal government assume income tax administrative costs] has more to do with saving money and freeing the province’s taxpayers from the long-standing burden of filing two income tax reports every April, than provincial autonomy.
A few years ago, a commission costed the duplication at almost half a billion dollars a year and recommended Quebec join the other provinces in having Ottawa collect the taxes on its behalf.
That turned out to be a federalist bridge too far even for the then-Liberal Quebec government, hence the demand that the federal government hand over its collection responsibilities to the province instead.
It is hard to see how any of the above options adds up to more leverage for Alberta rather than to a series of solutions in search of a problem. If anything, by focusing on federal-provincial arrangements at a time when the climate-change issue is playing out globally the province risks missing the forest for the trees.
The bottom line is that Mr. Kenney's proposed solutions to Alberta's problems -- like Mr. Kenney himself -- is firmly rooted in the past. They were proposed solutions to past problems, not the ones Alberta faces today. And, therefore, things will get worse for Albertans.
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6 comments:
yes ...because the conservatives have proven to be so adept running things in the past
dull thinking buffoons everyone of them
They have a hard time coming to terms with the facts of the present day, lungta.
Kenney is in a Bitumen Box. He can see what's coming. He realizes the dynamics of what would befall Alberta if/when the tarry sludge becomes a stranded asset. Like his predecessors, he's the guy holding onto the mooring line as the sudden wind sweeps the balloon ever higher.
What's the best defence to such a seismic risk? The tried and true is to stoke a sense of grievance. Pretty much every premier since Peter Lougheed has fallen back on that and, by force of repetition, it's now embedded in the provincial psyche. They've always been held back, cheated, their divine aspirations thwarted at every turn.
It sucks to be landlocked.
I watched Sondland's testimony in Washington today, Mound. He blew up all the Republican defences. All they have left is a raging sense of grievance. Who can tell where that will take them?
.. I've commented previously on the astonishing similarity of the Reformers Alberta Agenda.. (often called The Alberta Firewall Letter, drafted by Harper and Tom Flanagan) to the Secession Progression & Escalation threats of Jason Kenney. Kenney has never seen an opportunity he could resist exploiting his vast busy busy ego upon.
The evolving demographics of Alberta.. the new economic & cultural reality of Alberta .. the dangerous politics, both provincial and federal.. make me think of a grist mill grinding away.. the grain hopper above is running grain down between the great stones, but the miller is drunk & sleeping it off.. wasted harvest.. ground to dust and blowing out the doors, never to be bread, whisky or cattle feed
When was the last time both Alberta and the rest of Canada got a consequential breakdown, a beautiful mosaic based on the National Census.. of who really comprises Alberta.. both born and raised and/or immigrated from elsewhere in Canada. What percentages in the various sectors? Tourism? Manufacturing? Agriculture? Green developments? Power Generation? Mining? Administration? Education? Medicine & Healthcare? Oil & Gas? The Arts?, Transportation?
Based on the hyperbole of Jason and the UCP .. one might come to believe the myth that Alberta has been saving, indeed driving the entire economy of Canada eh !! Jason knows damn well, exactly how Equalization works.. so he muddles & wraps it in simplistic nonsense economics.. and hey presto - MainMedia reports it as fact.. complicit talking point, shallow, lazy or sold out propaganda.. and dailly ! Canadians see & hear & read more of Jason than Scheer or Trudeau or Doug Ford.. Wexit ! Onward christian soldiers to tidewater & the vast wealth of Asia.. god's will or something or other.
This a province with long deep heritage & here came the carpetbaggers, the travelling medicine show, the magic elixer ! Harper, Flanagan, Kenney and all the Reform Alliance hangers on.. Now Kenney wants to personally impress his ideology upon the very fabric of Alberta, Albertans (whomever they really are now) and upon Canada & Canadians, hell the world that consumes oil or coal or natural gas (mainly methane)
I find it disgusting that the province buys into such a pompous idealogue.. but that reflects what a political chokehold Conservatives had on the the province for some 40 years.. nothing much else could make inroads.. till Ms Notely stunned them. And the only way for Kenney & the Christians was to take her and the NDP out was via the old Harper backdoor scam.. when he got Peter McKay to sellout David Orchard and the PC's. Exactly what Kenney resorted to. Not to mention the Kamikaze scam.. an idiotic insult that in normal old school times would call for Kenney's resignation. Again the clever firewall and 'I know nothing of these matters'.. shrug
Thus these days, 'leaders' don't resign. They discover an unpaid junior intern was responsible or the Russians.. and Main Media (PostMedia) runs with it. Folks like Kenney, Trump, Harper, McConnell et al fuel these end runs, delays, obstruction etc.. by tearing down existing legislation.. and barricading themselves behind spokeswanks and endless litigations via tax payer funded blue chip law firms on retainer for millions upon millions. Welcome to the new western bitumen, gas pipeline democracy.. which they flare off night and day or pump into holding ponds visible from the moon
Kenney -- like many Albertans -- have bet the farm on the oilsands, sal. In the end, the bankruptcy will be epic in its proportions.
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