The State of Politics and the New Parliamentary Session

Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian

Canada's 38th parliament got down to business this week, with Paul Martin's minority Liberal government facing a host of issues that won't go away. Fending off attacks from the opposition parties may be the least of his worries. There are far bigger concerns.

When it comes to the division of powers between the federal and provincial levels of government, especially as it involves funding for major social programs, we have a major constitutional problem in this country, as illustrated by the recently negotiated health care accord.

In effect, provincial and territorial leaders were forced to beg before being granted $41.2 billion from the prime minister, in order to fund rising medicare costs for the next decade.

Canada's large cities, too, are clamoring for federal money to improve roads, transportation systems, and other infrastructure. They want some of the federal gas tax to be allocated to them. But, again, municipalities are creatures of the provinces and any funds promised by Ottawa will have to pass through provincial hands.

This could pose a problem: while most big cities have become Liberal enclaves, provincial governments are often run by regimes more rurally-based (and more conservative), as has been the case in Alberta, British Columbia, and, until recently, Ontario. Their premiers may be reluctant to bankroll big-ticket pet projects.

Ottawa has too much "spending power," thanks to the taxes they collect, while the provinces, who bear the brunt of activity in areas such as education, health care, day care, and all manner of other services, clearly don't have the capacity necessary to fulfill their tasks. This "fiscal imbalance" is something Quebec, in particular, has been complaining about.

Shouldn't those who spend have the power to tax? Either the constitution should be amended to have Ottawa take over many of these functions, as it did with unemployment insurance in 1940, or the provinces will have to be given more room to tax. Otherwise, Ottawa will just become a tax collector for the provinces, an unnecessary "middleman."

The country also needs institutional reforms, when it comes to our unelected Senate and our first-past-the-post electoral system, in which seats are won (or lost) totally out of line with the popular vote of the parties running candidates.

We need a Senate that is elected, has effective powers, but is not necessarily equal in terms of the number of senators from each province. Perhaps small ones, like Prince Edward Island, might have two senators each, medium size ones such as Nova Scotia four, and large ones such as Ontario six.

Our electoral system definitely needs fixing. I've been researching and writing in Alberta for the past year, where "western alienation" is a religion. A "mixed" electoral system, with perhaps half the members of the House of Commons elected by some form of proportional representation, the others in single-member constituencies, would go some way towards reducing the "us" against "them" feeling.

In our present winner- take- all system, ostensibly national parties have become regional entities. In a modified proportional representation system, more Liberals would be elected in the west, more Conservatives in central and eastern Canada, and more New Democrats across the country.

No votes would be "wasted," as the popular vote totals would help elect candidates in places where parties were unable to come out on top in specific constituency races. Even the Green Party might win seats.

At present, Alberta in particular feels permanently removed from the centers of power, yet it has become per capita the richest province in Canada..You can't demonize a province and then expect it to finance the rest of the country! As political scientist Albert Hirshman wrote about other places with such problems, people demand either "voice" or "exit."

His concept was designed to show how countries become dysfunctional in situations where some citizens have neither "exit," the option to leave the system, nor "voice," a way of giving feedback to the larger system. You either have a say in running a country--especially if you bankroll it!--or you get out. The present system is a formula for disaster.

And there will be further acrimony later this month when the federal and provincial governments renegotiate the national equalization program, which transfers money to poorer provinces so that they can deliver a level of public services comparable to that of the two "have" provinces, Alberta and Ontario.

Ottawa announced at the September health summit that it would like to increase equalization payments to "have not" provinces from a projected $9.2 billion this year to $10.9 billion in 2005-2006. The new framework would establish fixed payment levels, which will provide predictable and growing funding for provinces. These amounts would grow at a rate of 3.5 per cent per year.

But every time the "have not" provinces negotiate more money from Ottawa, it comes from Alberta and Ontario. (There is also a squabble looming between Quebec and the Atlantic provinces as to how to divide up the equalization pie.)

The gap between what Albertans pay in federal taxes and what returns to the province in federal cash transfers already amounts to $2.3 billion annually. For much larger Ontario, the sum is $6.3 billion. But at least Ontario doesn't feel "alienated," either geographically or politically, from Ottawa!

Finally, Canada needs more robust visibility on the international stage. At present, Ottawa so shirks its responsibilities that it sometimes seems that we have simply subcontracted our foreign policy to the United Nations--and, apparently, also to Quebec!

The Quebec government wants to play a greater role in international forums as part of a special arrangement the province is seeking from Ottawa and Federal Heritage Minister Liza Frulla has said that Quebec Culture Minister Line Beauchamp might sometimes represent Canada at UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) meetings.

As for defence, we have left that up to the United States. Sooner or later, isn't someone bound to ask just what the federal government does?