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06/11/2008: "Oh how I wish for a federal vacuum"
The Saskatoon StarPhoenix opinion column has observed that a vacuum in federal politics leaves the provinces fighting to fill in. Somehow this has been misconstrued as a bad thing.
While apparently "most federations recognize that the best way to attack such large issues ... is for the federal government to take the leadership and direct policy", this is really not as effective as it sounds. There are innumerable instances where federal policies have benefited one group only to completely cheat everybody else. Since the federal government is effectively constrained to "one size fits all" type policies, this will always be the case.
For comparison, let's look at some other large issues where the federal government took leadership and directed policy. First up, the energy crisis of the 1970s. The result of the federal government's "leadership" was the National Energy Program, a name that is still cursed nearly universally in western Canada.
What about the problem of disparities between so-called have and have-not provinces? That is supposedly solved by another federal system, the equalization program that punishes successful economies and reduces motivation for poor and underachieving economies. It has been the cause of all kinds of fighting, even to the point of near lawsuits by the provinces against the federal government, a rather ludicrous prospect.
It is true, as they say, that the provinces have "disparate interests". That is precisely why the provinces should be left to solve the problem in their own way rather than having the federal government dictate their choices. In fact, given the tension between the cities within each province, having the provincial government dictate solutions to the cities may even be too large a division. Having lived in both cities, there are problems for which Regina and Saskatoon would have offered completely different solutions if the provincial or federal governments had not made their decision for them.
Truly, decisions are best made as locally as possible to provide the best results for the disparate people groups we have in Canada.