Klaus Schwabb's demand that every national leader hand over their country to his World Economic forum (see my previous post), prompts the thought, why not me?
Hey Justin, gimme, gimme, gimme.
Once Canada belongs to me, here's what I'd do.
First, I'd abolish the GST and the Income tax which would surely make me wildly popular.
Then, to avoid immediate bankruptcy:
I'd freeze public sector hiring.
Then I'd cut public service salaries by 25%.
What's more, I'd introduce a mandatory Public Service retirement age of 50. After that, I'd further lighten the payroll by offering business start-up and further education grants to civil servants who still hadn't quit.
After that I'd end Federal to Provincial transfers and equalization payments, thereby saving a cool ninety plus billion a year. If the provinces want to spend money, let 'em raises the taxes themselves.
Then I'd raise cash by auctioning off some of the ten percent of Canada's land mass owned by the Federal Government. At the same time I'd advise the provinces to cut taxes and raise cash by auctioning off some of the ninetey percent of the provincial territory that they own.
In addition, I'd impose a yearly capital tax of one percent on personal wealth in excess of one million dollars. That will raise a hundred billion or so, which should be good enough to get by on. Sure, that's only a fifth of what Justin Trudeau's government burns through in a year, but does anyone really believe justin Trudeau's half-trillion-a-year budget -- about $50,000 per family of four -- is money well spent? I mean, where does that money go?
Give me a week or two, and I'd have a lot of other good ideas, but that's enough to indicate how much better off Canadians would be by handing ownership of the country to me rather than to Klaus, you-will-own-nothing-and-eat-the-bugs Schwabb, aka the WEF, or leaving it in the hands of the present custodians.
"After that I'd end Federal to Provincial transfers and equalization payments, thereby saving a cool ninety plus billion a year. If the provinces want to spend money, let 'em raises the taxes themselves."
ReplyDeleteIf you did so, you would be severing the puppet strings of the central government over the provinces. Would you be allowed? You'd think so, but people who understand how the system works manipulate it to their own advantage quite effectively. Being controlled by a distant regime isn't so onerous, I guess. It is like a tiered puppet show. Puppets have their own puppets beneath them. Any frustration of being a puppet can be worked out by jerking around those lower puppets. If projects required votes in order to be funded, the lower puppets wouldn't be puppets. They'd have a say. Someone would have to get their approval. Hard work getting that approval.
Canada is a confederal, not a federal, state, meaning that large powers were devolved to the provinces, resulting in a relatively weak central government, the latter known confusingly as the Federal Government, rather than more logically as the Confederal Government.
DeleteThe reason for Canada's Confederal strictire with its weak centrral goverment was the propensity of Quebec to break away altogether, hence the need for massive devolution of power to the provinces.
But despite the confederal structure of the Canadian state, the Federal Government, like any other government seeks always to enhance its power, hence the instigation by the Federal Government of shared-cost programs, largely directed by Ottawa yet adopted by the provinces because of the Federal government's contribution to the cost.
In addition, the Federal Government makes the reasonable argument in the case of shared-cost programs that standardization across the nation, e.g., of healthcare, is in the interest of an increasingly mobile population.
As I didn't know any of this, I wasn't really qualified to comment. Thanks for the information. Do you think Canada's form of decentralized government is more conducive to democracy (power to the people) than in USA's strong federal government? Many Americans resent strong federal government and its often unwanted intrusions into local affairs. It makes me wonder why I've never heard about Canada's confederal system before. I would think disgruntled Americans might discuss and consider it a possible alternative. Does Canada have a Central Bank? If I am wasting your time, please disregard these questions.
ReplyDeleteIt's a good question, to which I certainly cannot give a comprehensive answer, although I will make some comments.
DeleteFirst, Canada's loose federation was attractive not only to the elite in Quebec City. Moreover, local, i.e., provincial, government made sense in a huge country with what was, particularly in the early days, a highly regionalized economy - fisheries being of vital importance to coastal provinces, whereas lumber, farming, mining or manufacturing were dominant elsewhere and were seen to be best protected by local elites.
So a loose federation made sense not only in terms of satisfying the desire of regional elites for administrative authority, but as the best way to achieve competence in government.
Some areas of governance, however, can be administered universally without loss of effectiveness, education and healthcare being examples. That the best medical treatments are independent of geography is presumably one reason that Ottawa has pushed for, and achieved, a considerable role in that area.
Other areas of government where centralization makes sense include national defense, obviously, plus provision of support to the unemployed and the elderly. and in these areas Ottawa dominates unchallenged.
Education might seem another area for national administration. However, parental concern about what their children are being taught is such that education is largely controlled at the municipal level. Standardization of education is not, however, a real problem because educational performance is readily measurable allowing comparison not only among provinces but countries, which places strict limits on how far school boards can deviate from programs that achieve results that look good by comparison with other jurisdictions.
But maybe Chat GPT would give a better answer.
Here's something else about the oppressive mentality of Canada's Provincial elites: this from the British Columbia Land Act. Under the heading:
DeleteDisposition of Crown Land in Paragraph 23, the Act states:
"... Crown land that is suitable for the production of timber and pulpwood must not be disposed of by Crown grant under this Act."
Think about that.
BC, with a population of barely five million people, has an area of over 94 million hectares -- an area greater than the Republic of Ireland, or of the World's second largest exporter of agricultural products, the Netherlands. And of that 94 million hectares, two thirds is forested. But of that forested two thirds of the Province, citizens have the right to acquire precisely none.
Now at one time it might have been argued that the Government of the Province of British Columbia was better qualified to manage the forest than a bunch of mere citizens who would like to own and manage a woodlot of one or several hundred acres. But that argument is hardly credible after this summer when, currently:
400 wildfires are burning out of control in British Columbia. Across Canada, as of September 15, 6,317 fires have burned 173,598 square kilometres (67,027 sq mi; 42,897,000 acres) of Provincially-owned forest. That's about 5% of the entire forest area of Canada.
To the end of August, it was estimated that forest fires in Canada have resulted in the emission of 327 million tons of carbon dioxide, or about eight tons per person, or about twice the global per capita average. And the fires are still burning, the largest in British Columbia expected to burn right through the winter rains.
So how much worse would private woodlot owners do in managing the forest? Well it would depend. But with a sensibly "Forest Practices Act" effectively enforced, the probability is that, as in Sweden, private land owners would do better than Canada's Provincial governments.