A healthy divide
I've managed this post for today, a consideration of the divisions we have in this country, and which ones are legitimate, and which are ones of our own making.
Did I say our own making? I meant Liberal governments' making.
A division exists in this country, and it is a healthy one. Well, maybe not healthy, but more legitimate than the divisions we’ve had in this country before now.
I’m talking about the urban-rural divide that has taken shape, with the Conservatives being shut out of Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver, while making major gains in suburban and rural Canada.
Any divide is something to be concerned about, but what we’ve had before was awful, mostly because those divides were created by Liberal governments refusing to follow the rules.
First, we’ve had the classic English-French problem. Why? Just about all French-speaking Canadians live in Quebec. I know not all of them do, but only New Brunswick has a sizable French-speaking minority. Every other province has pockets here or there, if that.
But we live in under a federal system. Federalism is supposed to help deal with that sort of thing. You break the country up into semi-autonomous portions and divvy up the powers between the federal government and the bits. That way each bit can manage its business as it sees fit. Each bit can tailor its services and laws to address the unique needs and desires of its citizens.
The federal level provides general protection, a symbolic and practical link between the bits, and a set of shared laws to ensure that all citizens, regardless of the bit they live in, are treated fairly. In my mind, the most important of those laws is the one that says if you don’t like the bit you live in, you are free to move to whatever other bit you like, and no one can stop you. That is a major difference between these bits and true nation-states.
Beyond that, I don’t think a federal government should care much what goes on inside the bits. But our federal government for years has been meddling in provincial matters. Health care, education, natural resources -- nothing happened in the provinces that a Liberal government in Ottawa didn’t believe it had reason to make laws about.
I think a lot of the fuel for separatism in Quebec comes from that, and the restoration of proper respect for federal and provincial jurisdiction will choke off that fuel supply.
But that lack of respect for provincial jurisdiction created the other big divide in this country -- East versus West. Why? Why should it matter how Alberta wants to run its health care system? If the people in the province want to spend provincial money on a two-tier system, so what? If you live in Ontario and like their scheme, move to Alberta. If you live in Alberta and prefer Ontario’s solution, move to Ontario.
I know moving is not trivial, but the fact is, provinces are supposed to be areas where local solutions are developed. But instead, Liberal governments have tried to force everyone to toe the same line. These governments move great sums of money around in transfer payments trying to make each province look the same as every other province. What’s the point of having provinces? Let people move. Make it easier for people to move. How else will a provincial government know whether they are serving the people in their province well? If people look to the next province over and see the same poor set of services and the same high taxes, why incur the extra cost of moving?
The one province that has done the most in trying to make its own rules, Alberta, unsurprisingly is the one province most people want to move to.
French versus English. West versus East. These are false fights, because a federal system should allow the differences to flourish, and should allow citizens to find the place they feel most at home, while still being Canadian.
So what about urban versus rural? Well, that is a real difference, and it exists in every province, no matter what the language or longitude. Urban dwellers typically depend on government services more than materially self-sufficient rural dwellers. Rural dwellers, in particular farmers, depend on structured and controlled markets more than laissez-faire capitalists in the big cities.
Crime. Pollution. Media. Transit. Markets. All of these and more are issues that impact rural and urban folks very differently, because their environments are so different.
The incoming Conservative government seems to have made great strides in dealing with the imaginary divisions in this country, before even taking office, simply by promising to follow the rules. Remember, a fedreal system is designed to eliminate the stresses caused by those divisions by creating formal divisions in the country. Canada has wasted untold amounts of time and money dealing with divisions for which the solution already existed. More frustratingly, a solution that was already implemented in Canada, just not followed.
But the division that has appeared on Monday, the divide between urban Canadians and those who live outside the big population centres, is real, and time and money needs to be spent on coming up with solutions.
Luckily we have a model in the US, a country that has not been wasting its time because it does actually respect its own system of government, and whose judicial branch is only all too happy to make sure that federal and state governments follow those rules. As a result, I think the US is much farther ahead in coming up with innovative solutions to how to make cities work, and how to support rural communities. I don’t pretend to know which, indeed if any, of those solutions could apply to Canada, but I’m hopeful that since now we have a chance to stop wasting our time with these problems of our own making, problems for which the solution has been staring us right in the face, we can start working on this one.
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Comments
Angry,
Just wondering if you are as Angry today as you were on, say, 22 Jan?
Posted by: rusty at January 25, 2006 01:37 PM
To nitpick: The franco-Ontarian minority should not be discounted. Visit far-Eastern Ontario or Northenrn Ontario. These folks do not like being lumped in with Quebec.
Posted by: groovy-on-granville at January 25, 2006 01:48 PM
All very true Steve. Unfortunately you used the U.S. as a good example in the last paragraph. The leftys are sure to disregard everything else said and will be pointing at their screens right now screaming " SEE!! SEE!! RIGHT WING AGENDA! 51st STATE!". And frothing too. Plenty of frothing. And maybe some knashing of teeth.
Posted by: Cameron at January 25, 2006 01:57 PM
What the Liberal elitists in the East are really saying is that TO, Montreal and the city of Vancouver have voted to leave themselves out of the movement to better this country. Those same elitists are holding fast to the old Liberal way of governance--create the crisis and then pretend to solve it. Are they saying that Quebec City, Calgary, Edmonton, Medicine Hat and Lethbridge,Kelowna to mention a few, are not cities worthy of mention?
Once PM Harper takes the reins of power in this God forsaken Liberal country and treats the provinces with the respect they deserve these 'problems' will disappear. There does not need to be money thrown at it--it is no longer going to be a real problem. The centre of the Universe may not have any seats in Parliament but the popular vote in TO increased dramatically for the CPC. All is not lost--people will wake up. The Libs are Opposition now--now we can start to fix this country--it will take a long while--but the future looks brighter than it has for the last 13 years.
Posted by: George at January 25, 2006 01:59 PM
... a federal system should allow the differences to flourish, and should allow citizens to find the place they feel most at home, while still being Canadian.
AREYOUKIDDING? Differences are evil, divisive and un-Canadian don't ya know. Sure Canadians tolerate diversity and all, but get real. Look at our history. Why change now?
Posted by: PM at January 25, 2006 02:00 PM
Good Morning Angry et al,
I am in complete agreement with your commentary.
The Federal Government has been pushing its way into Provincial and now municipal areas. The areas that the Federal Government is responsible for have been neglected. That is probably because the local issues are more glamorous and 'vote getting' than are federal areas.
One other thing that needs correcting - at this point, I am not not talking about other preferential voting systems, getting rid of federal government-owned television and radio broadcasting stations, a better system of selecting federally-appointed judges, term limits, etc. - but rather bringing to reality that basic legend that Canada has 'representation by population.' Sure, PEI joined Canada and was promised four MP's forever. My Richmond (BC) riding has about the same population but only one MP. If you calculate the numbers, at the different ratios of people per MP for Quebec and British Columbia, assuming the ratios stayed the same, BC would need about 900,000 more people than Quebec just to have the same number of MP's.
Heck, during my lifetime I have seen many changes occur in this country that I couldn't have imagined before. Of course, it is difficult to make these changes but it is amazing what the political, and often media, elites can force upon a population if they decide that they want to do something. Alberta and Ontario also lag behind proper 'rep by pop.'
Lance M. Jefferson
Richmond, British Columbia
Posted by: Lance M. Jefferson at January 25, 2006 02:03 PM
Results of the last five elections: Cons vs Libs.
Cons: (total of PC + Reform or Alliance or CPC)= 54, 80, 78, 99, 124.
Libs: 177, 155, 172, 135, 103.
I take comfort from these numbers. Libs do not. They are nervous and getting desperate. Desperate people resort to desperate means (judging by their retoric). We have reason to be optimistic but we need to be vigilant and responsive.
Urban/rural divide? I think Coyne has debunked this today. The metropolitan areas may elect a lot of Liberals but there are a heck of a lot of conservatives among the general metro population, far more than the media likes and will report.
The media is the propaganda arm of the liberal establishment's values. But people aren't buying into these values and circulation figures are down.
Conservatives are on the right side of history because our values are, at their core, more consistent with human nature. It is true that there are some silly people in our midst but they soon wear out their welcome.
We are going to win the culture war because of the internet. It is allowing conservatives to get their message out. So, to Angry et al, for fighting the good fight,you have my gratitude, more than words can say.
Posted by: Michael Hammer at January 25, 2006 02:58 PM
One interesting dynamic of this country is people with a liberal bent who have a complete intolerance of anyone who has a different view than them, i.e. social conservatives. We certainly aren't the ones who are intolerant. Just because we see things differently does NOT mean we will force you to think the same way. How Christians and the Pro-Life community got demonized in this country during the last election was absolute intolerance and the height of bigotry.
And the term "right-wing extremists". What is "extreme" about defending the traditional definition of marriage? If anything, those proponents of same-sex marriage are radical, left-wing extremists, not us, who support a more main-stream view.
Posted by: Soccermom at January 25, 2006 02:59 PM
I ran numbers this AM from Montreal, TOronto and Vancouver. They respectively have voted 15.4%, 24%, and 29% CONSERVATIVE. According to the libs these votes don't count. I'm talking about 250,000 voters that wanted the CONSERVATIVES in power and they ARE represented. Twist the story do you think the liberals are going to ignore Calgary or Edmonton not likely, both Jennifer Pollock and Anne McLellan fought pretty dam hard this election.
Posted by: rob at January 25, 2006 03:04 PM
I agree with Lance...all these 'seats' were divvied up in the horse and buggy days and that whole thing needs to be updated to something more balanced and modern.
D
Posted by: David Lockwood at January 25, 2006 03:07 PM
Angry,
There are loads of French Canadians in Eastern
Ontario.
Posted by: Wimpy Canadian at January 25, 2006 03:09 PM
I don't know if I fully buy into the rural-urban divide. It's really only a Van/TO/Mont vs. rest of canada divide.
In addition to all of the large cities mentioned above that were basically swept blue, there were other cities even in Ontario that went Liberal free. For instance, both the Hamilton and Windsor areas went with a combo of CPC and NDP.
While it seems true that the largest of our cites refused to move with the tide, it might simply be because they have the highest inertial barrier. All (or nearly all) of the large-but-not-huge urban centres seemed to share the desire for change.
Posted by: Jeff at January 25, 2006 03:18 PM
Aside from that I agree with your reasoning behind the trends that we did see.
Posted by: Jeff at January 25, 2006 03:19 PM
Results of the last five elections: Cons vs Libs.
Cons: (total of PC + Reform or Alliance or CPC)= 54, 80, 78, 99, 124.
Libs: 177, 155, 172, 135, 103.
I take comfort from these numbers. Libs do not. They are nervous and getting desperate. Desperate people resort to desperate measures. This is confirmed by their hysterical rhetoric. We have reason to be optimistic but we need to be vigilant and responsive.
Urban/rural divide? I think Coyne has debunked this today. The metropolitan areas may elect a lot of Liberals but there are a heck of a lot of conservatives among the general metro population, far more than the media likes or will report.
The media is the propaganda arm of the liberal establishment's values. But people aren't buying into these values and circulation figures are down.
Conservatives are on the right side of history because our values are, at their core, more consistent with human nature. In fact, it would not be going too far to say that the essential difference between Cons and Libs is that Cons believe that there is such a thing as human nature and Libs do not. Libs believe that humans are infinitely malleable and that, through culture, society can be perfected. Cons do not believe that humans can be perfected and even reject the notion of perfectiblity outright. (Interestinly, Libs, when pressed, cannot even define this state of perfection, hence the number of wild goose chases they seem permanently embarked upon). It is true that there are some silly people in our midst too but they soon wear out their welcome.
We are going to win the culture war because of the internet. It is allowing conservatives to get their message out. So, to Angry et al, for fighting the good fight,you have my gratitude, more than words can say.
Posted by: Michael Hammer at January 25, 2006 03:57 PM
Sorry for the re-post but the site told me my first attempt was rejected. There are small editorial changes in the second post.
Posted by: Michael Hammer at January 25, 2006 04:01 PM
There are loads of French Canadians in Eastern
Ontario.
To everyone to which I applied the word "pocket", I'm sorry. The word was meant to suggest that the French population formed specific majorities in reasonably well-defined areas, as opposed to generally spread out. That means a province could fashion support for these communities that is confined by space. Ontario should probably provide services in French for these people, but hiring rules requiring French skills might only apply in these areas, or only to certain ministries that have a heavy presence in those areas (for example, if the area was heavily into mining, the Natural Resources should probably make sure bilingual skills were taught to its staff).
The point is, each province should tailor the rules for its particular circumstances. Saskatchewan probably doesn't need much in the way of French support (I await the flood of posts telling me I'm wrong), but might provide more services in Ukranian.
Anyway, the point is, as the federal government, I don't need to know the issues in Saskatchewan if I trust the provincial government to do its job. And if it doesn't I can trust the Saskatchewan electorate to hold the Saskatchewan government to account.
Posted by: at January 25, 2006 04:22 PM
The problem in this country, is that the cabal who used to be in the PMO had an autocratic sense for imposing homogeneity in various provincial jurisdictions, including various social dynamics.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper has indicated that Canada is flexible enough to allow for heterogeneity in various pieces of provincial jurisdiction. Quite frankly, he is correct; as any fair reading of the Constitution would indicate.
Posted by: Hans Rupprecht at January 25, 2006 04:31 PM
It's pretty simple really. It was the only way to get rid of Martin. We did need to get rid of that windbag. After Cretien's 'street fighter' we did not need an 'old lady'.
As the GWOT is becoming more and more a morass for Cheney's govt we don't have to worry 'bout dear Steven getting us into real stupid stuff.
Enjoy your brief hiatus. I'd guess two years.
PenGun
Do What Now ??? ... Standards and Practices !
Posted by: PenGun at January 25, 2006 04:50 PM
Whats the big deal about Vancouver? Its not that big of a city. (pop 545 671) is smaller than Calgary. Calgary is nearly twice the size...
Vancouver gets its clout from the lower mainland area, which has a population of nearly 2.1 million... and those people have elected conservatives. 6 . conservatives...
If you worry that the conservatives, haven't been elected in the big city, strike Vancouver off the list, they have elected conservatives.
BTW, is the liberal party now just a regional party since they no longer have seats in all 10 provinces? and the NDP - only have seats in 4 or 5 provinces, why are they a national party? I know a separate topic.
Posted by: Curtis at January 25, 2006 05:06 PM
My comments, kindly posted by Andre Coyne on his site:
The media have been touting a supposed great urban/rural divide revealed in this election, with the Liberals dominating urban Canada and the Conservatives controlling the rural part of the country.
It is true that the Conservatives predominate in rural areas. However it is a myth that the Liberals represent urban Canada. Elections Canada posts the election results for eleven major urban centres on its website: Calgary, Edmonton, Halifax, Montreal, Ottawa, Quebec City, Regina, St. John's, Toronto, Vancover and Winnipeg. In these cities the Liberals won 42 seats and the Conservatives 36 (NDP 10, BQ 9).
http://enr.elections.ca/MajorCentres_e.aspx
This slim Liberal lead is hardly an indicator of urban dominance. Even more striking is the popular vote count in these cities: Liberals 1,620,000, Conservatives 1,580,000. Almost the same.
What does stand out is that the Liberals won 35 seats in the three largest cities -- which I would call metropolises -- Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. The Conservatives won none of these "metro" seats.
Clearly there is no urban/rural divide in Canada. There is, on the other hand, a clear metro/Canada divide; the three metropolises are severely out of step with the rest of the country, urban and rural.
Why might this be? I suspect a clue may lie in the fact that that some three-quarters of immigrants settle in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver.
http://www12.statcan.ca/english/census01/products/analytic/companion/etoimm/canada.cfm#three_largest_urban_centres
The populations of Toronto and Vancouver are especially distinctive in comparison with other Canadian cities. The foreign-born percentage of the population in these two metropolises is 43.7 and 37.5 respectively according to the 2001 census (and will be even higher now). No other large Canadian city had a foreign-born percentage above 24.
http://www12.statcan.ca/english/census01/products/analytic/companion/etoimm/tables/subprovs/fbpro.cfm
Mark
Ottawa
Posted by: Mark Collins at January 25, 2006 05:53 PM
I personally see a great divide between the left and right.
With the hate that spews from the left over on a certain lefty forum.....it is quite clear that not agreeing with them, makes us spawns of the devil. The left have this attitude that their values are gospel.
I only have to cut and paste this crap to show the mentality of some:
“You conservatives are shit stains on society, I hope your children end up poor and die in alleys waiting for medical attention, I hope you lose ur job and cant make ends meet and while ur trying to “pull urself up by the bootstraps” that u get addicted to drugs and depressed and die alone, you cons have fucked up enough things in north america.”
”know what the conservative party stands for, if you think they arent about destroying womens rights, gay rights etc. then you havent been paying attention, which is totally possible, seeing as so many good Canadians voted for such a disgusting vial group of people"
The Conservatives could not have come at a better time. God Bless Canada.
Posted by: Ownshook at January 25, 2006 08:25 PM
"Those same elitists are holding fast to the old Liberal way of governance--create the crisis and then pretend to solve it." Wasn't this John Snobelen of the Mike Harris team who coined the phrase "we need to create a crisis"?
Posted by: Average Joe at January 25, 2006 10:33 PM
Here is an interesting link on world cities:
http://www.lboro.ac.uk/gawc/citylist.html
You'll find the three in discussion on the list...
These cities have numerous unique issues, and they felt rightly or wrongly this election that the conservatives offered weaker stances on these issue. How much attention the feds should be paying to the cities is another question.
Posted by: Rob at January 26, 2006 12:54 AM
This is all a red herring...
Like someone from Calgary, cant empathize or understand Toronto's problems and special needs... what its a foreign country now? They don't speak English there anymore?
What a crock... Toronto and Montreal voters didn't elect a conservative big deal...
Posted by: Curtis at January 26, 2006 01:41 AM
I think what we are seeing here is the emergence of City states within Canada. These large cities are quite insulated from the rest of the country, having their own culture and ideologies not always in step with the country they reside in. I think you would find that most people living in the GTA would consider themselves Torontonians first and foremost.
Posted by: "Expert" Tom at January 26, 2006 10:03 AM
 
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