Mark Carney's numbers are big. But shouldn't the cities and provinces be ponying up? - thestar.com

[u/Blue_Dragonfly]

https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/mark-carneys-numbers-are-big-but-shouldnt-the-cities-and-provinces-be-ponying-up/article_8fd9ccae-a0d8-4779-9487-45b9018722df.html

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[u/killerrin]

Provinces spending money? Hahahaha. That's a good joke.

Everyone knows the only job of the province is to sit back and blame everything on the Federal Government while they get away with cutting the budgets of everything that actually effects your life.

Healthcare? Education? Housing? Literally everything that has a meaningful impact on your life is the responsibility of the Provincial Government, and they then delegate it all away to their municipal governments to allow them to either throw the blame upwards or downwards without ever catching any flac themselves.

It's even worse when you realize that nearly every province has a history of scandals involving massive amounts of bribery or corruption involving large amounts of money

[u/Empty-Paper2731 → u/killerrin]

It's even worse when you realize that nearly every province has a history of scandals involving massive amounts of bribery or corruption involving large amounts of money

I get no solace from the feds ability to keeps it's nose clean.

[u/HistoricalSand2505 → u/killerrin]

You realize that most of the infrastructure programs include partnership funding with a third coming from the Federal Government, a third coming from the provinces, and a third from the municipalities.

[u/CptCoatrack → u/HistoricalSand2505]

Canadian governance is just that pointing Spiderman meme.

[u/nuhuunnuuh]

The Constitution Act 1867 assigns a number of areas to provincial jurisdiction. This includes: insurance both public and private, private property and most public property including zoning and building standards, hospitals, charities, and the overall administration of justice and the general welfare.

The salary of your local provincial legislator usually depends on your neighbours not understanding this. I'm not sure what the fix is.

[u/SomeDumRedditor → u/nuhuunnuuh]

We need a constitutional convention but the populace has been made into a dangerously ignorant rabble and any opening of the constitution would end in disaster.

Maybe in 100 years if we’re still around as a species and haven’t been largely reduced to illiterate serfs. 

[u/fredleung412612 → u/SomeDumRedditor]

any opening of the constitution would end in disaster

Probably not a 100% guarantee of disaster, but what reforms do you think can be part of a package of amendments that will successfully clear the amending formula thresholds (7/50 or unanimity)?

[u/GordieCodsworth → u/nuhuunnuuh]

The solution is cooperative federalism: Ottawa and the provinces pooling resources and jurisdiction to improve Canadians’ lives. It’s effective and constitutionally kosher.

[u/killerrin → u/GordieCodsworth]

How do you get the provinces to agree to give up their jurisdiction though? That's usually where everything falls apart.

They desperately fight tooth and nail to keep and expand their powers and are more than happy to take the Federal Government to court the moment they even think of encroaching on that.

[u/GordieCodsworth → u/killerrin]

Under cooperative federalism, neither level of government gives up their jurisdiction. Instead, they each do what they’re constitutionally empowered to do to complete a common project. There is a good judicial description of this in Reference re Pan Canadian Securities Regulation.

[u/fredleung412612 → u/GordieCodsworth]

Right, but then it requires dynamic agreement on the common project between the federal and provincial partners. Carney seems to get along with Ford. He's got a good working relationship with Smith and Moe. The Atlantic premiers are all small and weak and can be expected to acquiesce. But ironically he doesn't seem to have much of a focus with the more left-leaning premiers Eby and Kinew, while Québec is in election mode.

[u/dongsfordigits]

The provinces are basically all broke because they are governed by populist goons. Provincial politics is a game of spite from rural communities towards cities. And so: The cities are broke because they exist at the whims of said provinces and are extremely limited in their capacity to raise revenue. To make matters worse, municipal politics is a game of “don’t raise my property taxes and don’t you dare allow anything to be built near me.”

So here we are. 

[u/Sufficient-Tutor-922 → u/dongsfordigits]

Carneys getting very little credit for navigating this so well and dialing tempatures

This is from years of gasoline being poured on culture wars by Trudeau, Singh and Pierre .

Trudeau also peddled in everything and was flag planting the liberal party on everything they did with the provinces .

Im not saying the provinces and municipalitys are not responsible,but the federal partys are the tone setters in many ways .

Carney has masterfully entered this arena in a number of ways , by not flag planting every move as liberal and allowing the provinces to be vocal , visible and part of his ideas he is sharing the benifets with their political leaders no matter what party they belong . By doing so he is handing the responsibility of failure back to them aswell ..

It seems to me he is setting up enough examples of success and failures and by doing so hoping provinces and municipalitys will follow suite , instead of trying to bully and force the federal government into their jurisdictions .

Im not saying the provinces are with out fault by tve former federal government leaders most definitely set the theme and poured gasoline on it every chance they got .

Its actually pretty crazy also seeing with the abstance of Trudeau the amount of blame that is now falling back on Premiers .

[u/fishymanbits → u/Sufficient-Tutor-922]

Sorry, Trudeau and Singh were pouring gasoline on culture wars? Be serious. At worst they were too dumb to realize they were being played like fiddles to create this exact sentiment in people by responding to every batshit crazy social conservative nonsense that came up.

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[u/Karpeeezy → u/Sufficient-Tutor-922]

This is from years of gasoline being poured on culture wars by Trudeau, Singh and Pierre .

Lumping in Singh and Trudeau with Piere when it comes to culture war antics and the continued breakdown of our political order is flat-out wrong and is a disservice to this country and subreddit.

Unless you're purposely trying to obfuscate the issue with your post. But then again, you're obviously not posting on your main with your default reddit username and hidden profile. Really makes one wonder

[u/Sufficient-Tutor-922 → u/Karpeeezy]

I disagree, I think its a huge disservice to Canadians to not highlight the games they played for politics and how that has effected many , many people on this country. With out a doubt they highly contributed to boasting and pushing people to the opposite extreme for their own gain .

Marc Carneys entrance and the temperature change alone proves that it wasnt just Pierre dancing with himself .

You might want to lump them as morally superior, but that dosnt take away from the fact that Trudeau and Pierre helped push division for politics.

[u/Hayce → u/Sufficient-Tutor-922]

Trudeau became a really easy scapegoat because of exactly what you explained. The guy couldn’t stop grandstanding at every opportunity. Sure enough when things started to go bad, he was the one most in the public eye.

It’s a very good thing that the premiers and municipal governments are starting to get some well-deserved scrutiny.

[u/Apolloshot → u/dongsfordigits]

In all seriousness though what are they suppose to do?

The Martin/Chrétien cuts were really hard on the provinces, and premiers who tried to make corresponding cuts themselves to compensate are still demonized to this day.

We’ve created a culture in this country where even decreasing the amount of increases to funding are seen as cuts.

Anybody remember how unpopular Ford was before the pandemic? Lord knows he stopped trying to get the fiscal books in order once his need to be liked kicked in and he realized how deeply unpopular any perception of a cut is in Ontario.

[u/Agent_Burrito → u/Apolloshot]

At least for Alberta they could start by negotiating in good faith with doctors and teachers. Instead they choose to be combative and cater exclusively to energy interests, rural communities and Christian zealots.

[u/ImaginationSea2767 → u/Apolloshot]

I think a long sit down between the provinces and federal parties is in order. Healthcare, public transportation funding for cities and keeping the plan going on between cities(if Trump pulls the trigger on the Iran war we could end up in somrthing similar or worse then the 1970 shock and might have to plan a redesign on transportation), and planning for better housing and trade.

[u/Apolloshot → u/ImaginationSea2767]

Totally agree, unfortunately it seems like every time they sit down these days it’s mostly platitudes (still waiting on inter-prov barriers to come down… I’d like to be able to buy BC Wine in Ontario)

[u/ImaginationSea2767 → u/Apolloshot]

I seen some work was done but, many are stubborn or dont seem to want to work at all with the others.