It is becoming clear after all these years of studying our politics, that Canadians are dealing with far more political factions and causes than are needed to govern this country. Instead of concentrating on the outward view of foreign relations, trade and peace, Canada’s federal government is constantly having to deal with low-balls from pesky provinces. And, frankly, the feds are not handling them well.
But who in federal politics really wants to deal with a wanton child like Quebec? Squabbles with a country-sized Ontario. And the schizophrenia of greedy Alberta. Add to that the angst of the big cities trying to go to the top dogs instead of the go-betweens. There is no discipline here—nor traffic cops to direct the rat race.
Canadians used to have the reputation, at least in the United States, of being polite and pleasant people. Boy, is that ever a lot of BS to-day.
Our parliament is supposed to be a forum of polite discourse on the appropriate legal structure to serve the needs of Canadians. We just appointed a new Speaker who thought up a few suggestions on how we could improve the qualities of that discourse. What he heard back was not polite enough to be called a discourse.
In a bilingual country, we have one province that thinks they can keep our majority language outside their pristine, pure, French-language-only province. Instead of putting the needs of the Quebec population first, their politicians do their best to maintain their seigneurial rights that dictated how the province of New France was to be run for its first 200 years.
We all seem to get the feeling that our federal government desperately needs some relief from whiny, dissatisfied and over-reaching provinces that have this country by the gonads. As much as I liked Justin Trudeau’s father, he left us with a constitution that now nobody knows how to re-open. You couldn’t if you really wanted to.
Maybe, sometime in the distant future, while the world is still allowing us to live off its bounty, more intelligent Canadians will have a series of referendums to achieve a better union. Let’s just hope that it will not be too late.
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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry
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