Like it or lump it, Canada is a confederation. And that means the parts of the country that created it think they are just as important as the whole. As many wise politicos have noted over the years, it makes the country a bitch to govern. The federal government got the best of the deal though. It appoints the judges of the supreme court and that is where most of the complaints of the provinces go to die.
Scott Moe, the earnest premier of Saskatchewan learned something of this lesson the other day. He took the federal government’s effort to reduce carbon emissions to his province’s court of appeal only to get a 3 to 2 decision that the fed’s really do have the authority to do that.
Now Moe and his friends from Alberta, Ontario and maybe other provinces, will take the case to the supreme court. It might seem like a terrible waste of taxpayers’ money but every once in a while, it is necessary for the supreme court judges to take a look at how this country is, or is not, working.
It also means that the question is unlikely to be answered before some time late next year. What those provinces are really doing is getting behind Andrew “Chuckles’ Scheer, leader of the federal conservatives. They figure with Chuckles running the frat house on the Ottawa River, they can pretty well do anything they want.
It would mean the gutting of Medicare across the country. Our aboriginals would become lesser citizens. And federal transfer payments could become history. It will be like having the stupid members of the Trump family running the farm on the north side of the border.
What would also be history would be the liberal attempts to revitalize Canada’s middle class. Justin Trudeau has never defined the middle class very well but he has done a good job of improving the lot of families with kids in the process.
But we should be thankful that this country is not run by narrow-minded, right-wing schmucks such as Jason Kenney, or Doug Ford. It is bad enough that we are having to listen to them snorting like hogs in the mud in their respective provinces. Canadians can do better.
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Copyright 2019 © Peter Lowry
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