What really happened in the Quebec election? A lot of things. But the short answer is, voters elected legislators. Click here to read the rest.
Let me tell you what really happened in the Quebec election. Voters went “Ugh.” When you see a separatist boasting that she’s just been elected premier of Quebec, it’s easy to think we’re back to Jacques Parizeau’s never-ending visit to the dentist. But that’s not what happened.
For a person who hates politics, I sure can’t get enough of it. Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, call your office. But my excuse for staring obsessively at things like the Republican National Convention is that government is important especially when it’s done badly. And right now its general air of dreary malevolence is a big part of the problem. Click here to read the rest.
Political conventions are strange tribal gatherings whose frequent emotional outbursts, frenzied responses to obscure issues and peculiar sense of embattled joy might prove upsetting to normal people. But for all their weirdness they are important tools of self-government because, at them, party insiders show you who they think they are. Click here to read the rest.
Equalization makes us poorer, encourages bad policy and fosters bitterness. Unfortunately we can't just take it out behind the barn and kill it with an axe. It's wedged into the Constitution and besides, its original purpose of protecting Canadians against the possibility of a provincial government collapsing financially is not unworthy. But we could certainly make it less costly, harmful and unfair. Click here to read the rest.
Satirist P.J. O'Rourke says, "Beyond a certain point complexity is fraud ... when someone creates a system in which you can't tell whether or not you're being fooled, you're being fooled." So take Canada's multi-billion-dollar equalization program ... please. It's so complicated even experts have trouble with it, and regular citizens are excluded completely. Click here to read the rest.
Equalization doesn't just reward failure. It encourages it. Seven Canadian provinces were chronic recipients of the program from the very beginning and all have been economic and financial underperformers that bleed ambitious young people to more dynamic parts of the country. Newfoundland and Saskatchewan are no longer recipients of equalization and are struggling to reverse economic and demographic decline, but Quebec, Manitoba and the other three Atlantic provinces are still stuck in it. Click here to read the rest.
In Canada's fiscal Olympics, large equalization payments constitute the brass, tin and lead medals. They recognize and reward persistent policy failure lasting decades. Quebec, most of the Atlantic provinces and Manitoba now find themselves fighting Ontario for ownership of the podium.