I think there is a strong case to be made for the country to actively reduce the federal government in size by looking at what the federal government really needs to do and how it can do this best. Since we have all these provincial governments and they all have a civil service already, the more areas the federal government can vacate, the better for the country.
I want to start with the areas of provincial responsibility:
- Healthcare - The federal intrusion into this area has only added extra costs and burdens to the system. All the federal government should be doing is helping to top up healthcare in the poorest provinces, period. There are a few issues like drug approvals that should remain federal.
- Natural Resources - since the three territories are not sovereign Crowns in their own right, the Federal government has a role in natural resources in the north. It does not have a role in the rest of the country in forestry, energy or agriculture. It makes no sense to have the federal government involved in the most primary issues of provincial authority. Remember, we have a taxpayer funded Canadian Forest Service that has no responsibility for lands or trees. It has six large offices with the biggest one in Ottawa. There are close to 1000 staff and none of them located in the heart of Canada's forest industry, Prince George.
- Parks - all the provinces are able to run parks, there is no reason to have a separate federal department dealing with parks. There is enormous duplication here across the country that offers no benefits to Canadians. Transfer all the National Parks to the provinces and offer a 15 year financial transition.
- Museums - transfer them all to the provinces. There is no reason for the federal government to by in this field when all the provinces already do it.
- Policing - the federal government has to reduce the RCMP to a limited national role. Each province should be responsible for its own policing.
- Old Age Pension, Canada Pension Plan and EI - all three of these should be devolved to the provinces and operated in tandem with the provincial welfare system. The nature of how the public interacts with the provincial governments makes more sense than having two levels of government involved with direct payments to the public. This means each province could set their own terms for pensions and EI. Full portability is not a huge issue to deal with. All three should also become fully funded and not be pay as you go.
- Environment - Given that the provinces are responsible for the land base and natural resources, almost all of what is done by Environment Canada
- There are more things that could go to the provinces from the federal government
The Economic Development Agencies
There are a bunch of these and no one has been able to show that they have contributed anything of any significance to the economic development of the country. While I do not have enough data to show it for certain, as far as I can ascertain from the information out there, the economic development agencies provide about $0.25 to $0.37 of value of every dollar spent. We would be further ahead in the country if they were shut down tomorrow and all the funds given directly to the provinces.
The Territories
The three territories should be moved from their current status as self governing colonies of Canada to full members of confederation. All three should be made provinces ASAP with the federal government providing a generation long transition period for financing.
The Military
We have a navy, the coast guard and fisheries and oceans, what would happen if they were combined? There would be more ships in more locations for all three areas. You can make the relationship with fisheries and oceans only one of where the navy/coast guard provides the access to the water.
If you combine all three and have fisheries officers on all naval ships, there could some very interesting research done all over the world by the federal government and a new approach to pelagic fishing. Someone has to start dealing with the global pelagic fishing problem.
The F-35s - why? Why? What possible future role could these planes have for Canada? We are only a few short years away from having remotely operated drones that can do more than the F-35 and do it better. If we were to get ahead of the curve and develop the next generation of drones we would have a new industry in Canada (this from a religious pacifist). A large investment in drones means we would have real arctic sovereignty patrols 24/7. We could also dramatically improve the ability of our maritime forces to be an effective patrol of all of the national waters. Imagine a Canadian destroyer in the Somali waters that had numerous drones scanning the sky that had the capability to defend merchant ships.
Can the dream happen?
There is a lot that could be done to reduce the scope and scale of the federal government in Canada and thereby reduce the costs to the public. A more rational delivery of services, and by this I mean the provinces are the primary contact between the public and the government, would mean we would have more services for a lower cost.
4 comments:
I enjoyed this post very much, and it's gratifying to see your more libertarian side at work. I think your proposals are sound as initial steps, but are only a beginning to the devolution and decentralization of power that must occur in response to increasing competitive pressures that come with the benefits of participation in increasingly larger and more diverse markets.
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A couple of thoughts
RCMP- I agree totally with devolving this function to the provinces who currently don't have police forces. Some small provinces may want to keep it no matter what but I don't see any reason for BC to keep on using it.
National Parks- I don't think any politician would support devolving the "big" and prominent parks such as Jasper, Banff, or Waterton to the provinces nor in particular would Alberta wan't to manage them. Remember too the federal government picks up all the maintenance costs of the Trans Canada highway within the Rocky Mountain Parks. I agree though the national park system should be expanded only sparingly. I also suspect there is a bit of an BC Alberta divide on this one as in my opinion the feds do a better job of running the Alberta parks than the BC ones especially Banff vs Yoho.
Another one you forgot the National Capital Commission. While Ontario and Quebec have in the past complained about their jurisdiction being stepped on by the NCC they don't seem to complain when the feds pick 50% of road construction costs within the National Capital Region.
EI and Old Age Security- The feds specifically obtained powers in these areas many years ago I don't see them giving them up easily. The CPP on the otherhand is up to the provinces whether they want in or out so far only Quebec has wanted out.
A few more ideas:
One of the real "acid" tests in my mind would be at the very least limiting the role of the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation in mortgage insurance. First and foremost under any literal interpretation of the Constitution housing is quite clearly within the realm of property and civil rights. Second CMHC is exempted from provincial insurance regulations that its private sector(albeit heaviliy aided by the feds)competitors such as Genworth and Canada Guaranty have to comply with. Additionally several countries such as Australia and New Zealand have been quite sucessful without any government aid for the housing sector.
What makes CMHC so interesting is BC benefits from it more than any other federal govt program whereas other provinces such as Manitoba, Quebec, and the Maritimes with much lower rates of home ownership and more affordable housing to begin with benefit much less. Now one can argue the afforementioned provinces benefit from a lot of other federal government programs on the otherhand most other programs have explicit costs whereas no one is quite sure how much financial risk the federal government takes on through CMHC.
The territories have major issues with stable tax revenues due to the massive dependence on resource extraction.
Example, 32 commmunities for a total of about 42,000 people in NWT rely on about 90 per cent of their economy on three diamond mines. The is a jagged decade left in the expected lifetime of those mines, the 4 mines possibly coming on line in the next 5 years are equivalent to one of the big three currently open. Nunavut watched its economy jump by almost a quarter last year with their new gold mine. Plus Nunavut is determined to maintain their language - a lovely cultural idea, fiscally it is nearly suicidal given the low rates of Inuit english language literacy.
The territories would have terrible transition problems to full province hood. The current push in NWT for devolution of federal powers might be the right course, but INAC is intractable as always.
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