Weekly Note to Supporters of the Citizens Centre
from Link Byfield
March 1, 2004
COMMENTARY
Alberta's job is not to be popular
but to push Canada in the right direction
Last Thursday night I lined up with 27 other individuals in Edmonton, for five minutes of attention from the government of Alberta.
Nine of Premier Klein's MLAs want to hear what we the people think they should do to "strengthen Alberta's role in Confederation."
The MLAs have travelled the province and heard from dozens of Albertans. Except in the north where it was 40 below, the hearings have been well attended. (The final one takes place at the Southland Drive Best Western Hotel in Calgary on Thursday March 4. You're invited.)
What I suggested, on behalf of the Citizens Centre for Freedom and Democracy, is that they simplify the question. We should be asking ourselves "How can Alberta strengthen Canada?" (You can read our submission on www.citizenscentre.com)
The answer is to change those policies and programs which over the past 50 years have turned Canada into a centralized welfare state.
Before the 1950s, our country was a loose federation of self-governing, self-financing provinces, each responsible for its own affairs, with little national government except during world wars. This made Canadians the richest people in the world except only for Americans.
Now look at us. We moan when governments take half our income, but expect them to run our lives, economy and communities. Our national government penalizes economic success in Alberta and Ontario, and subsidizes economic and political irresponsibility everywhere else.
In the past decade, while we have been foolishly preening ourselves as the "best country in the world," our standard of living has fallen below those of Iceland, Finland, Norway, Ireland, Denmark, the Netherlands and Switzerland. It was reported in 1998 that average income in the poorest American state, Mississippi, had risen above that of Canada's highest-income province, Ontario.
By what miracle of incompetence have we become poorer than Finns, Icelanders and the good folks of Mississippi?
You could say that the root cause is big government. But places like Norway and Switzerland have as much government as we do, yet they are moving forward and we are not. So what's the answer?
I think it lies in rediscovering what makes people work hard and succeed. Every nation has its own formula. Our founding formula was a very good one: leaving real social and economic responsibility at the lower level of government, not the higher.
Medicare, unemployment insurance, and public pensions are not in themselves wrong, as long as over time they make people more self-confident and resourceful, not less.
Our mistake was not in having social programs, but in making them large, lucrative and national, rather than modest and mainly regionally funded. Economists have demonstrated over and over that Canada's insanely high level of national transfers damages receiving regions even more than it does Alberta, which pays the net cost of these programs, supported by Ontario.
Unfortunately, nobody listens to economists. It falls, therefore, to Albertans, and their provincial government, to shake Canadians from their complacency, and to force this debate into national attention in every way we can.
Alberta should start by taking control of three areas of provincial responsibility: its own share of the Canada Pension Plan, the provincial policing duties of the RCMP, and provincial income tax collection.
The province can assume responsibility for all three without Ottawa's consent, and (taken together) would get better service at lower cost.
This will not make Albertans popular with other Canadians. It doesn't matter. The aim should not be popularity but influence. The most influential province in Canada is Quebec, which is never popular.
Nor should Alberta's aim be to make itself prosperous at the expense of others. The point is to make EVERYONE more prosperous. And that means reinventing Canada's original federal scheme of small central government and strong provinces. This actually did build one of the most impressive nations on earth before Ottawa's lust for political control started wrecking it.
Alberta must lead this movement. Ottawa won't, Ontario won't, and neither will anyone else.
- Link Byfield
Link Byfield is chairman of the Citizens Centre for Freedom and Democracy
Citizens Centre for Freedom and Democracy
Suite 203, 10441 - 178 Street
Edmonton, AB T5S 1R5
Phone: 780-481-7844
Toll Free: 1-866-666-6768
Fax: 780-481-9983
contact@citizenscentre.com
www.citizenscentre.com
from Link Byfield
March 1, 2004
COMMENTARY
Alberta's job is not to be popular
but to push Canada in the right direction
Last Thursday night I lined up with 27 other individuals in Edmonton, for five minutes of attention from the government of Alberta.
Nine of Premier Klein's MLAs want to hear what we the people think they should do to "strengthen Alberta's role in Confederation."
The MLAs have travelled the province and heard from dozens of Albertans. Except in the north where it was 40 below, the hearings have been well attended. (The final one takes place at the Southland Drive Best Western Hotel in Calgary on Thursday March 4. You're invited.)
What I suggested, on behalf of the Citizens Centre for Freedom and Democracy, is that they simplify the question. We should be asking ourselves "How can Alberta strengthen Canada?" (You can read our submission on www.citizenscentre.com)
The answer is to change those policies and programs which over the past 50 years have turned Canada into a centralized welfare state.
Before the 1950s, our country was a loose federation of self-governing, self-financing provinces, each responsible for its own affairs, with little national government except during world wars. This made Canadians the richest people in the world except only for Americans.
Now look at us. We moan when governments take half our income, but expect them to run our lives, economy and communities. Our national government penalizes economic success in Alberta and Ontario, and subsidizes economic and political irresponsibility everywhere else.
In the past decade, while we have been foolishly preening ourselves as the "best country in the world," our standard of living has fallen below those of Iceland, Finland, Norway, Ireland, Denmark, the Netherlands and Switzerland. It was reported in 1998 that average income in the poorest American state, Mississippi, had risen above that of Canada's highest-income province, Ontario.
By what miracle of incompetence have we become poorer than Finns, Icelanders and the good folks of Mississippi?
You could say that the root cause is big government. But places like Norway and Switzerland have as much government as we do, yet they are moving forward and we are not. So what's the answer?
I think it lies in rediscovering what makes people work hard and succeed. Every nation has its own formula. Our founding formula was a very good one: leaving real social and economic responsibility at the lower level of government, not the higher.
Medicare, unemployment insurance, and public pensions are not in themselves wrong, as long as over time they make people more self-confident and resourceful, not less.
Our mistake was not in having social programs, but in making them large, lucrative and national, rather than modest and mainly regionally funded. Economists have demonstrated over and over that Canada's insanely high level of national transfers damages receiving regions even more than it does Alberta, which pays the net cost of these programs, supported by Ontario.
Unfortunately, nobody listens to economists. It falls, therefore, to Albertans, and their provincial government, to shake Canadians from their complacency, and to force this debate into national attention in every way we can.
Alberta should start by taking control of three areas of provincial responsibility: its own share of the Canada Pension Plan, the provincial policing duties of the RCMP, and provincial income tax collection.
The province can assume responsibility for all three without Ottawa's consent, and (taken together) would get better service at lower cost.
This will not make Albertans popular with other Canadians. It doesn't matter. The aim should not be popularity but influence. The most influential province in Canada is Quebec, which is never popular.
Nor should Alberta's aim be to make itself prosperous at the expense of others. The point is to make EVERYONE more prosperous. And that means reinventing Canada's original federal scheme of small central government and strong provinces. This actually did build one of the most impressive nations on earth before Ottawa's lust for political control started wrecking it.
Alberta must lead this movement. Ottawa won't, Ontario won't, and neither will anyone else.
- Link Byfield
Link Byfield is chairman of the Citizens Centre for Freedom and Democracy
Citizens Centre for Freedom and Democracy
Suite 203, 10441 - 178 Street
Edmonton, AB T5S 1R5
Phone: 780-481-7844
Toll Free: 1-866-666-6768
Fax: 780-481-9983
contact@citizenscentre.com
www.citizenscentre.com