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Originally Posted by DJones
Yes, provinces were created because no one could agree on the best course on things when it was a million people hunkered around the St Lawrence. Even back then, they were #### that guy. I don't want them deciding things for me haha.
They then gave those provinces the constitutional control over all of the important things a government does. Health/Education/Infrastructure. That's all I care about. I would absolutely shred to pieces everything else on the budget. Defense, monetary and trade delegations of course are important but countries a tenth of the size of Canada seem to handle those just fine This whole conversation came from me saying I want the feds removed from all provincial jurisdictional budgets items. Not a single one of you has acknowledged me saying that 5 times. You just say that's greedy and go on weird tangents about what you heard some separatist say one time. Like that's great, I think most separatists are morons too. We don't need to separate, we just need to absolute neuter the federal governments tax collection strengths. We don't even need to change the constitution, constitution agrees with me, we just need more provinces to do more than beg for more money.
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No. What we need is for the provinces to work with the Federal government instead of picking a fight with them. If the country wants to move toward universal heathcare / dental care / pharma care / whatever care, it is not the role of the provincial governments to fight the program.
For example, the Feds moving ahead with the daycare program and Alberta decides to fight against it instead of implementing it then Alberta gets less money. Smith cries about how she should get the money with no strings attached so she can spend it on other stuff and leave the citizens of Alberta without this daycare program that is being implemented everywhere else. Thus we end up not getting this funding for months/years and then the UCP point to how we are getting less money to rile up the dummies who are not aware that it is actually the UCP's fault. They rage at "Ottawa" when they should be raging at the incompetence (or the intentional neglect) of the UCP.
The government that should be neutered is the provincial government. They should be acting as a partner organization or a child organization that is collaborating with their peers and the parent organization.
The current provincial government demonstrates that we need stronger guardrails to be built around them to prevent their corruption, which means the Federal government likely needs to intervene to bring back ethics and accountability in the Alberta government. I honestly believe that the provincial ethics commission should be removed from the province's authority and stood up within CSIS.
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Originally Posted by DJones
Get rid of FPTP, get a regional based senate, some stronger constitutional powers protecting provinces. Boom, the country is unrecognizable and better for it.
And that is a wild thing to say. I have met my city councilors dozens of times, they know my name, I have their phone numbers. I work with them, I know their employees. Half of them I knew before they became politicians. I can go to a meeting every week and get face time with them.
My MP wished me happy birthday. We've been in several different non-profit groups together. We know the same people, we go to the same events.
I've never met my MLA and I've never even seen a federal Liberal MLA in person. Which I've never really thought about before but I think it may be true haha.
So yes, I 100% do believe that representation is increased the smaller the government. Suggesting otherwise seems short sighted at minimum to me.
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Cool story bro. I would bet that if you polled the population you would find that you have more access than 99% of the population. Imagine if 50,000+ people had that kind of access to the councilor, or the MLA, or the MP. It is unsustainable. The only way to give everyone that amount of access would be to have a bigger government with each representative covering a smaller number of people.
I am glad we agree on Electoral Reform. I do not agree with a regional based senate but I do think senate reform is required and should likely start with it being an elected position with finite terms. The job of the Senate should be to implement what is best for all, not what is best for "my people" or "my region". There may be some differences in the requirements of the different regions, but they are not that drastically different.
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Originally Posted by DJones
Can't disagree, would be a great idea. But what happens when 70% of people in one province go one way and 70% in another province go another way...
Just decide based on who has more people, or as I've said endlessly. Let people choose on their own. 40 million people do not have to agree with everything.
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You keep trying to create these wedges where you think "other" groups want things that you do not. It is far more likely that people who live in Ontario want most of the same things that you do:
- Best in world health care that increases Canadian's quality and length of life
- Best in world Education to empower our future generations to greater things than our past generations accomplished
- A culture that embraces progress and advancements so that we can lead the world in food / environment / energy / science and all of our people feel safe and respected
- Infrastructure delivered in a reliable and cost effective way (roads, transit, water, power, internet, etc)
- Perhaps some forward thinking things Universal Basic Income to soften the blow to society as AI takes over increasing sectors of the workforce.
- Other social programs and safety nets.
In each of the foundational issues, you likely want the exact same things as every other Canadian, or every other person in the world. With the exception being the Conservatives and Corporatists who actually do not want these things because it interferes with their desire to accumulate power and wealth.
The entire UCP agenda in Alberta is to destroy these public services you claim to be most interested in. They want people dumb, broke, and stressed out to the point that they cannot put up a fight as they take away our rights and freedoms. They want people like you to cry about Federal taxes and fighting Ottawa instead of pointing at their corruption and how they are actively stealing your money to give to coal companies or MHCare.
In short, you seem to be buying into the Culture War instead of focusing on the Class War. Some of what you say makes me think you want to be in on the Class War, but then you get distracted by the noise of proximity or region and trying to make conflict with other regular people that you should be aligned with.