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Canada and the World Backgrounder articles from December 2005
A bimonthly magazine that provides background information on current events. Written specifically for high school students, as well as teachers and librarians. Individual issues are devoted to one political or social issue, which is considered both as an
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Canada and the World Backgrounder archives from December 2005
Harrumph.(REGIONALISM--INTRODUCTION)(interprovincial political relations)
December 1, 2005... Canadians are really good at grumbling about each other. So much so that someone once said that the national symbol of Canada should be the grouse rather than the beaver.
The inter-regional complaining has been a feature of the country...
Shared government: federalism is a method of governing seen as providing harmony among peoples with ethnic, cultural, or religious differences but who want to live under the same political system.(REGIONALISM--FEDERALISM)
December 1, 2005... There are two basic ways of organizing the governing of democratic nations. Unitary states have a single, central government that is all-powerful. There will also likely be local governments, but they exist only under the control of the central...
Ready for another round? Relatively quiet for almost a decade, the issue of Quebec separatism seems to be bubbling up to the surface again.(FEDERALISM--UNITY)
December 1, 2005... The year 2005 has been a poor one for Canadian unity. It started out with the Canadian flag absent from provincial buildings in Newfoundland. The province's premier hauled down the maple leaf in anger over what he said was unfair treatment by...
Flexible federalism.(REGIONALISM--DECENTRALIZATION)
December 1, 2005... In a 2005 paper, the Royal Society of Canada said: "Put simply--no doubt too simply--we have had a continuing tug of war between a vision of a more decentralized federation (in which provincial autonomy is intact but with less commitment to...
Balancing the riches: equalization is one of four major federal transfer programs. The others are the Canada Health Transfer, the Canada Social Transfer, and the Territorial Formula Financing (the main source of revenue for territorial governments). Today, the total amount of the equalization program is around 10 billion dollars a year.(REGIONALISM--EQUALIZATION)
December 1, 2005... The purpose of Canada's equalization program is to allow provinces to provide "comparable levels of service at comparable levels of taxation." The federal government does that by transferring cash payments to less wealthy provinces, so their...
Wealth management: some observers say Alberta has so much money from its oil fields it doesn't know what to do with it all. Critics say the province needs to plan for the day the oil runs out.(REGIONALISM--ALBERTA)
December 1, 2005... Albertans are swimming in oil and gas money. The province's prosperity is tied directly to the sky-rocketing price of oil and gas; lately it has reaped enormous benefits from the royalties that are paid to the government. It is the only...
Losing ground: Ontario is the only province in Canada never to have received equalization payments, but that might change.(REGIONALISM--HEARTLAND)
December 1, 2005... While Alberta's economy is sizzling, Ontario's is in the doldrums--the two events are closely linked. Manufacturing in Ontario is threatened by two things: the high cost of energy to run the plants and the rapid rise in the value of the...
Powerless and penniless: more than 80 percent of Canadians live in cities and the vast majority live in four large metropolitan areas--Greater Toronto, Greater Montreal, Southwestern British Columbia, and the Calgary-Edmonton corridor. Any of these four regions could make a legitimate claim to province-hood based on population alone.(REGIONALISM-CITIES)
December 1, 2005... When he came to power in 2003, Prime Minister Paul Martin said that fixing the problems of Canada's cities was a top priority. He recognized that cities are the engines of Canada's economy--just look at the numbers.
Winnipeg accounts for...
Quote ... unquote.
December 1, 2005... 'The federation has been under strain for as long as any of us can remember because, ever since the provinces surrendered most of their taxing power during and after the Second World War, there has been a massive imbalance between federal...