Canada and the World Backgrounder articles from March 1998

Canada and the World Backgrounder archives from March 1998

Federalism defined.(Comment)(Canada - Federal-Provincial Relations)(Column)(Brief Article)
March 1, 1998... We'll go to Pierre Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada for 15 years, for a textbook definition of federalism. In 1988, he gave testimony to a Senate Committee hearing on the Meech Lake Accord. The former prime minister gave the Senators a...

Concentration.('executive federalism' in provinces)(Canada - Federal-Provincial Relations)(Brief Article)
March 1, 1998... A new style of government is emerging in Canada. Political scientists call it "Executive Federalism," and its main characteristic is the concentration of power into a few hands. In practice, it bypasses elected legislators and places...

Flexible federalism.(Canada - Federal-Provincial Relations - Structure)(Cover Story)
March 1, 1998... As former Saskatchewan Premier Allan Blakeney has said: "Canada is not a country where one size fits all," so we have developed a complicated structure of national and regional government to accommodate the differing needs of Canadians The...

Who does what.(Canada - Federal-Provincial Relations - Structure)(Brief Article)
March 1, 1998... Through the Constitution Act of 1867 and several subsequent court decisions, the federal government is responsible for:trade, commerce, and banking; direct and indirect taxation; currency; the postal service; census taking and statistics;...

Under threat of war.(US Civil War spurred Canadian unity)(Canada - Federal-Provincial Relations - Structure)(Brief Article)
March 1, 1998... In 1861, the American Civil War broke out, There was no love lost between the British and American governments at the time. Some fire-breathing Americans wanted to punish Britain by attacking its colonies to the north (Canada). The concern...

Jokes Canada.(political humor)(Canada - Federal-Provincial Relations - Structure)(Brief Article)
March 1, 1998... Robert Winters was federal minister of trade and commerce in 1966 when he told the following joke in a speech: "You have perhaps heard the story of the four students -- British, French, American, Canadian -- who were asked to write an essay on...

Stronger Canada.(public opinion favors stronger federal government)(Canada - Federal-Provincial Relations - Structure)(Brief Article)
March 1, 1998... According to a public opinion in 1996, Canadians want a stronger federal government. A total of 73% of the people surveyed said they wanted Ottawa to either increase or maintain its current level of involvement in programs. In addition, 48%...

Friends in need.(1997 floods, 1998 ice storms make Canadians appreciate stronger federal government)(Canada - Federal-Provincial Relations - Structure)(Brief Article)
March 1, 1998... We've seen it happen over and over again. In 1997, large areas of southern Manitoba disappeared under the swollen waters of the Red River. The year before, the Saguenay region of Quebec was hit by devastating floods. Early in 1998, the ice...

Sharing the load.(Canada - Federal-Provincial Relations - Social Programs)(Cover Story)
March 1, 1998... In struggling to deal with its deficit, the federal government has downloaded many programs to the provinces and also cut the amount of funding it supplies for these programs An interesting public opinion poll in December 1997 found that, by...

Revolt of the rich.(tax and spending equalization among provinces)(Canada - Federal-Provincial Relations - Social Programs)(Brief Article)
March 1, 1998... The American author Christopher Lasch wrote a book titled The Revolt of the Elites. In it, he described a widespread feeling among the wealthy that the richer you are the more you believe that somebody else is taking you to the cleaners. The...

An ill wind blows.(health care reform)(Canada - Federal-Provincial Relations - Shared Costs)(Cover Story)
March 1, 1998... Cuts in health-care funding are seen as a threat to the quality and accessibility of a Medicare program that was the pride of the Canadian government in the 1960s The debate on social programs is particularly steamy when it comes to health...

Widespread burnout.(health care workers stressed by federal funding cuts)(Canada - Federal-Provincial Relations - Shared Costs)(Brief Article)
March 1, 1998... Health-care cuts are literally making workers sick, according to the head of Quebec's largest health-care union. A survey conducted by the province's Confederation of National Trade Unions reported in November 1997 that one in four health-care...

Two tiers may lead to tears.(mixing public with private health care)(Canada - Federal-Provincial Relations - Shared Costs)(Brief Article)
March 1, 1998... King's College Hospital in London, England mixes publicly insured health care with a small but profitable ward offering private care to those who want and can afford it. Private patients get faster access to surgeons and other specialists than...

Premier's power play.(provincial premiers)(Canada - Federal-Provincial Relations - Politics)(Cover Story)
March 1, 1998... Every year, provincial premiers get together to discuss common issues; the meeting almost always involves a lot of grumbling about Ottawa As one of the Fathers of Confederation, you might have thought Sir Oliver Mowat would be a strong...

The media are not impressed.(annual Premieres Conferences)(Canada - Federal-Provincial Relations - Politics)(Brief Article)
March 1, 1998... The Premiers' Conferences are always held in the middle of the summer. This is usually a slow time in the news business. Most politicians are resting up, so "Dog-Rescues-Family-From-Burning-House" stories get on the front page. Reporters are...

Fishy business.(British Columbia Premiere Glen Clark's disruptive tactics in fishery conservation fight with Ottawa, other provinces)(Canada - Federal-Provincial Relations - Politics)(Brief Article)
March 1, 1998... In the mid-1990s, British Columbia and Ottawa started trading blows over the Pacific Coast salmon fishery. At the Premiers' Conference in Jasper in 1996, Glen Clark of B.C. got into a huff and, in the process, totally ticked off his...

Neglecting mother nature.(budget cuts cripple federal enforcement)(Canada - Federal-Provincial Relations - Environment)(Brief Article)
March 1, 1998... Keeping our air, land, and water clean is turning out to be a big problem Under the Constitution, the environment is an area of shared jurisdiction. However, environmentalists say a strong federal presence is needed partly because pollution...

Cutting the crap.(Canada and the 1997 Kyoto agreements to cut greenhouse-gas emissions)(Canada - Federal-Provincial Relations - Environment)(Brief Article)
March 1, 1998... The world's industrialized nations agreed to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions at an international conference on global warming in Kyoto, Japan in December 1997. The European Union would reduce emissions by 8%, the United States by 7%, and...

Our national game.(Canada - Federal-Provincial Relations - National Unity)(Cover Story)
March 1, 1998... The great Canadian historian Arthur Lower wrote that "Canada is a country whose major problems are never solved." Anybody looking at the continuing debate over Quebec's place in Confederation would have to agree Honore Mercier started...

Why equality?(Canada - Federal-Provincial Relations - National Unity)(Brief Article)
March 1, 1998... Renewing federalism in Canada always hinges around the same point -- equality. Quebec's bare minimum demand is for some sort of "special status" within Confederation. The most that the rest of Canada is willing to offer stops short of "special...

Disarmament.(Quebec retains legal right of unilateral secession)(Canada - Federal-Provincial Relations - National Unity)(Brief Article)
March 1, 1998... "I remain convinced that Canada will not negotiate unless it has a knife to its throat." That's former Quebec premier Jacques Parizeau talking about the need for his province to have the right to quit Canada on its own. That action is called a...

Atlantica.(history of proposals to merge 3 Canadian Maritime provinces)(Canada - Federal-Provincial Relations - National Unity)(Brief Article)
March 1, 1998... The idea has been around since Confederation. Why not have the three Maritime provinces form a political union? Supporters of the idea say union would make for more efficient government and would increase its political clout in Ottawa....

Western rumbles.(British Columbia mulls federal renegotiation or secession)(Canada - Federal-Provincial Relations - National Unity)(Brief Article)
March 1, 1998... Senator Pat Carney touched a raw nerve in the fall of 1997. In an interview with Vancouver, Sun reporter Ian Mulgrew, Ms. Carney said the current state of federalism wasn't working for British Columbia. Her main complaint was over a...

Counting the cost.(Ontario mulls federal renegotiation or secession)(Canada - Federal-Provincial Relations - National Unity)(Brief Article)
March 1, 1998... University of Guelph political scientist William Christian says Ontario pays a high price for Confederation. "The amounts might be in dispute," he writes, "perhaps $15 billion, perhaps $$20 billion...That's a lot of money to pay to keep the...

Federalism is sharing.(Ontario mulls federal renegotiation or secession)(Canada - Federal-Provincial Relations - National Unity)(Brief Article)
March 1, 1998... Judith Maxwell is President of the Canadian Policy Research Network. In 1997, she wrote about the reasons why federalism works and the reasons why it's threatened. "[The colonies] chose federalism because it permitted them to pool the risk...

A rare harmony: combining programs to help solve the problem of child poverty in Canada is one way Ottawa has tried to improve its relations with the provinces.(Canada - Federal-Provincial Relations - Children)(Brief Article)
March 1, 1998... Combining programs to help solve the problem of child poverty in Canada is one way Ottawa has tried to improve its relations with the provinces The November 1996 federal-provincial meeting on social issues was described as one of the most...