by Klaus Rohrich
September 27, 2004
Prime Minister Paul Martin’s cowardly behaviour at the first ministers’ conference two weeks ago is yet another example of how prime ministers from Quebec are slowly but surely destroying this country as we know it. His spineless capitulation to the provinces’ demand for cash can only mean that in the end the Canadian taxpayers will have their burden increased, while getting nothing in return. While I was no fan of Jean Chrétien, he did take on the separatists with his "clarity" legislation, while buying them off with taxpayers’ money under the table. But at least Chrétien made an effort to demonstrate that he was in favour of a united Canada.
Martin’s actions only rekindled the pilot light of Quebec separatism, just as we all thought it was dead out. In agreeing to give the provinces $41 billion to "save health care", he failed to ensure that the monies doled out would actually be used for the purpose intended. In fact, immediately after cutting the deal, Jean Charest, the liberal conservative (or is it conservative liberal?) premier of Quebec crowed about how he would use the cash to bolster tax cuts to Quebecers.
Can you believe it? The money that alberta and Ontario taxpayers are pumping into Ottawa is going to be used to ease the tax burden of Quebecers (and presumably keep Charest in office for yet another term)!
But that isn’t the worst of it. By attaching no strings to the cash that Ottawa is giving to the provinces, it is divesting itself of any authority over the federation and essentially setting the stage for the eventual dissolution of Canada.
This is being done in two ways. The first is that he has handed power to the province of Quebec that I’m sure Quebec didn’t think they’d ever get, given the actions of Martin’s predecessor. In pandering to Quebecers and allowing that province to have distinctively separate programs, apart from the rules to which the other provinces must adhere, Martin has reignited the possibility of Quebec’s separation. Why is it necessary for Quebec to have its own pension plan or blood supply system? Think about it, when every politician in Quebec is singing from the same hymnbook "This is a very good deal for us", then you know that the rest of Canada is getting screwed!
The second way in which the dissolution of the federation is more likely is that this deal will eventually alienate the other provinces even more. Currently, the majority of taxes collected by the feds are from alberta and Ontario. alberta in particular is unhappy in that between 1961 and 1992 albertans have paid $139 billion more to Ottawa than they have received in services in return. This disparity has begun to affect albertans who feel as if they are Ottawa’s private wallets. Their list of complaints has manifested itself in the formulation of the alberta Separation Party.
There is a significant difference between the alberta separatists and the Quebec separatists. alberta’s separatists are much more serious about leaving confederation than Quebec’s separatists because they have lots more to lose and little to gain by staying. For decades Quebec has used the threat of separation to browbeat the rest of Canada into meeting its demands. This tactic has garnered them $168 billion more from the federal government than they have paid in taxes. Nice work if you can find it.
Will the $41 billion Martin is going to be doling out improve the quality of our health care? Fat chance. There are no provisions in the deal that forces the provinces to ferret out redundancy and waste. That giant sucking sound you hear is the $41 billion being hoovered out of the provinces’ pockets by greedy unions.
How big a moron do you have to be to believe that the only thing that can improve our terminally ill healthcare system is cash? and to compound matters, the rules by which we’re playing the health care game in Canada preclude consideration of anything but a publicly delivered system. Even the reddest socialists in Europe are conceding that opening the provision of health care services to competition results in greater efficiencies and reduced costs.
I could understand railing against opening the delivery of health care to private interests if we had a system that wasn’t broken and was humming along like a well-oiled machine. But the sad truth is our system is in terminal decline with inflation rates three times that of the rest of the economy. The only logical conclusion we can draw from the current course of action is that eventually health care will consume 100 percent of the government’s budget.
Despite the hype and the pandering that eventually got Martin elected as prime minister of this country, he is proving himself to be a true weakling whose only interest lies in expediency. Clearly, the idea of "fixing" what’s wrong with our health care system is not on his horizon. Nor, it appears, is national unity.
Interestingly, Quebec is the only province where private, for profit health care is flourishing. My guess is that this is the case because all of our prime ministers are Quebecers and want to make sure that they don’t have to wait as long as common Canadians. Or could it be that it’s yet another manifestation of the special treatment Quebec gets to make sure they stay within confederation? In either case, it’s dead wrong.