From: jmorriso@ee.ubc.ca (John Paul Morrison)
Subject: Re: asymmetrical federalism
Organization: University of BC, Electrical Engineering
Date: Sun, 6 Sep 1992 05:04:20 GMT

In article <04SEP92.16856934.0059@VM1.MCGILL.CA> CZ94@MUSICA.MCGILL.CA (CZ94) writes:
>In article <1992Sep4.051612.25428@ee.ubc.ca> jmorriso@ee.ubc.ca (John Paul Morrison) writes:
>>
>>I have no idea. I think the provinces should agree on what a federal government
>>should do (how about international relations, defence, interprovincial trade,
>>standards on safety, measures etc). Then everything else should default to
>>provincial control. We don't *need* federal and provincial forestry branches
>>or tourism ministries. One level of government should step aside.
>>
>I think we can all agree that unnecessary duplication is bad.  But
>how do we decide which level of government is going to step aside?
>You propose international relations as a federal field.  But do you
>think there is any chance at all that Quebec will agree to stop
>going to francophone summits, close its quasi-embassies in foreign
>capitals, and generally vacate this field?  I don't.

Why should Quebec stop? They aren't making national policy. BC goes to
Pacific Rim type summits, and BC has trade missions here and there.
I'd trust BC to do a better job selling BC than the Feds. So this isn't
duplication if the Feds just stick to general info, and act as a liason 
between other countries and the provinces.

>
>As long as we have free movement of people between provinces (certainly
>a good thing, IMO), there has to be some federal control over
>immigration.  Otherwise the province with the most open immigration
>policy would be setting the standards for the whole country.  But
>again, do you think there is any chance of Quebec vacating this field
>and leaving it exclusively to Ottawa?  I don't.
>

OK we have that. But good luck getting a job if you're a Professional
or Tradesman (because of certification and other crap). 

I don't know the exact role Quebec plays in immigration. I'm _pretty_
sure Quebec doesn't have its own border gaurds. I think Quebec basically
gets to say what kind of immigrants they want, but the feds still run
the show.

>We can and should work towards reducing unnecessary overlap of
>federal and provincial jurisdictions.  But we'll never eliminate
>it entirely, as long as we remain a federation.

The first priority should be to eliminate all the trade barriers
between provinces, otherwise we might as well be seperate nations!
(trade would be simpler). We may not eliminate it entirely, but we could
make a lot of progress (a recent Financial Times had an excellent article
about how redundant the Federal Govt. is, not even taking into
account provincial-federal redundancy)
>
>Tom Box
>CZ94@MUSICA.MCGILL.CA


-- 
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 John Paul Morrison                     |  Just another "Enemy of Canada"
 University of British Columbia, Canada |  Say NO/NON to Constitutional
 Electrical Engineering                 |  hegomony and fear-mongering
 jmorriso@ee.ubc.ca                     |  by politicians/scum.
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