We are the only commonwealth nation that hasn’t evolved their parliament so that there is a Upper house of equal representation with a non-partisan vision for whats in the best interest of the majority of the members/provinces of the federation to compete with the lower houses vision for the majority of the population.

Our democracy has become a TYRANNY OF THE MAJORITY of the population.

Or if you will Per Capita Colonialism,

Democratic Discrimination by all of the national PROXY parties for the majority population against the minority population provinces.

Just look at the numbers it’s a numbers game and when 66% of the canadain population lives in two provinces the rest of the provinces have become colonies.

The only equality amongst the provinces in this phony federation is between Ontario and Quebec. They both have an equal number of senators and an equal number of Supreme Court of canada judges.

Then take into account the Patronage powers of teh PM the executive appointment powers teh Strategic voting only encouraging ping pong politics of Lib Con, and the myth that all democracies are equal because you feel you have a choice even if it is a false choice, the feeling of involvement by marking your X even though nothing will change no matter what party is in power due to the demographics of our federation and ypou get teh Hope Springs Eternal and the INSANITY OF VOTING.

Definition of insanity doing the same thing over and over and expecting a diferent result.

Oh and think again if you think spoiling your ballot will garner any attention.
Quebec has the highest spoiled ballot count in the federation and it is rationalized by the politics as a language barrier.

Then there is the Bloc. No federal party can call a referendum!

The Quebec Prov separatist party is a distant third in Quebec yet the pundits still insist on saying the Bloc is a separatist party?

The Bloc is there because the french speaking Quebecers know thta they are a minority in this federation and if they vote in a national party that party has to cater to the majority of english speaking canada if they want to get re-elected.

Hence the term Tyranny of the majority.

Balkanize the Senate to stop the Balkanization of the HOC.

Properly you seem to be arguing for a confederal republic. One where the federated units have more power than the central government. In other words, more powers assigned to the the federated units than to the central government, as well as residual powers also delegated to the federated units and not the central government, the opposite of what we have now. Strictly speaking that would also be a federation, just with the powers opposite. It could be a monarchy or a republic as allocation of power is irrelevant vis-a-vis the form of the executive.

Don’t get me wrong, the division of powers between Ottawa and the provinces is a valuable conversation. By mangling terms we end up with a confusing debate as I am unsure where you have learned your “better understood meaning” from, as it is not the actual meaning of the term. By pushing the wrong use of a term we end up in places we don’t want to go, for example, a government telling its citizens that an opposing coalition is illegal, since the commonly held belief on elections is wrong.

In the better understood meaning of the word the central government would give up power in favour of the provinces and (in theory anyway) return to being responsible for POGG. In an ideal world the province would look after strictly provincial concerns and send municipalities additional power.

The US started out with a good idea but then they screwed it up with the federal level telling state and local levels what they could and could not do and backing those demands by withholding federal services if compliance was not forth coming.

There are many republics that are unitary states and all control is with the central government.

What you are arguing for is a looser federation than what we have now and not a republic.

Just maybe if we get a republican model happening and people realize that they are actually better off, happier, and more productive, being governed by people closer to home we can start working on the concept of how happy, better off, and more productive, people would be governing their own lives instead of handing all their decision making responsibility over to those they consider to be their political betters.

Yeah, I know ….. I’m a dreamer to…..

I’d settle for what we have now, so long as it was all voluntary…

But I’m just a dreamer…

The money needs to be spent more locally, though. Unless yer tossin’ it down the drain in Afstan, that is. Locally, we need them dang infrastructures that they’re always yammerin’ on about. The feds mostly ain’t got much of a clue what sorta infrastructures we need an’ they can’t seem to spend a nickel without wastin’ a dime.

I reckon there’s some criminal code stuff we can pretty much agree on as a nation. But there’s a lotta stuff where one size don’t fit all. My buddy bought hisself a hat recently an’ inside there was this here tag says: “One size fits most.” Maybe that’s the sort federalism we got.

JB

That people have become indifferent to local government and a converged media has, out of sheer laziness, focused on pan-Canadian issues at the expense of local coverage doesn’t mean that inherently, the foundations established at Confederation have changed dramatically. In any case, what was also established, along with federalism, was the concept that residual powers devolve to the central government, and not the province, nor the people. In that sense, there’s been a real incentive for sub-national government to retain authority, or else lose it.

You’re confusing perception with reality, which is pretty much standard these days. Maybe a comparison of public funds disbursed at the provincial and municipal levels versus those disbursed by Ottawa (taking into account transfers, or course) would be helpful in determining where a lot of the authority lies.

Let’s understand the issue first, before suggesting solutions.

One could also argue a strong centralized govt. is one of the reasons this country is so regionalized and divided.

Originally Posted By stageleft
What makes us so different from, lets say, the republic south of the border that does not seem to have suffered that fate?

I have alway thought that Canadian reflexive anti-Americanism is one of the reasons we’ll never take the leap. It’s just too American a concept, and most people who are against it inevitably fall back on that as an arguement against it.

I’m all for the republic idea. The best part about becoming a republic is that we could get that horse-faced bitch off of our money and tell her entire inbred family to go shit in their hats once and for all.

But ask yourself, why would Canada disband if the provincial and municipal levels had more authority to govern their own affairs?

What makes us so different from, lets say, the republic south of the border that does not seem to have suffered that fate?

If you live in Ontario, you may do just fine. But the further you go from the centre of the universe, the more you’ll discover Canadians to be dissatisfied with their central government.

Transforming Canada to a republic wouldn’t change the fact that we’re a nation of diverse populations.

Some may say “So why not just let them disband?”

I for one like the diversity of a large, united Canada. There’s nothing wrong with provincial diversity – that’s why we have provinces and provincial rights under the constitution.