| Let all of the big-time columnists, with their journalism degrees and many years of successfully writing for major daily papers, pontificate on the state of the federation. Let them consume our forests writing about the wretched malfeasance Belinda Stronach has orchestrated. Let them debate the what, the how and the why of our less-than-honourable prime minister getting her to jump.
And somebody please, please write some more about Peter MacKay’s gum-booted "I was just dumped in the most staggeringly public and professionally humiliating way" Oscar-worthy performance. It came across as so heartfelt, so sympathetic and so downright sexy that it shot his national appeal through the roof.
I, however, wish to turn our attention to the aftermath of this federal episode that felt like watching monkeys fling shit at each other – how it will affect our city and its residents.
Our government has twice been temporarily saved from defeat. First, Paul Martin and Jack Layton simultaneously whored (in the gender neutral sense) themselves just enough to save the government from falling. We as Canadians understand compromise, we understand bargaining and we understand putting others before self. But it baffles me beyond comprehension that we didn’t start burning tires in the street at these transparent and indisputable acts of self-preservation. Anyone left still waiting for the necessary and sufficent conditions to begin smashing grocery store windows would surely grab a hammer at what was to happen next.
Stronach, seeing a cabinet post dangled before her, looks exactly seven minutes into her political future and pounces on the opportunity like an itchy pig on a rough post. Stronach says she defected for reasons of national unity and party direction gone askew. I, and many others who are smarter, know she defected for personal ambition served as a second helping of ridiculously undeserved ladder climbing.
So here we are – what does it mean to us?
With the dramatic preservation of our national government, Calgarians had three sets of reasons to open our beaks wide as mama Ottawa dropped in some fat, wriggling worms. Initially, we were looking at the preservation of a budget that would provide us with the healthy return of a "New Deal" for Canadian cities that promised $5 billion to Canadian municipalities over five years by isolating and redirecting a portion of our fuel taxes, bringing Calgary much-needed money for infrastructure and public transit needs. This was to be followed by a $5-billion national child-care program that would finally offer relief for many working Calgary families.
Secondly, we were more than happy to hear of how Layton and Martin’s unlikely budget coupling would increase our windfall, with money for affordable housing, post-secondary education, environmental initiatives and foreign aid.
To top it all, surely we as Calgarians would then be in line for some of the $22 billion in spending announcements that the federal Liberal party has shotgunned since Prime Minister Paul Martin went on television to apologize for the sponsorship scandal.
Maybe Stronach ended up doing us a favour – maybe our hopes would have been crushed under a defeat of the 2005 budget, a promise for our city’s desperately needed funds for housing, transit and child care lost. Would that money have evaporated like Mr. T’s career if the federal Liberals had not survived?
The answer is no. In terms of tangible benefits to the city of Calgary, the success and failure of our minority government and the outcome of last week’s national crisis would have affected neither Johnny Stampede, Susie Deerfoot nor Buford T. Chinook.
Long before the critical budget votes, promises had been made that in the event of Liberal defeat, we would have been OK. A Conservative-led government would have, depending on who is telling the story, either honoured the deal with cities in good faith, or been forced to uphold promises made because the legislation had already passed through the Treasury Board. On one hand, Conservative leader Stephen Harper had repeatedly pledged that if elected he would honour the gas-tax commitment to the cities, and on the other, the argument was moot in that the deal was to be binding on any federal government. Calgary’s cup would have runneth over regardless.
As for Layton and Martin’s slimy affair, the NDP budget riders would have temporarily been dead in the water. But any government forming the next minority, whether red or blue, would need to quickly look for that same support again, and the same deal would be offered and accepted.
Now to the $22 billion in election promises. Calgarians would sip tea in our rocking chairs, reminiscing about the days a now even more desperate Liberal government sprayed only $22 billion about in hopes of a new mandate.
What to do? How do we get a better deal? The growing fad seems to be one of extortionate, tantrum-throwing, asymmetrical federalism. To put it nicely, different parts of the country have different needs. In translation, how can we get everything that is coming to us and screw the rest of the country?
Ontario’s side deal of billions in federal equalization dollars for immigration, education and environmental programs sent jealous rage across Canada. Saskatchewan Premier Lorne Calvert has begun negotiations with Ottawa over resource royalties, fighting to secure Saskatchewan's oil and gas revenues from the federal equalization formula. Don’t blame him though – he just wants his version of what Newfoundland, Labrador and Nova Scotia have received. And don’t get me started on the villainous back-alley deals that B.C. and Quebec have negotiated.
Alberta’s mayors and our premier need to find some mafia-style leverage to get some of that asymmetricality flowing our way. Or maybe not. Maybe Canadians will finally get fed up, smash a window and have virtue enough to get angry. Maybe the monkeys throwing shit at each other while we sit in traffic on our way to a ridiculously expensive daycare need a hard and fast message sent to them. Maybe we can preserve our federal balance while renewing our functionally expired government.
Like the rest of the country, Calgarians don’t want another election so soon. I don't want a doctor sticking his latexed finger up my arse annually either, but sometimes you have to do what’s right. |
Copyright ©2005 FFWD. All rights reserved.