A Short History of Equalization, Part 2
As discussed in Part 1, the equalization program was significantly overhauled in 2007. This was largely because it had become, in the minds of many critics, an overly-complex mishmash of special deals and formulae that benefited some more than others and pleased no one. From 1982 to 2004, in general terms, the program used a [...]
A Short History of Equalization, part 1: 1930-2006
The Rowell-Sirois Commission In the 1930s, after several provinces had gone bankrupt trying to cope with effects of the Great Depression, the federal government established a Royal Commission on Dominion-Provincial relations (the Rowell-Sirois Commission). In its 1940 report, the Commission concluded that the Constitution did not give the provinces sufficient taxing power to meet their [...]
Equalization Questions and Misconceptions
Equalization is the Government of Canada’s transfer program for addressing fiscal disparities among provinces. Equalization payments enable less prosperous provincial governments to provide their residents with public services that are reasonably comparable to those in other provinces, at reasonably comparable levels of taxation. Not every province receives equalization transfers. Six provinces will receive equalization payments in [...]
Legislating free votes
I have written a number of posts on that touch on the issue of whipped votes and MPs toeing the party line (for example, see here, here, here, here and here). During the current election campaign in the Canadian province of Alberta, the Wildrose Party has promised, if it forms the government, that it will [...]
Politicians don’t understand the internet
As someone who uses the internet exhaustively, both as part of my work and for personal reasons, such as maintaining this blog, I am of course concerned about the various pieces of legislation governments bring forward that seek to either control how people use the internet, or invade individual privacy online. Whether known by an [...]
Artificial preferences
There continues to be interest among many Canadians in the Alternative Vote (AV). Most recently the Liberal Party of Canada adopted a resolution calling for the implementation of a preferential ballot for national elections. This blog attempted to redo the May 2011 election using AV, and other bloggers have produced similar posts. This blog continues to [...]
Alberta 2012 Political Party Platform Comparisons
As was the case during last year’s federal election in Canada, many people are now looking for a site comparing the platforms of the political parties contesting the upcoming Alberta provincial election (23 April 2012). This blog cannot engage in a discussion of the policies of political parties, either at the provincial or federal level. [...]
Collective ministerial responsibility and Coalition Government
There appears to be significant interest in the issue of collective ministerial responsibility during Coalition government. For what follows, I will be largely quoting or paraphrasing Vernon Bogdanor’s The Coalition and the Constitution. Following the formation of the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition in May 2010, the Coalition issued its Programme for Government which outlined in detail [...]
Consolidating the Canadian Ministry
The Canadian Ministry (cabinet) is one of the largest, if not the largest executive councils of any modern democracy. The current Ministry is comprised of 39 ministers (including the Prime Minister). Compare this to the UK, where the Cabinet consists of 22 paid ministers and one unpaid minister unpaid minister appointed to Cabinet, and six other [...]
Has the Backbench Business Committee been too successful?
Previously, I wrote a post in response to search queries from people wondering if the Backbench Business Committee (or BBBCom) has been a success. In that post, I noted that it was a bit difficult to answer that question because I wasn’t certain how one would measure – or even define – success in this [...]
keep looking »Admin
Copyright
On procedure and politics by Radical Centrist is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
