Why is regionalism a major problems for Canada?

Answer 1

Regionalism in Canada refers to the fact that Canada is a Confederation of many nations from many different regions, each with their own culture, history and political aspirations or objectives.

Large groupings are often used when referring to regions, Atlantic Canada, Northern Canada, Western Canada, Quebec or Central Canada (which is actually in Eastern Canada). There are many smaller regions within these larger groups.

For example Western Canada has regions within that grouping. The Lower Mainland of BC has very different political objectives than upper BC or "The Island". Alberta will have different political concerns than Lower Saskatchewan and southern Manitoba is far away from their Maritime north with their ocean port.

The concerns of regions was to be addressed using the Senate. Each region or nation or province would be assigned seats in the Senate and the Senate would have to agree to any bills being passed by the House.

Our Senate has never lived up to those promises and today finds itself unelected, unrepresentative, unimportant in anything other than a ceremonial way or for the proportioning of pure political patronage.

Instead the House of Commons has set up a competitive system in which regions must make their case to a system that answers to the Prime Ministers Office, which is always controlled by Ontario or Quebec.

Regionalism has the Federal government taking from some regions and giving to others. The very nature of many federal programs have regionalism built in.

For example our Employment Insurance system is used to transfer billions of dollars from Western Canada to Eastern Canada. This is very clear in the different rules for claiming or accessing EI funds for the different regions. Being unemployed in some regions of Canada can result in EI funds while being unemployed in others may result in no funds.

An even clearer example of regionalism that still affects Canada today is the National Energy Program of the 1970's and 1980's. The NEP was specifically designed to transfer money from Alberta to Eastern Canada and had massive support, still has massive support in those regions that benefited.

The problem was it took billions of dollars from one region, Alberta, created a massive decline in their largest industry, put thousands out of work, drove up debts, and made it very clear to all Western Canadians that they are still considered the colonies of Canada they once were. Today there can be no discussion of Western Energy or Oil without the lurking specter of the NEP.

Which reminds me of an even clearer example yet. Our Federal Government gives cash, taken from some regions, to other regions under the guise of trying to equalise the wealth. These equalisation payments amount to many billions of dollars a year.

They were never meant to be part of Confederation. Basically our founding fathers felt that those spending the money had the duty to collect it. Without that connection it is not possible to have representative and responsible taxation or spending.

And our Equalization program shows just how true that is. Our "have not" provinces, mostly in the East, mostly Quebec, have Canada's best funded social programs. The largest recipient of these transfers between the regions is Quebec. A province with the lowest education fees, an infamous $10 a day daycare, and much better healthcare than the have province they get billions of dollars a year from.

Our transfer system is regionalism in action. Politically powerful regions tend to feed off weaker regions. Of course those "winning" from regionalism feel it is great and continue to support programs using it but it comes with costs.

Regionalism is one of the factors making our Confederation unsustainable. We need to change the Constitution to address those issues but due to regionalism, our Constitution cannot be changed even if every region outside of Ontario and Quebec wanted to update it.

In a way regionalism doesn't affect Canada, Canada is regionalism in action.

Answer 2

Regionalism as a political ideal has had the same effect on Canada as it's had on nearly every other country. One obvious aspect in Canada is the area of Quebec, and the prevalence of the French language there.

Answer 3

its a problem in canada because canadians are frozen. other is canada is boring place i rather live in chechnya than canada!!

Answer 4

Because of the population of Quebec and how they speak French. They get annoying.