David, I like the general thrust of what you are doing here. Now, having said that, I have a question.
You note that provincial governments receive transfer payments from the feds. As it happens, I am an Albertan so I will use my province as an example in this question. You note that Alberta receives about fifteen per cent of it's budget from the feds. I presume that you are speaking of items such as medicare transfers and similar sorts of programs - am I correct?
Now, given that this is a valid exercise - in my opinion, anyway - it seems to me that any intelligent province would consider the consequences of such a possibility and game plan the results. Of course, in Quebec (and possibly other provinces) that might well take the form of, "Well, if the feds are broke, we might as well leave it all behind and go for actual independence, so what are the economics of that?" On second thought, it seems to me very likely that Quebec has dealt with that question and perhaps we in Alberta should as well.
I don't believe that independence would help for Quebec (or Alberta). First of all, the legal process would take years while a debt crisis would likely be "over" within a few weeks. But independence also probably wouldn't solve the core financial problem of covering the short-term salary and administration costs for federal services (like import/export controls, banking, etc.) within your province.
The bottom line is that a default would be a mess, but that it's definitely worth planning for.
I respectfully posit that you do not consider the way in which independence proponents would deal with the subject: 1) It will be "proof" of the "folly" of the current constitutional arrangement [some - some, some - validity there]; 2) "Hell's Bells! It's proof that we are right!" [pretty much number 1]; 3) "What the Hell! Those guys are broke, let's go now; they don't have the money to stop us!" And so forth.
Yes, there would be various financial problems and salaries, admin costs would go unpaid. I suggest strongly that many Canadians would cheer the ideas of a) civil servants for once - for once, I tell you! - seeing how the rest of us live with monetary uncertainty; and b) a dramatically forced reduction in numbers of civil servants and programs.
The concept that essential services might be curtailed or simply unavailable will not be considered by most folks. Of course, in some cases, individual provinces might simply move in to some (previously shared or stolen by the feds) jurisdictional areas and tell the feds to get lost.
As for independence being an immediate panacea for Quebec or Alberta, the answer is surely a very large "NO!" but that doesn't mean that a seizure of initiative might not have a somewhat longer benefit period. The only other provinces that MIGHT benefit from independence (in my view, anyway) would be BC and (southern) Ontario but, again, such benefit would not be immediate and there definitely would be very noticeable dislocation costs and issues.
So, the issue of provincial resilience is a curiosity that could perhaps be addressed by asking the question differently: for which Canadian provinces would a break up of Confederation be a) an absolute and total disaster; or b) terrifically uncomfortable over an extended period. I would suggest that the four provinces that I have identified would be neither a) nor b). I would further suggest that the territories would not even qualify for category a) but at an even greater category of misery.
Thanks for another interesting perspective, David. The paragraph at the top of page 2 confuses me in that neither the link nor the graph below seen to show the national public debt over the years.
If, when following the link, you click the Add/Remove Data button on that page, then click the "Statement of government operations and balance sheet" tab, and then deselect all items except for "Net worth", you'll get the numbers I was looking at. You can also narrow the results down to just "Federal government" in the "Government sectors" tab.
David, I like the general thrust of what you are doing here. Now, having said that, I have a question.
You note that provincial governments receive transfer payments from the feds. As it happens, I am an Albertan so I will use my province as an example in this question. You note that Alberta receives about fifteen per cent of it's budget from the feds. I presume that you are speaking of items such as medicare transfers and similar sorts of programs - am I correct?
Now, given that this is a valid exercise - in my opinion, anyway - it seems to me that any intelligent province would consider the consequences of such a possibility and game plan the results. Of course, in Quebec (and possibly other provinces) that might well take the form of, "Well, if the feds are broke, we might as well leave it all behind and go for actual independence, so what are the economics of that?" On second thought, it seems to me very likely that Quebec has dealt with that question and perhaps we in Alberta should as well.
Indeed, "transfers" include healthcare expenses.
I don't believe that independence would help for Quebec (or Alberta). First of all, the legal process would take years while a debt crisis would likely be "over" within a few weeks. But independence also probably wouldn't solve the core financial problem of covering the short-term salary and administration costs for federal services (like import/export controls, banking, etc.) within your province.
The bottom line is that a default would be a mess, but that it's definitely worth planning for.
Weelllll .....
I respectfully posit that you do not consider the way in which independence proponents would deal with the subject: 1) It will be "proof" of the "folly" of the current constitutional arrangement [some - some, some - validity there]; 2) "Hell's Bells! It's proof that we are right!" [pretty much number 1]; 3) "What the Hell! Those guys are broke, let's go now; they don't have the money to stop us!" And so forth.
Yes, there would be various financial problems and salaries, admin costs would go unpaid. I suggest strongly that many Canadians would cheer the ideas of a) civil servants for once - for once, I tell you! - seeing how the rest of us live with monetary uncertainty; and b) a dramatically forced reduction in numbers of civil servants and programs.
The concept that essential services might be curtailed or simply unavailable will not be considered by most folks. Of course, in some cases, individual provinces might simply move in to some (previously shared or stolen by the feds) jurisdictional areas and tell the feds to get lost.
As for independence being an immediate panacea for Quebec or Alberta, the answer is surely a very large "NO!" but that doesn't mean that a seizure of initiative might not have a somewhat longer benefit period. The only other provinces that MIGHT benefit from independence (in my view, anyway) would be BC and (southern) Ontario but, again, such benefit would not be immediate and there definitely would be very noticeable dislocation costs and issues.
So, the issue of provincial resilience is a curiosity that could perhaps be addressed by asking the question differently: for which Canadian provinces would a break up of Confederation be a) an absolute and total disaster; or b) terrifically uncomfortable over an extended period. I would suggest that the four provinces that I have identified would be neither a) nor b). I would further suggest that the territories would not even qualify for category a) but at an even greater category of misery.
Thanks for another interesting perspective, David. The paragraph at the top of page 2 confuses me in that neither the link nor the graph below seen to show the national public debt over the years.
If, when following the link, you click the Add/Remove Data button on that page, then click the "Statement of government operations and balance sheet" tab, and then deselect all items except for "Net worth", you'll get the numbers I was looking at. You can also narrow the results down to just "Federal government" in the "Government sectors" tab.