Tom Courchene Doesn't Get It
Tom Courchene grew up in Wakaw, Saskatchewan. He was already off at university when I moved there in 1961, but I remember him being around in the summers. His younger brother was a boy scout leader. My fellow scouts and I thought he was real cool when he let 6 of us keep a dozen beer we found stashed in a bale pile in the middle of a farmer's field on one of our overnight hikes. (It was even cooler when I found out later the beer belonged to my older brother, who couldn't believe his bad luck when he found his stash missing).
John Diefenbaker had his first law practice in Wakaw. His former office was next door to the hotel my dad owned. As boys we used to climb on the roof of the hotel and throw rocks on the tin roof of the old office to enrage the alcoholic old lawyer Mr. Mushinski who lived and remarkably practised law from the Chief's old digs. The sight of Mushinski standing on the street in his long underwear with a hatchet in his hand screaming into the black night seemed funny to us at the time. We can be cruel in our youth, can't we? What seemed funny at the time I now clearly recognize as having been reprehensible behaviour.
This is all background to last week's headline in the National Post, presenting Tom Courchene as an expert who recommended that Alberta should share its oil revenue windfall with the rest of Canada, failing which the Federal government should find creative ways to force Alberta to do so. Courchene proposed measures such as increasing the minimum tax levels to prevent the Alberta government from sharing its wealth exclusively with its citizens.
Tom is concerned that unless Alberta shares its wealth people will flock to Alberta from other parts of Canada, something he suggests would be bad for Canada and would damage the federation. - If Alberta spends its wealth on improving its provincial amenities such as education and health then "who would want to stay in Saskatchewan?" asks Courchene."
Now Tom is clearly a bright guy. He has an B.A. (Honours) from the University of Saskatchewan and he graduated from Princeton in 1967 with a PhD in Economics. He has written and had published two hundred and fifty books and articles on Canadian policy issues, including: a four volume series on Canadian monetary policy for the C.D. Howe Institute; In Praise of Renewed Federalism (C.D. Howe); Social Policy in the 1990s: Agenda for Reform (C.D. Howe) Equalization Payments: Past, Present and Future (Ontario Economic Council); Economic Management and the Division of Powers (Macdonald Royal Commission) and A First Nations Province (Institute of Intergovernmental Relations, Queen's)
Tom seems to have spent all his adult life living and working in the corridors of academia in Ontario and Quebec or studying in Eastern US universities. I don't know if Tom returned to Saskatchewan for the province's homecoming this summer. Perhaps if he had he might have reflected more deeply on the issue of redistribution of Alberta's wealth before he mused over what coercive methods Ottawa might use to get its hands on it.
The gap in economic wealth between Saskatchewan and Alberta does not arise from a disparity between the natural resources of the two provinces, but rather from the different choices made by the majority of voters in the two provinces over the last 50 years. Alberta has without interruption been governed by political parties who have favoured entrepreneurialism and which have seen the role of government to be to encourage the private sector to grow and expand and to reward ideas and efforts. Saskatchewan on the other hand, with but few brief exceptions, has been governed by socialist governments intent on aggressively redistributing wealth amongst its citizenry through the active intervention of the state in economic affairs. Bureaucracy rules in Saskatchewan, while private initiative reigns in Alberta.
The consequence of such decisions should have been obvious and predictable to an economist such as Mr. Courchene, though judging by his book titles he is a big fan of redistribution. Saskatchewan has vast oil and gas resources and in addition it has other resources Alberta does not have - potash, uranium, diamonds to name but a few. Saskatchewan also has more grain production and equivalent forest reserves than does Alberta. The failure of Saskatchewan citizens to benefit under our federation from the abundance of the resources they own is mostly a matter of their own choice in the provincial governments they have elected. The failure is exacerbated by the years of power of the federal Liberal Party in Ottawa and the abusive use of it in the past with policies like the National Energy Policy.
The Federation Courchene fears will be permanently damaged should Alberta not voluntarily turn over some of its wealth to the rest of Canada is, I would argue, already severely and perhaps permanently damaged by reason of the years of domination by Quebec and Ontario in the Federal arena.
My recent trip to Saskatchewan convinced me that the Saskatchewan Party will win the next provincial election. If given two terms like the BC Liberals) in which to rid the system of its more gross inefficiencies, wastefulness and lack of accountability then no matter how wealthy Alberta continues to become, many more Saskatchewanians will stay home and many who left it to find opportunity elsewhere will return.
Meanwhile, if the rest of Canada doesn't wake up and see the extent of the disaffection with Ottawa that has developed in Western Canada, and if regardless of all the reasons why the Liberals should be removed from power they are re-elected in January 2006; the cries for Western independence from this flawed Federation will become more widespread.
If Courchene truly values a united Canada and cares for the province of his birth, he should use his intellect to much better purpose than that of shilling for even more Ottawa intervention in the lives of Canadians.
By proposing solutions which are clearly seen as reprehensible to Albertans and to fiscally conservative Canadians generally, Courchene and those of his ilk throw rocks on the tin roof of Western Canadians and they aren't at all happy about it. One day they may just look up and spy the Kilroy nose and beady eyes of their tormentors peering at them over the Manitoba Ontario border and decide enough is enough.
John Diefenbaker had his first law practice in Wakaw. His former office was next door to the hotel my dad owned. As boys we used to climb on the roof of the hotel and throw rocks on the tin roof of the old office to enrage the alcoholic old lawyer Mr. Mushinski who lived and remarkably practised law from the Chief's old digs. The sight of Mushinski standing on the street in his long underwear with a hatchet in his hand screaming into the black night seemed funny to us at the time. We can be cruel in our youth, can't we? What seemed funny at the time I now clearly recognize as having been reprehensible behaviour.
This is all background to last week's headline in the National Post, presenting Tom Courchene as an expert who recommended that Alberta should share its oil revenue windfall with the rest of Canada, failing which the Federal government should find creative ways to force Alberta to do so. Courchene proposed measures such as increasing the minimum tax levels to prevent the Alberta government from sharing its wealth exclusively with its citizens.
Tom is concerned that unless Alberta shares its wealth people will flock to Alberta from other parts of Canada, something he suggests would be bad for Canada and would damage the federation. - If Alberta spends its wealth on improving its provincial amenities such as education and health then "who would want to stay in Saskatchewan?" asks Courchene."
Now Tom is clearly a bright guy. He has an B.A. (Honours) from the University of Saskatchewan and he graduated from Princeton in 1967 with a PhD in Economics. He has written and had published two hundred and fifty books and articles on Canadian policy issues, including: a four volume series on Canadian monetary policy for the C.D. Howe Institute; In Praise of Renewed Federalism (C.D. Howe); Social Policy in the 1990s: Agenda for Reform (C.D. Howe) Equalization Payments: Past, Present and Future (Ontario Economic Council); Economic Management and the Division of Powers (Macdonald Royal Commission) and A First Nations Province (Institute of Intergovernmental Relations, Queen's)
Tom seems to have spent all his adult life living and working in the corridors of academia in Ontario and Quebec or studying in Eastern US universities. I don't know if Tom returned to Saskatchewan for the province's homecoming this summer. Perhaps if he had he might have reflected more deeply on the issue of redistribution of Alberta's wealth before he mused over what coercive methods Ottawa might use to get its hands on it.
The gap in economic wealth between Saskatchewan and Alberta does not arise from a disparity between the natural resources of the two provinces, but rather from the different choices made by the majority of voters in the two provinces over the last 50 years. Alberta has without interruption been governed by political parties who have favoured entrepreneurialism and which have seen the role of government to be to encourage the private sector to grow and expand and to reward ideas and efforts. Saskatchewan on the other hand, with but few brief exceptions, has been governed by socialist governments intent on aggressively redistributing wealth amongst its citizenry through the active intervention of the state in economic affairs. Bureaucracy rules in Saskatchewan, while private initiative reigns in Alberta.
The consequence of such decisions should have been obvious and predictable to an economist such as Mr. Courchene, though judging by his book titles he is a big fan of redistribution. Saskatchewan has vast oil and gas resources and in addition it has other resources Alberta does not have - potash, uranium, diamonds to name but a few. Saskatchewan also has more grain production and equivalent forest reserves than does Alberta. The failure of Saskatchewan citizens to benefit under our federation from the abundance of the resources they own is mostly a matter of their own choice in the provincial governments they have elected. The failure is exacerbated by the years of power of the federal Liberal Party in Ottawa and the abusive use of it in the past with policies like the National Energy Policy.
The Federation Courchene fears will be permanently damaged should Alberta not voluntarily turn over some of its wealth to the rest of Canada is, I would argue, already severely and perhaps permanently damaged by reason of the years of domination by Quebec and Ontario in the Federal arena.
My recent trip to Saskatchewan convinced me that the Saskatchewan Party will win the next provincial election. If given two terms like the BC Liberals) in which to rid the system of its more gross inefficiencies, wastefulness and lack of accountability then no matter how wealthy Alberta continues to become, many more Saskatchewanians will stay home and many who left it to find opportunity elsewhere will return.
Meanwhile, if the rest of Canada doesn't wake up and see the extent of the disaffection with Ottawa that has developed in Western Canada, and if regardless of all the reasons why the Liberals should be removed from power they are re-elected in January 2006; the cries for Western independence from this flawed Federation will become more widespread.
If Courchene truly values a united Canada and cares for the province of his birth, he should use his intellect to much better purpose than that of shilling for even more Ottawa intervention in the lives of Canadians.
By proposing solutions which are clearly seen as reprehensible to Albertans and to fiscally conservative Canadians generally, Courchene and those of his ilk throw rocks on the tin roof of Western Canadians and they aren't at all happy about it. One day they may just look up and spy the Kilroy nose and beady eyes of their tormentors peering at them over the Manitoba Ontario border and decide enough is enough.
posted by Ben Buan | 10:12 a.m.
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