Federalism will fail in Somalia: It failed in Canada

[hipsterrunoff]

If it were simply a question of dollars and cents, Ontario should separate from Canada, now.

This is emphatically not the conclusion of a new report by the Ontario Chamber of Commerce on the punishment that Ottawa inflicts on Canada’s economic heartland. But so damning is the evidence contained in that report that the sentiment is hard to suppress.

A copy of “A Federal Agenda for Ontario”, released Thursday, was provided in advance to The Globe and Mail.

It details the manifold ways in which federal policies punish Ontario workers and the Ontario economy.

‘Twas ever thus, but at least in the past Ontario was wealthy enough to bear the burden. No more.

“Ontario needs to think of how it can reinvent itself and reinvent its economy,” Allan O’Dette, president of the Ontario Chamber of Commerce, said in an interview.

The province, he maintains, cannot retool its manufacturing industries, retrain its work force and renew its infrastructure while spending billions each year to prop up other regions of the country.

“We need to think of a more modern and appropriate approach” to the federal-provincial fiscal arrangement, he maintained.

Consider a few of the ways in which the federal government robs the goose that is no longer golden (the data is taken from the OCC report):


Even though the unemployment rate in Ontario is almost a full percentage point above the national average, and has been for years, EI rules make it harder for Ontario workers to qualify for benefits than workers in any other province. Every year, Ontario workers contribute $1.2-billion more to EI than they receive in benefits.

Although Ontario hosts 42 per cent of all the unemployed workers in Canada, it receives only 28 per cent of federal labour market development funds.

Ontario has the largest aboriginal population of any province. Inadequate federal funding (an annual shortfall of $100-million, in Ontario’s case) contributes to substandard on-reserve elementary schools. “The underfunding of on-reserve elementary schools often means that students arrive at the secondary level with acute remedial needs,” the report observes.

Despite high unemployment, Ontario suffers from an acute shortage of skilled labour. Immigration could fill the gap, but Ontario’s share of economic-class immigrant intake has plummeted over the last decade from 90,000 annually to 37,000. Yet Ontario is permitted only 5 per cent of the skilled workers each province may recruit under the Provincial Nominee Program.

Federal infrastructure funding discriminates against Ontario. Ottawa’s Building Canada Plan underfunds Ontario by $970-million, which is what the province would receive on a per-capita basis.

Ontario receives $19.20 per capita in economic development funding annually. Quebec receives $37.16. Atlantic Canada receives $134.88.

Because of high unemployment and slow growth, Ontario now receives federal equalization funding. However Ontario taxpayers contribute $2.7-billion more each year to the equalization program than the province gets back.

Citing the Drummond Report, the Chamber concludes that Ontario contributes $12.3-billion more to the federal government than it receives in transfers, even though 600,000 Ontarians are out of work, little economic growth is expected over the foreseeable future, and the provincial debt is approaching $300-billion.

Of course, the ledger isn’t entirely one-sided. Ottawa and Ontario both contributed massive sums to rescuing the province’s auto sector during the recession. The two governments co-operated in creating a harmonized sales tax, and both are trying, thus far without success, to convince the rest of the country of the need for a national securities regulator.

But as a cold hard calculation, Ontario has a much better economic case for seceding from Canada than Quebec ever will.

Of course that will never happen. Nor does the Chamber recommend any such thing. Instead, the report calls for “federal public policies that reflect the new reality of the Canadian economy.”

As Mr. O’Dette puts it: “It is absolutely in the collective best interest of Canada for Ontario to prosper.”

But prosperity will prove elusive, unless $12-billion that flows out of Ontario annually is used at home – to retrain unemployed workers, to expand public transit in Greater Toronto and to supply the needed roads, energy and Internet without which Northern Ontario’s Ring of Fire, touted as the most promising Canadian mining development in a century, will never reach its full potential.

The federal and provincial finance ministers are meeting on Sunday. Federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty used to be Ontario’s finance minister. He knows these numbers. Now, thanks to the Ontario Chamber of Commerce, voters in his Ontario riding of Whitby-Oshawa can know them too.

The unemployment rate in Oshawa is 8.5 per cent.

[Brobaganda]

Makes sense. Federalism is designed to punish the larger and economically dominant regions while pampering the smaller and poorer regions. Federalism is like political affirmative action. It's like an employer discriminating against qualified Caucasians because of their skin color and giving the job to a lesser qualified colored person just because colored people aren't that represented in the company/workforce. There is really no difference. Federalism essentially punishes those that are more successful so that a particular region doesn't outshine the others. This is crab in a bucket mentality. You can't prosper if I can't prosper type of mentality. This is xasiidnimo. The problem with federalism is that it tries to have all regions at the same level. If one state can't accomplish as much as the other, why should the other not be allowed to reach for the stars if it is able to do so? What we must understand is that if one region of the country succeeds, everyone succeeds. Federalism punishes those that are successful. Everyone ends up losing in a federal state. It's like a mother giving a laptop to her underachieving son. She knew full well that her other son is very bright and would have been able to create the next best computer operating system with it but she gave it to her underachieving son because of pity. This is very destructive. Her whiz-kid son could have made them billions in the future creating the next best operating system but she did the stupid mistake of giving it to the son who will play games on it 10 hours a day. All in the name of creating equality and fairness and making the unhappy happy. There is no fairness in putting down the overachievers so that the underachievers can feel a bit of importance and respect that was not earned.

[AhlulbaytSoldier]

Federalism is gaal invention. Iam follower of Prophet's pbuh politics and the politic systems of khulafu rashideen. If khalifah govt(without borders) wont be possible, then second option should be a strong centralized govt, dividing the countries into provincies(aka the existing regions)with each provincy/region its own mayor and local administrations. No more qabiilstate. Should every freaking town declare to be 'federal maamul'? How many socalled presidents and qabiilmaamul is enough? 300? Somalis are weird people.

[original dervish]

Hutu

Stop being dishonest for once.
Who will trust Xamar when it is the fiefdom of a single clan.

The last time we had a central govt it eneded with the people being chased out and their properties being stolen.
None of the Central Govt advocates want to address this fact.

[gurey25]

Federalism is gaal invention. Iam follower of Prophet's pbuh politics and the politic systems of khulafu rashideen. If khalifah govt(without borders) wont be possible, then second option should be a strong centralized govt, dividing the countries into provincies(aka the existing regions)with each provincy/region its own mayor and local administrations. No more qabiilstate. Should every freaking town declare to be 'federal maamul'? How many socalled presidents and qabiilmaamul is enough? 300? Somalis are weird people.

There never existed a centralized state in the history of islam.
The creature that you know of as a state evolved in Brittian, and france after the french revolution, then spread throughout europe and then was forced on everyone else.
The japanese were smart and did it to themselves in 1868 to avoid being colonized.
Now the majority of people cannot imagine anything other than the current status quo, and you see people so brainwashed that they want to re-create a "islamic state"
and oxymoron .

[Brobaganda]

I am not sure why Xamar is fingered as being the only place where properties were stolen. Kismayo is home to thousands of homes that were stolen after a certain clan were chased out by another. Why is this is fact always hidden? OD, I recall you saying your grand-father or something along those lines has history there. Maybe he was one of those whose homes are being squatted?

OD, don't try and paint centralized government as an evil thing. You prospered under it just a few decades ago while everyone else did not. The same people who were victims under a central government are more than happy to try it out again while those who prospered under it won't accept it in any way shape or form all because its another clan at the helm today. Let me tell you something: the people of Mogadishu, the Mahamuud administration and the clan as a whole are not like yours from back in the dictatorship days so go and have that sigh of relief. You might think we will politically oppress you... not at all. They are not evil people. Not all Somalis are like you. They are the least qabiil minded people in Somalia. You can live in Mogadishu for 50 years and not once will someone ask you for your abtirsi. This is not the case in other parts of the country. They consider all Somalis as equals. Just don't tick them off like before and nothing will happen. They are "reaction" people. Do something that will naturally make anyone reaction and they will become the Incredible Hulk.

Anyways, the government needs to ensure that the richer states won't be told to financially support the poorer ones because in reality that is what federalism is all about. Under no circumstances should this happen. If we were all told to "go at it alone", it should be that way then. That is the only way federalism can be accepted in Somalia.

[original dervish]

Explain to me how I prospered under the last central Govt.
I don`t need to give a sigh of relief because Hawiye are in control of Xamar.....I don`t give a shit about that.
If I wanna live along side H/G and Abgaal sub sub clans I would move to Ceel Dheere, not Xamar.

Hassan sheikh will achieve nothing....mark my words.
Somalia will evolve into a confederacy of sovereign states, J/Land, P/L, Khaatumo, S/l, South west State(RRA + Juba hoose) and Hawiye land.

[union]

Federalism has institutionalized tribal identity. Each federal state is simply a fiefdom for a large tribe, Somaliland for the iddor, Puntland for MJ, Bandirland (soon to be established) for hawyie, and Jubbaland is being fought over by MX and OG. Mogadishu will simply be the center of dividing up foreign aid and a convenient port, nothing more. Somalia is lost. It will never become a modern nation-state.

[STARKAST]

Without Islam there is Chaos...However Unity is something on the road to Islam and Federalism may bring that...where education may eradicate our divisions and then merge our deen together as 1.