Sunday, January 15, 2006
The problem with Canada – 3 states within one state
Many modern nation states are divided, unequal, and prone to failure and the empire of Canada if unreformed will end.
by StFerdIII
Canada is in some ways a microcosm of problems facing modern national socialist states. States in which a central government must impose itself on a greater empire usually fail. Historically most such empires have eventually been destroyed and usually not peacefully. In the modern era the German Confederation, the Hapsburg empire, Tsarist Russia, the Ottoman empire, and various European imperialist ventures were torn asunder by war and societal discord. The center can only dominate the periphery when there is a shared set of cultures [Russia outside its central asian lands], or when the center ruthlessly imposes itself through force and resource development [modern China in Tibet and its western lands]. Countries such as Spain, Belgium, and Canada are prone to fall apart since cultural clashes, economic disparities and a battle over central power and control make the unnatural national unit a dysfunctional and burdensome state.
Canada is an older modern democracy formed in 1867 as a British Dominion intent on remaining viable and separate from the USA. During the 19th and until the mid 20th century the Canadians embarked on colonizing the northern half of North America creating a lightly populated and strung out nation that lived mainly along the US border. Thanks to the impetus of immigration; world wars; increased north-south linkages; first British then US investment; commercial agreements and a stable quasi-democratic society Canada was able to become one of the top 10 economies in the world during the modern era. But the country of 33 million has transcended its original orientation as a British Dominion with a French speaking minority, into a rights focused, minority group divided nation state comprised of 3 distinct and mutually exclusive visions of the world.
Like other ‘fracturing’ nation states Canada’s main division is between the elites that run the ‘empire’ and those who do not. In Canada the center of the empire is in its largest city – Toronto. It is the downtown Toronto money; media; political agendas; and cultural norms that govern the country. The capital of Ottawa is nothing more than a Toronto suburb in the political sense, a capital that plays to the business and political interests of the nation’s true capital of Toronto. Toronto has every self interest to keep a regionally fractured Confederation together; from the oil, energy, diamonds and lumber of Western Canada to the resources; finance; culture and industry of Quebec to the wheat and potash of the prairies to the oil and fisheries of the east coast. Toronto has always been the great beneficiary of this extended empire exchanging resource riches for its financial; insurance and capital-industrial skills and power. The political elite that manage Canada do so in a way to keep the country together and a great impetus in such a scheme is the power that emanates from the true capital of Toronto.
Yet Toronto is unlike the rest of Canada. At one time Toronto was British, pro-American, pro-Western alliances, with a culture of self-reliance, British pluckiness and transparency, and a good smattering of Victorian prudence. No longer. Toronto is now more akin to Boston, Upper West Side Manhattan or San Francisco, than it is to Montreal, Calgary, Edmonton, or non-urban Canada. Toronto is far more liberal than most left wing US states and cities and this left wing liberalism is at odds with Canadian culture, history and with societal progress itself. Toronto’s natural Canadian allies include its satellites and dependencies on the east coast who only exist thanks to national welfare and handouts and the pretentious downtown elite in Montreal, Vancouver and Ottawa and in the direct environs of Toronto itself. For the great mass of Canada Toronto is a different world.
Outside of the Toronto empire Quebec is the most vocal second state in Canada. The French are a distinct culture and unit but they are surely better off inside Canada than outside. Inside Canada the French – as they are apt to do – have erected a massively degenerate provincial government that has destroyed their forward progress. Quebec has the highest taxes; worst employment rate; and highest per capita debt in North America. It ranks near last in most economic and income per capita tables in North America. While Montreal and Quebec City may be nice places to visit the younger population can’t wait to move to Toronto, New York or Seattle to make real money, start a life and have some freedom. English is proscribed; insane language and culture laws predominant and the constant stream of Canadian money and subsidies have perversely increased the power of the separatist movement. There is no doubt that Canada would be a more prosperous land without the current version of Quebec but it is entirely open to debate if the reverse would be true.
Yet a third state exists in Canada and this is the state that will push the country to fracture. Outside of the Toronto-empire elite there exists a dis-enfranchised majority that rejects the vision of ‘national-socialist’ Canada. Toronto controls Canada through forced socialization. Huge spending; national programs; massive immigration from Asia and Islamic lands; universal health care; anti-american rhetoric; ‘Canadian values’ which change by the year; high taxes and high per capita debt are some of the methods and manifestations of Toronto’s attempt to control its empire. Since 1965 Toronto has destroyed the natural history, natural law, and natural culture of Canada in its attempt to further its control and power. This national-socialization has been successful in two ways;
1. Creating an extremely left wing mentality in the country at large and
2. Increasing the role of government to such an extent that government power and programs are now equated with being Canadian.
Yet there is now a growing movement to reject these ideals. This movement is centered in the West but also finds support throughout the non-Toronto controlled areas of the country which lie outside the direct power of downtown liberal elites and their media friends. These areas would be ‘red’ states in the USA. Quebec separation is in my opinion inevitable but the real battle for wealth and power in Canada is between the far left liberalism of the current Canadian political elite and the 'common sense' red state areas in which pre-1965 lives and thrives.
The red areas of Canada comprise as they do in the States, the fastest growing parts of the economy and population [discounting immigration]. These areas reject modern liberalism; judicial activism; corruption; ever rising taxes and spending; and the non-transparency and non-accountability that rots Canadian politics and makes it a laughingstock. The red states of Canada will naturally pull away from the Toronto orbit and the battle over control in Canada will not be a pleasant nor a civilized one. Along with Quebec the red states in Canada will demand wholesale change and reform and if the Toronto empire refuses, it will cause a rupture that will divide and then break the country. Quebec wants to separate out of ideals of culture and uniqueness. The red states will want to dissolve Canada to avoid the utter socialization of their society and the destruction of their resources; private assets; private rights and political power. Canada is changing – and the change favors the red state areas in the long run, not Toronto.
Why do the red states in Canada want out ?
Consider two facts. The Toronto elite feels that post modern relativism and the rejection of natural historical development, culture and progress is paramount. Islamic and Asian immigration in which 200.000 non-Western immigrants flood into Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal; is deemed a Canadian value, even though it has created a multi-cultural disaster socially, and costs the country billions each year economically. Canada’s charter of rights does not even protect private property and personal assets. Canadian judicial activism rejects the power of Parliament and changes non-state institutions at whim. Christianity and the family are mocked; Europe is hugged; the US vilified even though Canada has no military; and corruption accepted. I doubt very much that Canadian politicians or citizens pre 1965 would recognize Canada today. The moral decrepitude and adolescence of the Toronto is mirrored in its media and in its politics.
Consider a second fact that will drive the red states in Canada to separation. In pre-1965 Canada, government size was smaller and less intrusive than in the USA. Now with the rise of government controlled media, economic sectors and the secular religions of hating capitalism, the Americans and Western history, governments can rewrite society in their own image - for their own benefit. Europe has long followed the path of statism and state control but Canada has almost caught up. In 1965 the per capita spend by the Federal government in Canada was $5.000 – it is now $17.000. Other levels of government have followed suit. As government control and debt have exploded since 1965, so has economic growth declined.
In Canada, just in the past 15 years, we have seen government increase its expenditures by 23 % or about 1.8% per annum to almost 43 % of GDP; while revenues have risen by 60 %. Total debt is still close to $580 billion – or about $40.000 per taxpayer and if you include all government levels Canadian per capita debt is $172.000. Keep in mind that the above numbers do not take into consideration the regulatory costs or government corporations under government control but off the balance sheet [such as Crown Corporations etc.]. As government power increases the economy suffers – a 2-3 % growth rate while better than Europe is far less than the 3.5 % necessary to generate jobs and improve living standards. Big socialism in Canada is alive and well and currently expanding. Sweden not Illinois is the Canadian benchmark.
So in Canada you have the classic battle shaping up. An old, tired, European looking Empire and its elite using national socialism to control its far flung lands stand now against a new, energetic, and fed-up ‘conservative’ group that wants to lessen government and restore natural law, history and culture. That Quebec will separate is a given. But the real division of Canada is premised on the fault line between the backwards looking Toronto elite and the forward looking red state areas. As history shows the increasing power of the faster growing areas will prevail and dominate the interests of the empire’s aristocracy.
Canada has two choices; reject the old empirical lust of Toronto embedded in its national socialist nonsense and reform itself; or break apart. Breaking the country apart to destroy national socialism might just be a logical, historically inevitable destiny.