My perspective - Rethinking Canada

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Published on Friday, January 1, 2016

By Kate Jackman-Atkinson

Neepawa Banner/Neepawa Press

In 1872, it took settlers three months to cross Canada, travelling by oxcart, horse and boat. When the trans-continental railway was built in 1885, it took about a week to cross the country. Today, it can be done in about eight days by car or seven hours by plane.

Canada is a large and diverse country, of that we can be certain.  But with modern technology, the impact of that distance is shrinking. Maybe it’s time to re-evaluate how our country is organized.

When Canada was created, the country’s vastness was hard to overcome and three levels of government were a necessity. The municipal government looked after the day-to-day and close to home needs of Canadians. The provincial government looked after regional needs, like health care, transportation and education. The federal government looked after interprovincial and international affairs.

Today, the question becomes, do we really need three levels of government? With the federal government getting more involved in provincially-governed areas and provincial governments downloading onto municipalities, do we really still need provinces?

Canadians are diverse, but relative to our size, we are actually quite a similar bunch.  If Canada, from Victoria, B.C. to St. John’s, Nfld., were laid over Europe, it would cover from Portugal to Turkmenistan.  For those not overly familiar with geography, that distance covers countries including Italy, Turkey, Serbia, Bulgaria, Iraq and Iran. We aren’t that diverse.

In Canada, there are 10 provinces and three territories all making legislation, much of it similar, but not quite the same.  While the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees mobility rights, the ability to move to and take up residence in any province, in practice, provincial governments can make this difficult.

For example, why are there 13 different ministries of Transportation? Why isn’t there a Canadian driver’s licence and Canada-wide driving laws? It doesn’t make much sense that something which is legal in one province is illegal in another.  For example, in Ontario, all heavy trucks must, by law, be speed limited to 105 km/h, which is lower than the speed limit on the Trans Canada Highway through most of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta. 

What about education? Math, science and history are the same regardless of where a student lives. Why isn’t there a standard “Canadian” curriculum? Children in Manitoba don’t require a  fundamentally different education than those in Toronto and already, students’ education in areas such as history and English is tailored by local school divisions to include information relevant to the students’ communities.

What about health care?  Despite being part of the same country, Canadians face challenges accessing health care outside their home provinces.  Different provinces cover different services at different rates and in most provinces, residents are encouraged to obtain supplementary health insurance before travelling out of province.  This also creates problems for Canadians who live near provincial borders and are actually closer to health services in a neighbouring province that their own.

Having standard, country-wide legislation would make a lot of sense when interprovincial travel and trade is much more common than it was in the oxcart days. For any local concerns, municipalities could create their own specific legislation, as they do already.

As Canada approaches its 150th anniversary, maybe it’s time to look at how best our governments can serve needs of modern Canadians.