Alberta Independence, Equalization Payments, & Stupid Political Fights ｜ A Critical Compass Clip
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
177.86032
Summary
In this episode, we discuss the problems we see in Canada's political system, and how we can fix them. We also talk about democracy and its flaws, and the role of the media, as well as what we can do about it.
Transcript
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i'm pretty much leaning on the side that confederation as it is is a bit of a failed
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experiment and for a couple of reasons but the the the primary reason i mean the americans
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show us the opposite but i i think i think we're too big of a country with too many regions and
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it's just too darn hard to to find commonality and and i think no matter what we're going to be
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uh definitely as a confederation like we are that won't work maybe as a as a republic like the u.s
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with states where they have the real power and you know but but i i i find i find confederation
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our version of it to be kind of a broken experiment and i don't see an easy fix other than a complete
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gut and restart and and that's not going to happen so i'd rather just leave and and and if i thought
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alberta was going to leave soon i wouldn't reinvent the wheel i would go around the world and look at
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what what systems work where and then just say let's do it that way so um but but that might be
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a challenge because even looking around the world i don't see a lot of really good democracies actually
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in fact i think weirdly why why do democracy democracies come and go and fall out of favor
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like it does look like i would have always thought that democracy would be so robust
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but they seem to be fragile more fragile than i thought so kudos to the americans and maybe to us
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like we've we've kept it going for a long time so yeah i think and sorry james i'm kind of bogart in
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the mic here i'll let you have some thoughts after this i kind of think that uh democracies can be
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robust when you have really strong social buy-in to to a uh um to a project kind of and you've got
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you've got a lot of homogeneity in your in your population and i and i don't mean in a in a in a
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racial way i mean in like a like a an attitude way culture that in dude yeah yeah exactly and i think
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maybe when a when a a modern liberal democracy gets maybe a little long in the tooth it some of
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those ideals that it promotes somewhat uh ironically have an effect of actually dividing the the the
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populace with too much individuality and then you never reach consensus on stuff maybe that has
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something to do with it well no that that absolutely does i mean that's the um it's interesting that that
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the couple of things come to mind first of all the first thought i was thinking of is um democracy
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democracy and a good successful democracy that brings a lot about with it comfort and and luxury
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and spare time creates a problem right and i think we see that that's one of the problems we see i mean
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when i look at governments in across the spectrum and in and some of the things that they're talking
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about i'm like yeah we have too much spare time on our hands so now we're dividing ourselves over
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stuff that's absolutely ridiculous right like we the water's good the streets are good the schools are
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good so now we're gonna fight over whether or not there should be bicycle lanes in winter i'm like
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oh my god okay like i'm you know it's a maybe it's a bad example but i i think it brings about some of
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that so we fight over things that when you really think about it you go what the hell are we fighting
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over like this is ridiculous uh and and then and then that leads to what you what you were hinting at
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which is we fight over things and then and then to get our point some of the things we're fighting
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over or demanding is like well i i need this because right i i i you society needs to protect
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all of us and i'm not getting something and i i almost need to make an excuse for wanting something
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i need i need uh you know and and and so now we we try to one up each other in in the terms of the
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needs which leads to a victimhood like we want something from the government right i mean the government
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gives you money because you're raising kids and the other guy goes well i don't have kids but i want
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something so they got to come up with something and and the next thing you know now we're playing
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victims and we're trying to one up each other and that's the whole thing that that whole victimhood
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what's it called the intersection of uh of um like the whole vic we we we get back down to being
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individuals which is where and we can we can solve that problem easily with these inalienable
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rights and forget about all the government and go back to being anarchist like it's it's fascinating
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it's fascinating so the the what a democracy assumes that everybody's well informed or like it it can
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only function if people have the right information so that that's our first flaw is that canada and
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our media and just the general amount of knowledge and understanding that the average person has is not
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robust enough for us to be making well-informed decisions and we've also got our provincial the way that
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were set up with their provinces the way that were set up with the number of seats um geographically
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split up and certain areas have more a little bit more power in making like canada-wide decisions than
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other regions so you're seeing an imbalance and this almost tracks like you have an imbalance from
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rural to urban but you also have a imbalance from west to east and the other thing is when you have
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some of these imbalances and when you have certain incentives you will naturally get behavior
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following whatever incentive there is so if there is right now with quebec you have the incentive that
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the equalization payments disproportionately end up in quebec right now but that also hinges on
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how much energy they make and because their numbers are a certain way if they increase their energy
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output their equalization payments would go down and that would be recalculated and the benefit they
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get just like how nobody wants to reduce the amount of benefit they get when they're a victim in on the
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individual sentence or in the group sense if the incentives are well you're not doing well and we're
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just going to give you money for that you will find the behavior matching the incentive structure
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totally we're seeing that individual and also countrywide well in the case of the equalization
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for quebec uh i'll even say this the equalization formula is so bizarre that certain promises include
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certain things in the calculation and others don't like i mean um oh that's a that's a complicated one
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that's a to me to me equalization is just a disincentive it's it's one of those it shouldn't exist it just
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shouldn't exist that you know it it sucks that uh that some i some area might have an economic
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disadvantage for something but that's that's just the way it is this because the equalization has
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i i dare say it hasn't worked right i mean the maybe not in the case of quebec but we'd always hear
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that in the case of some of the other maritime provinces they they are purposely doing things just
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to collect their equalization so yeah yeah and it hamstrings their own industry i mean we've seen
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i i remember i can't remember exactly who was talking about it but um a lot of people don't
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realize how much natural gas reserves quebec has and they they actively don't pursue the development
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of it because if they produce too much of it and they got too wealthy from it they'd stop receiving as
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much equalization you probably on your show right now talking to me you're talking to probably one of
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the most knowledgeable people in canada on gas reserves in quebec i was the president of a quebec
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based gas producer called petrolia right up until 2019 we got expropriated by the government of quebec
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because there was a change in government the the funny enough the separatist party wanted to develop
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the reserves and we and and we got an open door policy you know they were very welcoming to us
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and then there was a flip of government and the liberal government of quebec did not want to exploit
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their gas they tried to block us at every step of the way in ways that were so ridiculous until
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finally the qr the minister literally took a piece of paper like this one and wrote an order
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in council on there saying there will be no oil and gas development in in our area specifically and
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he expropriated us my boss wanted us to fight i'm like we're we're done we're it's a losing battle
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and i remember being in meetings with the minister and he purposely he basically said he didn't even
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want to look for gas because he said why would i look for gas what happens if i find something