Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10 beta 3/9/83; site uthub.UUCP
Path: utzoo!utcsri!utai!uthub!thomson
From: thomson@uthub.UUCP (Brian Thomson)
Newsgroups: can.politics
Subject: Re: High Duties => Increased Competitiveness?
Message-ID: <228@uthub.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 14-Oct-85 16:00:41 EDT
Article-I.D.: uthub.228
Posted: Mon Oct 14 16:00:41 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 14-Oct-85 17:26:31 EDT
References: <2591@watcgl.UUCP> <36@ubc-cs.UUCP> <39@ubc-cs.UUCP>, <1714@dciem.UUCP>
Organization: CSRG, University of Toronto
Lines: 39

mmt@dciem.UUCP (PUT YOUR NAME HERE) suggests:

>If we, as Canadians, want Newfoundland
>to belong to Canada, we should give them the same opportunities that
>Central Canadians enjoy.  The same applies to the Far North.  I think
>that the charges to individuals and businesses should increase with distance
>within Canada, but only slightly, and the real cost excess should be
>paid by the taxpayer in the interests of Canadian unity

This suggests to me that, if we fail to subsidize Newfoundlanders or, umm,
Inuvikers (Tuktoyaktukians?), they will run off and form their own country
(though how that will get them cheaper long-distance transportation I
certainly don't know).   That the rest of the country should buy the
affections of far-flung Canadians, and that in the absence of such subsidies
central Canada somehow gets a much better deal than the outliers.

If Confederation is not mutually beneficial, it need not continue.
I would rather see this country split up than hang together as a gang
of mercenary states whose loyalty has to be rebought every month-end.

Canadian unity does not require the nugation of physical distinctions
between different parts of the country.  Its economic and personal
benefit is the lack of artificial barriers that always exist between
independent states.  Freedom to operate and relocate across provincial
borders, and to select that part of the country best suited to one's needs.
The Newfoundlander who wants to be able to phone Victoria for 10 cents
a minute, because a friend of his in Nanaimo can do so, is in the
same situation as the Baffin Islander who wants to grow grapes like they
do in southern Ontario: they should both take advantage of the diversity
of Canada, rather than cursing it, and go where they will be most content.
And, if they are so hidebound in their regionalism, so fiercely
Newfoundlander or Frankliner first and Canadian second, that they refuse
to do so, then they are already acting like citizens of a separate
country and buying them off can only make matters worse.

					A transplanted Canadian,
-- 
		    Brian Thomson,	    CSRI Univ. of Toronto
		    {linus,ihnp4,uw-beaver,floyd,utzoo}!utcsrgv!uthub!thomson