If you think BC having 13-14% of the population, with 43 seats – vs the Maritimes having 5% of the population, and 32 seats, is not an east/west problem, idk what you’d consider an east/west problem. If you’re referring to me comparing a vancouver riding to “any riding in PEI”? Silly criticism in my view. The point remains that they have far greater representation per voter at a provincial level. That is, quite explicitly and historically, an east/west problem, one cited by separatists.
The structural issues to do with representation for the West have been issues for decades. The Reform party in BC, circa 1980s-1990s, was largely based on systemic/structural issues that western provinces have with how things are divided up – with a focus on things like seat counts in parl, in senate, and equalization payments. Issues that have persisted since the 1980s, should likely help most people understand why separatists exist out west. Issues get raised, but until separatists step in, the Central/Eastern part of the country doesn’t give a fuck, especially since the status quo benefits them.
If a group of people have had issues with the government’s structure for like 50+ years now, and the governments done basically nothing to address it, it really shouldn’t surprise anyone that people started talking separation. Nor should it surprise anyone that, when the government goes back to doing nothing about the core issues, those separatists re-emerge.
So PEIs 4 ridings are an affront to BC and completely unfair?
The raw voters per riding metric has never, and will never be the sole determination in riding size and location. All that would do is completely eliminate what little influence that the more rural parts of the country have. Even in riding rich Ontario, ask the Northern ridings how influential they feel.
Yes, there’s a sentiment that a province like PEI having a relative shitload of seats, and a shit load of representation in the house, and getting a bunch of money from the Central government sorts because they prop up the central government against western province interests… while having far fewer people, far lower contributions to the country… is an affront to western provinces and is unfair within the context of equal representation that’s meant to permeate democratic institutions. You’re still harping on riding size and location, as though its rural vs urban – but I already stated, that is tertiary to the point that was raised previously.
And dude, you literally just saw a vote/national issue spurred on by alienation / discontent over this sorta shit. You really gotta still ask these sorts of questions? Yes, a large group of people in western provinces view it as unfair that the maritimes, and eastern provinces in general, get what appears to be preferential treatment / more representation in federal politics. That’s why they have separatist movements out west. The lack of seats, is tied directly to things like them saying Ottawa and eastern provinces are dictating things like climate policies without proper representation from western provinces at the table – and the impact of those policies are often more ‘negative’ / damaging to western provinces. The basic principle is “If the West had proper representation in federal politics, reflecting the population size and GDP/Economic contributions, they’d be able to challenge / get better legislation for western province interests at a federal level”. Even last night, the CBC commenters after the voting was done, were saying things like “Just watch, now that it’s over, the Feds will likely disappear again and go back to punishing us with terrible anti-west legislation in the near future”. That’s the sentiment – the west isn’t represented, and by extension their interests aren’t properly addressed.
And yes, the ‘extension’ of that is the obvious note that “Other areas of the country are over-represented compared to the West”. One person gets given a fork and a plate with crumbs, the other gets a big ol slice of cake, and you’re asking “Is that distribution unfair?? Why would the guy with the empty plate be annoyed at the guy with the cake??” Yes. Yes it is unfair. Even if it’s the fault of the person serving the cake for the imbalance, the person getting fucked over will be pissed off, and will highlight the gaps in portions to stress how they’re getting fucked over. The person getting that giant slice “SHOULD” be trying to make things fair, to get their fellow diner a proper serving – instead they just eat their slice and tell the west to eat a dick, because any changes to how the person serving food divides things, needs to get approved by the people getting big slices of cake. And they don’t want to give up their big slice of cake, even if they see other people leaving the restaurant, after waiting 50 years for a slice. The separatist argument is, in some ways, simply saying “Why should we keep waiting for these cake fuckers to treat us fairly? Let’s just go somewhere else”.
As an aside, I personally see no issue with saying something like “The maritimes should be amalgamated into a single province, and given the same general representation as other provinces of similar geographic size/economic clout/population - so basically, closer to 14 seats, like manitoba/sask”.
I started reading this but gave up because at the end of the day let’s call it as it is. Some people are frankly butthurt because they don’t have more power when the feel they should even though all the existing laws and structure tell them “well actually no you don’t”
And instead of working within the system to change it they would rather whinge and be butthurt.
It’s nothing against you personally I’m just done listening to whining overall. You don’t like something work within the system to fix it. Be the change you want to see in the world. Beyond that, get bent.
The issue people have with that sentiment, is that the system does not allow certain change – and/or is designed to specifically prevent change.
For example, to get a constitutional change, you need to have 7 provinces, representing 50% of the population on board. In some cases, you need to get every province to agree, such as changing how the provinces are represented in the house. That’s in addition to getting the house/senate to approve, of course.
So if we’re talking about the referendum questions alberta listed that weren’t explicitly about separation, and instead about constitutional change to get more autonomy options for the provinces, it’s nearly impossible to achieve within the current system. Ontario represents ~40% of the country’s population, so they’d need either Ontario to agree, or practically every other province to get on board. BC’s got 14% of the population, so even with every province, if BC and Ontario say ‘nah’, it’s blocked. Quebec has 22% of the population, and has parties that explicitly demand hand outs for Quebec in addition to any law other provinces want to pass, because they generally hate Canada/federalism, so again, blocked most likely. If you’re trying to get more equitable representation for western provinces, the maritimes/quebec would block it, as they benefit from the west being under-represented (note: the only three provinces with fewer seats in the house than their % of the population, are Ontario, BC and Alberta).
If you’re trying to amend the distribution to get more equity for people out west, they need the people out east to agree to giving up their privilege. It’s not realistic that they’d do so, or that anyone would do so (if the west had leverage like that, I would not be at all surprised if the western leaders refused to be equitable to the east).
So the other more realistic option is to nope out of that system, and separate. Even just that threat, has gotten Quebec preferential treatment/perks from the fed – and it’s been implied that it’s why the fed was so gung ho for pipelines lately, in terms of Alberta making those sorts of threats. It’s sorta like the Women’s Suffrage movements to get women the vote from decades ago – men weren’t just going to suddenly ‘choose’ to be equitable, people had to start breaking shit/rebelling to get attention, and progress.
So you want to solve east - west alienation, by amplifying urban - rural, while not actually addressing any of the east-west “issues”?
If you think BC having 13-14% of the population, with 43 seats – vs the Maritimes having 5% of the population, and 32 seats, is not an east/west problem, idk what you’d consider an east/west problem. If you’re referring to me comparing a vancouver riding to “any riding in PEI”? Silly criticism in my view. The point remains that they have far greater representation per voter at a provincial level. That is, quite explicitly and historically, an east/west problem, one cited by separatists.
The structural issues to do with representation for the West have been issues for decades. The Reform party in BC, circa 1980s-1990s, was largely based on systemic/structural issues that western provinces have with how things are divided up – with a focus on things like seat counts in parl, in senate, and equalization payments. Issues that have persisted since the 1980s, should likely help most people understand why separatists exist out west. Issues get raised, but until separatists step in, the Central/Eastern part of the country doesn’t give a fuck, especially since the status quo benefits them.
If a group of people have had issues with the government’s structure for like 50+ years now, and the governments done basically nothing to address it, it really shouldn’t surprise anyone that people started talking separation. Nor should it surprise anyone that, when the government goes back to doing nothing about the core issues, those separatists re-emerge.
So PEIs 4 ridings are an affront to BC and completely unfair?
The raw voters per riding metric has never, and will never be the sole determination in riding size and location. All that would do is completely eliminate what little influence that the more rural parts of the country have. Even in riding rich Ontario, ask the Northern ridings how influential they feel.
Yes, there’s a sentiment that a province like PEI having a relative shitload of seats, and a shit load of representation in the house, and getting a bunch of money from the Central government sorts because they prop up the central government against western province interests… while having far fewer people, far lower contributions to the country… is an affront to western provinces and is unfair within the context of equal representation that’s meant to permeate democratic institutions. You’re still harping on riding size and location, as though its rural vs urban – but I already stated, that is tertiary to the point that was raised previously.
And dude, you literally just saw a vote/national issue spurred on by alienation / discontent over this sorta shit. You really gotta still ask these sorts of questions? Yes, a large group of people in western provinces view it as unfair that the maritimes, and eastern provinces in general, get what appears to be preferential treatment / more representation in federal politics. That’s why they have separatist movements out west. The lack of seats, is tied directly to things like them saying Ottawa and eastern provinces are dictating things like climate policies without proper representation from western provinces at the table – and the impact of those policies are often more ‘negative’ / damaging to western provinces. The basic principle is “If the West had proper representation in federal politics, reflecting the population size and GDP/Economic contributions, they’d be able to challenge / get better legislation for western province interests at a federal level”. Even last night, the CBC commenters after the voting was done, were saying things like “Just watch, now that it’s over, the Feds will likely disappear again and go back to punishing us with terrible anti-west legislation in the near future”. That’s the sentiment – the west isn’t represented, and by extension their interests aren’t properly addressed.
And yes, the ‘extension’ of that is the obvious note that “Other areas of the country are over-represented compared to the West”. One person gets given a fork and a plate with crumbs, the other gets a big ol slice of cake, and you’re asking “Is that distribution unfair?? Why would the guy with the empty plate be annoyed at the guy with the cake??” Yes. Yes it is unfair. Even if it’s the fault of the person serving the cake for the imbalance, the person getting fucked over will be pissed off, and will highlight the gaps in portions to stress how they’re getting fucked over. The person getting that giant slice “SHOULD” be trying to make things fair, to get their fellow diner a proper serving – instead they just eat their slice and tell the west to eat a dick, because any changes to how the person serving food divides things, needs to get approved by the people getting big slices of cake. And they don’t want to give up their big slice of cake, even if they see other people leaving the restaurant, after waiting 50 years for a slice. The separatist argument is, in some ways, simply saying “Why should we keep waiting for these cake fuckers to treat us fairly? Let’s just go somewhere else”.
As an aside, I personally see no issue with saying something like “The maritimes should be amalgamated into a single province, and given the same general representation as other provinces of similar geographic size/economic clout/population - so basically, closer to 14 seats, like manitoba/sask”.
I started reading this but gave up because at the end of the day let’s call it as it is. Some people are frankly butthurt because they don’t have more power when the feel they should even though all the existing laws and structure tell them “well actually no you don’t”
And instead of working within the system to change it they would rather whinge and be butthurt.
Yeah, reading’s hard. I agree. You should prolly try something like X or Bluesky, with short posts and less nuance.
It’s nothing against you personally I’m just done listening to whining overall. You don’t like something work within the system to fix it. Be the change you want to see in the world. Beyond that, get bent.
The issue people have with that sentiment, is that the system does not allow certain change – and/or is designed to specifically prevent change.
For example, to get a constitutional change, you need to have 7 provinces, representing 50% of the population on board. In some cases, you need to get every province to agree, such as changing how the provinces are represented in the house. That’s in addition to getting the house/senate to approve, of course.
So if we’re talking about the referendum questions alberta listed that weren’t explicitly about separation, and instead about constitutional change to get more autonomy options for the provinces, it’s nearly impossible to achieve within the current system. Ontario represents ~40% of the country’s population, so they’d need either Ontario to agree, or practically every other province to get on board. BC’s got 14% of the population, so even with every province, if BC and Ontario say ‘nah’, it’s blocked. Quebec has 22% of the population, and has parties that explicitly demand hand outs for Quebec in addition to any law other provinces want to pass, because they generally hate Canada/federalism, so again, blocked most likely. If you’re trying to get more equitable representation for western provinces, the maritimes/quebec would block it, as they benefit from the west being under-represented (note: the only three provinces with fewer seats in the house than their % of the population, are Ontario, BC and Alberta).
If you’re trying to amend the distribution to get more equity for people out west, they need the people out east to agree to giving up their privilege. It’s not realistic that they’d do so, or that anyone would do so (if the west had leverage like that, I would not be at all surprised if the western leaders refused to be equitable to the east).
So the other more realistic option is to nope out of that system, and separate. Even just that threat, has gotten Quebec preferential treatment/perks from the fed – and it’s been implied that it’s why the fed was so gung ho for pipelines lately, in terms of Alberta making those sorts of threats. It’s sorta like the Women’s Suffrage movements to get women the vote from decades ago – men weren’t just going to suddenly ‘choose’ to be equitable, people had to start breaking shit/rebelling to get attention, and progress.