Justin Trudeau hints at boosting Canada’s military spending

I'll believe it when I see it.

 

[Brad Sallows]

I still think it wouldn't hurt to look at transferring tax points to the provinces and holding the feds accountable for their clear areas of responsibility.

First part is already done - federal income tax cut in lowest two income ranges, and GST cut. The overarching problem is that provinces prefer Ottawa to tax and then transfer the money so that they can spend.

 

[YZT580]

RCAF retains airworthiness responsibilities. But operational and technical authorities can now be held by non-RCAF organizations. Even airworthiness and flight safety responsibilities can be delegated with appropriate training and procedural compliance.

too true and with less than admirable results. Transport Canada delegated ATC supervision to NavCan. There are now very few experts in Transport that can judge whether a change in policy is safe or not. As a result they lean on the advise of the organization that they are supposed to police, resulting in a less safe system. The same is true of flight checks and pilot safety. Airlines now do their own policing.

 

[Maxman1]

We're also a country with 10 different building codes

Very rarely do buildings move from one province to another.

And, at least nominally, building codes are designed around local environmental conditions. The bare minimum for, say, insulation in a house in Victoria would be inadequate in St. John's or Winnipeg.

 

[daftandbarmy]

Very rarely do buildings move from one province to another.

And, at least nominally, building codes are designed around local environmental conditions. The bare minimum for, say, insulation in a house in Victoria would be inadequate in St. John's or Winnipeg Victoria.

There, FTFY

 

[FSTO]

But when you say the feds should stay in their jurisdiction, that would be the logical end result. Take healthcare for example. How exactly do you suggest the feds reduce their role from the present set up? The only logical place left is to annull the Canada Health Act and let the provinces offer whatever services they want, ending the universality that the CHA provides. However you want to pitch it, that's the desired end-state. And it's one I doubt most Canadians would want.

If you think I am misrepresenting your views, I am open to some details on how you envision this working.

Also, this goes the other way too. Canada is the only G7 (possibly OECD) country without a national securities regulator, because somehow trading securities was roped into provincial regulation of commerce. We're also a country with 10 different building codes, 10 different education standards, etc. All that bureaucracy for a country with about the same population as Poland. Hardly a recipe for competitiveness.

There really needs to be a modernization of the federation and reform of the duties and responsibilities. The construct of 1867 is nowhere near the what is required today.

I just don’t think we have mature officials at any level to carry out this reform.

 

[FSTO]

I’m convinced the vast majority of our MPs would be better suited to being on a local council to provincial legislature than the federal parliament. I just wish the would figure that out instead of wasting everyone’s bandwidth in Ottawa.

I’ve been yelling that from the rooftops for years.

 

[Brad Sallows]

I’ve been yelling that from the rooftops for years.

I suppose that gets us closer to the clouds.

 

[FSTO]

I suppose that gets us closer to the clouds.

 

[MacNav63]

First part is already done - federal income tax cut in lowest two income ranges, and GST cut. The overarching problem is that provinces prefer Ottawa to tax and then transfer the money so that they can spend.

Thereby avoiding accountability for the taxing part, which is my point. The GST cut was a huge missed opportunity by the provinces to add to their revenues without actually increasing taxes on anyone by simply keeping the HST at 15%.

 

[dapaterson]

Nobody wants to pay the dollar cost for living in a society.

 

[Brad Sallows]

Nobody wants to pay the dollar cost for living in a society.

I only don't want to pay the collar cost for living in a nanny society, governed by people who have something new every year that they want to be publicly funded.

 

[Edward Campbell]

There really needs to be a modernization of the federation and reform of the duties and responsibilities. The construct of 1867 is nowhere near the what is required today.

I just don’t think we have mature officials at any level to carry out this reform.

You've just defined the problem of ALL written constitutions: they are situated in time and space. That applies equally to the most famous of all, the one belonging to the great republic which is our Southern neighbour and to our own Constitution Act of 1982.

All states need some laws defining the duties and responsibilities of the Executive, the Legislature and the Judiciary and federal states need some laws defining the areas of responsibility of the federal versus the state/provincial government, but, generally, written constitutions, in my opinion, all create more problems than they solve.

 

[ytz]

It is already not. SOFCOM operated CE145s and CH146s, and other elements operate a multitude of UAS.

Forgot about those. Thank you. Albeit, crews for the Griffons at least are RCAF. There's also contracted support with Top Aces (which DND does certification for, but does not operate) and for the various contracted training fleets. It's been a long time since the RCAF has had a monopoly on operating air assets.

Having 10 different players trying different things is exactly the recipe for competition, from which competitiveness ultimately derives.

If you are talking about ice creams shops, you'd be right. For things like regulatory regimes, not so much.

 

[ytz]

Very rarely do buildings move from one province to another.

And, at least nominally, building codes are designed around local environmental conditions. The bare minimum for, say, insulation in a house in Victoria would be inadequate in St. John's or Winnipeg.

This is another one of those Canadianisms that is just ignorant of global reality. You can write a national building code that simply designs for all kinds of climates and then apply the section relevant to your local climate at time of construction. But of course, in Canada, for some reason, we have to pretend that rain and cement work differently in every province.

And while buildings don't move, there is absolutely a cost to this kind of stuff. Every single design any large builder makes, has to then be certified against a different building code in every province, as opposed to say certification against a master code and just an annex for each local climate.

And you can repeat this little anecdote across so many industries in Canada. Will never understand why Canadians love bureaucracy so much. All you have to do is tell them the bureaucracy is local and artisanal and people will jump up and down to defend it, in this country.

 

[SeaKingTacco]

This is another one of those Canadianisms that is just ignorant of global reality. You can write a national building code that simply designs for all kinds of climates and then apply the section relevant to your local climate at time of construction. But of course, in Canada, for some reason, we have to pretend that rain works differently in every province.

And while buildings don't move, there is absolutely a cost to this kind of stuff. Every single design any large builder makes, has to then be certified against a different building code in every province, as opposed to say certification against a master code and just an annex for each local climate.

And you can repeat this little anecdote across so many industries in Canada. Will never understand why Canadians love bureaucracy so much. All you have to do is tell them the bureaucracy is local and artisanal and people will jump up and down to defend it, in this country.

Not wrong, but show me country where that is not the case. I suspect that it is built into human nature.

 

[ytz]

Not wrong, but show me country where that is not the case. I suspect that it is built into human nature.

There's the EU, smashing all kinds of local, regional and national regulation and creating uniformity across a block of 27 countries and 450M people. Some of you are surely old enough to remember what travelling across Europe was like in the 80s. Now they are talking about building high speed sleeper rail services that cross half a dozen countries. That was only possible because of three decades of regulatory alignment on everything from visas (Schengen) to currency (Euro) to rail construction (electrification and rail gauges).

Also, a small but powerful example: Japan, a country of 125M, has a single national zoning standard that applies across the country.

 

[YZT580]

This is another one of those Canadianisms that is just ignorant of global reality. You can write a national building code that simply designs for all kinds of climates and then apply the section relevant to your local climate at time of construction. But of course, in Canada, for some reason, we have to pretend that rain and cement work differently in every province.

And while buildings don't move, there is absolutely a cost to this kind of stuff. Every single design any large builder makes, has to then be certified against a different building code in every province, as opposed to say certification against a master code and just an annex for each local climate.

And you can repeat this little anecdote across so many industries in Canada. Will never understand why Canadians love bureaucracy so much. All you have to do is tell them the bureaucracy is local and artisanal and people will jump up and down to defend it, in this country.

As Charles Dickens put it: Humbug. There are very few, in fact I would say there are no jurisdictions with a single building code encompassing a land mass with the varied climate, topography moisture levels that Canada does. BC has to build for earthquakes, Ontario doesn't. For one size to fit all would either make it so cumbersome that no one would be able to master it or be so generic as to be no earthly good. Most of the pages in this website include at least one allusion to bureaucracy and you want to add yet another layer? It takes 10 years to approve a transit line in most cities mostly because of red tape. With a federal set of rules some poor dad would get his newborn child's playset built and approved around about the same time as he/she graduated from high school

 

[ytz]

With a federal set of rules some poor dad would get his newborn child's playset built and approved around about the same time as he/she graduated from high school

Weird. I was able to buy toys for my kid without any problems the other day despite our consumer safety rules being federally promulgated today:

Industry Guide to Health Canada's Safety Requirements for Children's Toys and Related Products - Canada.ca

Information about the safety requirements that apply under the Toys Regulations to children's toys in Canada.

www.canada.ca

Put it this way. Virtually every major regulatory problem we have in this country is usually because of provincial or local laws. Provincial regulation of trades and professions prevents labour mobility nationally. Provincial regulation prevents the establishment of a national securities regulator which would improve capital allocation. Provincial regulations against national land registries has turned our real estate market in major money laundering centres. Provincial rubber stamping of fake college programs (because education is provincial) massively contributed to the current glut in foreign students (albeit slightly shared with the feds for trusting the provinces). Provincial environmental laws are also why we can't build power lines, pipelines, etc. Local regulation prevents the construction of sufficient housing. And yet, somehow people want to pretend that it's federal regulation holding us back the most.

 

[Kirkhill]

But when you say the feds should stay in their jurisdiction, that would be the logical end result. Take healthcare for example. How exactly do you suggest the feds reduce their role from the present set up? The only logical place left is to annull the Canada Health Act and let the provinces offer whatever services they want, ending the universality that the CHA provides. However you want to pitch it, that's the desired end-state. And it's one I doubt most Canadians would want.

If you think I am misrepresenting your views, I am open to some details on how you envision this working.

Also, this goes the other way too. Canada is the only G7 (possibly OECD) country without a national securities regulator, because somehow trading securities was roped into provincial regulation of commerce. We're also a country with 10 different building codes, 10 different education standards, etc. All that bureaucracy for a country with about the same population as Poland. Hardly a recipe for competitiveness.

Having played in all 10 provinces with all 10 codes over the decades I would suggest that you can overstate the concerns.

​

Alberta Building Codes and Standards.​

Codes in force​

The following codes in the building discipline are currently in force:

• National Building Code – 2023 Alberta Edition (declared in force May 1, 2024)
• National Energy Code of Canada for Buildings 2020 (declared in force May 1, 2024)

The bigger problem is the local inspector's interpretation.

 

[suffolkowner]

As Charles Dickens put it: Humbug. There are very few, in fact I would say there are no jurisdictions with a single building code encompassing a land mass with the varied climate, topography moisture levels that Canada does. BC has to build for earthquakes, Ontario doesn't. For one size to fit all would either make it so cumbersome that no one would be able to master it or be so generic as to be no earthly good. Most of the pages in this website include at least one allusion to bureaucracy and you want to add yet another layer? It takes 10 years to approve a transit line in most cities mostly because of red tape. With a federal set of rules some poor dad would get his newborn child's playset built and approved around about the same time as he/she graduated from high school

there's really no reason to have different insulation codes, thats just adherence to old ideas that were wrong over 50 yrs ago. One of our problems is continuing to use systems that dont work. We could build everything with insulated panels so much easier and better, right through the whole supply chain from forest to house. Even snow loads I wonder about, when we used to play around with pre-engineered steel buildings very rarely we you see a structural difference even though the code requirements might be triple