Will Wilkinson / The Fly Bottle » Blog Archive » The True North Strong and Freer Than Ever…

That depends on what kind of “freer.” What do shoeless airport security lines have to do with economic freedom investigated in the report?

As someone who has lived in both, the US seems more repressive. Also, I was a student in Canada and I got to write off my tuition, my rent, my textbooks, and my transportation costs, and I could carry my deductions forward in a way that you can't in the US. If I had stayed past school, I wouldn't have had to pay any taxes for a couple years from these carried deductions. Although officially, my taxes were higher in Canada, when all was said and done, I paid less there, but this would not hold true for higher tax brackets. That being said, the 15% or so sales tax in Toronto was pretty bad.

Going from Toronto to Texas, I actually miss the gun laws. Its taken me a while to readjust to the fact that I have to be careful where I walk at night. I got very used to taking my safety for granted. When I first came back the US felt a little like “Mad Max” in comparison at times.

Since you brought up non-economic freedoms, they must be fair game to discuss.

And Canada has freedom of speech issues that make it plainly second-rank to the United States in that area.

Someone already mentioned the “Human Rights Commissions”. There's also the famous complaint by lesbian sex shops that they can't import porn from the US because it's “obscene”; Customs Canada will seize it.

And then there's the Notwithstanding Clause, which makes arbitrary government action in the US look like child's play in comparison; there's not even any recourse against the Clause, as there can be in the medium to long term against actual overreach against Civil Liberties in the US, since use of the Clause is explicitly permitted.

And of course, Canadians are drastically less free to be armed for self defense, a fundamental human right.

What you can say with confidence is that the founders wanted a more centralized union than the pre-Civil War US. They got that.

As for Canada's economic freedom, I think the most illiberal healthcare system in the OECD should count for a bit more. Things would be far worse if the US wasn't so close.

Not true for my 2nd objection.

That's why I mentioned the fusion of powers.

I also don't think that the Clarity Act does as much as you say. It doesn't “establish the right of the provinces to secede, provided they…fulfil certain criteria”. Rather it gives the conditions that a province might enter into negotiations with the federal government.

You are quite right that Canada did not start out as a confederation in the modern sense of the word. The English word “confederation” only acquired its modern meaning (a union less centralized than a federation) circa in 1910. In fact, the 1867 constitution barely qualified as a federation: it was a compromise between US federalism and UK style unitary state. In fact, Canada's first PM thought that the provincial governments would only exist for a short period of time. But Canada is now a long way away from the vision of its founders (which I welcome as an advocate of decentralization). It now IS a confederation and is, in some respects, far more decentralized than the US. The provinces control more of the tax revenue than American states and, in some cases, have quasi-diplomatic representation abroad. Quebec is even represented in international bodies. Moreover, the provinces in Canada have very strong identities. Few Americans fly a state flag from their front porch, yet it is not usual to see provincial flags flown on private residences in Canada. In rural Quebec, one sees more provincial flags than federal: that's why the former federal government gave out federal flags for free. By most indices of centralization, Canada is very decentralized (and that's a good thing).

“Canada adheres strongly to the principles of fusion of powers, as opposed to the US' separation of powers. That said there is certainly a distinct division between the provincial and federal powers and many battles have been fought over the language in the charter.”

In American terminology, the separation of powers usually means legislative, executive, judicial. Canada, it is true, fuses the legislative and judicial branches. But this is a totally separate issue from whether it is a federation or a confederation, centralized or decentralized. You can have the separation of powers in a unitary state, you can mix the powers up in a federal state. Separate issue. Moreover, I'm not certain whether the separation of powers has any impact on individual freedom. However, I do think that decentralization does increase the chances of having a free society

“However, there is no formal right to secede in Canada. Indeed there basically nothing in Canadian law which describes the right to separate.”

Actually, legislation passed in 2000 does establish the right of provinces to secede, provided that they meet fulfil certain criteria. An important criticism of the Clarity Act, known as Bill C-20, was that the criteria it established were too stringent and thus made secession practically unattainable, even if it said that a province had a theoretical right to secede. This legislation was drafted by the current head of the official opposition.

Secession, like other exit strategies, has the advantage of keeping the central government honest. The fact mainstream politicians in Canada talk about secession every now and then is very health. Much healthier than uncritical loyalty to the current nation-state boundaries that one sees in the United States.