Harper's long walk off a short pier?

[Zipper]

I completely disagree with the Cities dealing with the Feds. How will the provinces be able to plan the multitude of things they do in and for the cities if the cities can deal directly with the Fed's? If you think we have too much bureaucracy now just wait until the cities start putting lobby groups and special interests forward to the federal government. How much more of our taxes will go to supporting this added layer of governmental red tape?

Thats the whole point. The provinces did not want to lose their power base, nor their access to the taxes (ie. Saving their own jobs/skins). The whole idea of re-writing the constitution to reflect the whole urban idea would be to take away much of the provinces/federal power/tax bases and give it directly to the municipal level. Things such as education and medical would be great as it would allow cities to more directly take care of their own needs closer to where they are understood. Social welfare would also be good on this level as once again it is the cities that see the problems immediately and thus are better able (if they had the means) to handle them. As well, if they had better access to their own tax bases, they would not have to rely so much on "transfer" payments from other "richer" locals to take care of their own problems. You also eliminate at least 2 levels of bureaucracy to look after the same problem.

Will it happen? Probably not. No one, let alone government likes to give up power once they have it.

Wasn't that the gist in Star Wars III? :blotto: