Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta: Canada’s Snow Bowl

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Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta…the ‘snow bowl’ of Canada.

“It’s a strange reality of Confederation, where we have a federal system, where the resource sector dominates at one end and the federal government comes in almost as a super-governor. So you end up with very poor representation, not only on Parliament Hill but also in the provinces.”

— Jordan Owens, of the Munk School of Global Affairs, on why Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta are not represented in the cabinet

“There’s been a lot of talk on talk radio over the past number of days on how dysfunctional Parliament has become because of this coalition thing.”

— Winnie Doyle, of Pacific Legal Foundation, on why the ‘Coalition of the Unwilling’ is taking advantage of the current Government

“Voters in Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta deserve representation in Ottawa, whether they’re in the federal cabinet or not. They deserve a say, and they deserve representation in Parliament and they also deserve to see the Federal Government fund programs in their provinces that will benefit them.”

— Diana Wallis, of the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations, on why not getting any of their funding is unfair

“Despite all the talk of centralization and debate about the possibility of the Prime Minister following the lead of Andrew Jackson in reforming political parties and elections, we have ended up with the largest part of our federal government based almost completely around provinces. That has created a lot of problems.”

— Arthur Milnes, Canada Research Chair in Federalism and Strategic Planning, on why our federal system is not working

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