By Barry Stagg
January 1999
RETAIL FEDERALISM
I want to congratulate all of the modern fathers and mothers of Confederation. In fact I want to extend a special greeting to all the mothers of this modern model of Canada, irrespective of gender. When it comes to making Canada what it is today, I take the enlightened view that if you feel like a mother then you probably are. Gender should take a back seat to the feeling of maternal orientation. The countercultural spirit of Frank Zappa will know and appreciate this gesture ,coming as it does in the post-holiday doldrums of a dreary January.
The real achievement that these modern parents have brought forth is something called Retail Federalism. This is a curious but powerful Canadian hybrid that incorporates most of the essential body parts of Wal-Mart towel-flogging with the best organs of government job creating. The pan-Canadian product is a real winner up where the pigeons wear oxygen masks and the Toronto bank towers look down on the prophylactic roof of Canada's only combination sports stadium and corporate welfare hostel. Skydome in bankruptcy is a strange but predictable sight viewed best from the heights of the big bank towers where the biggest Canadian parents of Confederation prowl the financial hyperspace of hedge funds and tariff giveaways.
Retail Federalism works like this. You create a country. In the center is where you put the factories and the banks. The people in the center ship products and money to their backward cousins on the coasts of this new nation. The people on the fringes use the money to buy the products shipped to them. Cars and video games are particular favourites. The faraway folk ship back more money, called `interest' so that the nice bankers will send more money next month.
But, I forgot to tell you, the government sends money too. This money is to let the mothers(and fathers) that are stationed in the coastal wastelands build the roads and put in the utility poles so that the resident rabble can have somewhere to drive those cars and a way to light up these gaudy video pinball games. The government gets this money by taking some from the workers in the central factories and banks. The government calls this taxation. Taxation makes the central workers very annoyed with the coastal cousins. The government, in full maternal majesty, tells the central boys and girls to put up with this necessary method of donations to the poor because it is needed so that the poor can afford the essentials in life. This goes on for a long time.
After awhile, some of the coastal cousins get tired of paying interest to the banks and begin to be just a tad put out by the uppity comments of their city relatives about always paying the way for the feckless bunch out in the sticks. Some of the salty citizens begin to wonder how their city cousins get so fat when the food and wood and metals that they use in these factories and banks all seem to come from the land and seas in the coastal part of the country. Some of the hayseed crowd begin to suspect that some kind of magic must be about in the central cities when even the most thickheaded relative seems to be able to buy a house or three and own a fat mutual fund and a purebred Chihuahua before he is thirty years old.
The story could get really gory and distasteful about here but, thankfully, the government steps in with some very necessary counselling for the indigenous indignants. The therapists and wellness advisers hired by the government tell the poor folk that this is just a nice way of running a tidy new country. Without your help, say the therapists, this country would be terribly unhappy and all the nice people who pay our bills would not want to go on paying them. Please be good, the wellness wonks warble, and try not to be nasty to the hardworking taxpayers in the cities. You really have a lot to lose.
So far, that is the story of Retail Federalism. It seems a sort of confusing plan but one that works with the help of a lot of people. Future success depends on how well the coastal crew take to their latest medication.