Ottawa Sun
Published: Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Bigger issues at stake: More collaboration and less confrontation needed at legislatures

Recently, I have lamented the fact that national political debate is fixated on, for the most part, headlines of the day.

To be fair, the Speaker's ruling on the supremacy of Parliament vis-a-vis the Afghan detainee documents is big and concern with respect to Canadian regulations and policy in light of the Louisiana oil rig disaster is topical, if somewhat torqued. But sadly, issues which will define a generation of economic and social policy are not receiving appropriate airtime and discussion in our federal or provincial legislatures.

Exhibit A: Health care. Canadians are getting older, health-care costs now consume 50% or more of provincial operating budgets and the federal-provincial health funding accord is up for renewal in 2013-14.

Yet, our provinces still focus primarily on cost containment and rationing through waiting lists and neither the feds nor the provinces are looking to really capitalize on our capacity and leadership in health-care research or leading-edge technologies.

Even more frustrating is the fact that the present federal and parallel provincial consultations on retirement income security reform provide politicians and their officials with a template on how to engage the public at large, corral key issue specialists and tackle -- with a long-term view -- a "national" issue that straddles the divide between Sections 91 and 92 of our constitution.

Exhibit B: Innovation, research and development and our future prosperity. Yes, these could be three separate files of discussion, however, several recent developments necessitate their combination. The dissolution of Nortel has struck a blow to pure R&D spending in Canada, what companies or sectors will fill this void? The focus of successive governments in the post-secondary sector has been welcome and just, but translating this pure research into commercial applications has been lagging.

When we combine foreign advances in advanced manufacturing, cost-competitive and equally educated labour then stir the at-parity dollar into this mix, the recipe for further hemorrhage across several industrial sectors is very unappetizing.

National co-ordination of tax policies, sectoral incentives and focusing educational efforts to address tomorrow's economic challenges would seem a logical place to start, yet we have no definitive evidence of this occurring save for some province-to-province efforts in areas of labour mobility, reduction of trade barriers and reciprocal professional accreditation or recognition.

Another key issue where leadership is lacking is in the realm of intergovernmental funding. My bias on this file comes from my time at City Hall and the inadequacy of municipal governments to raise the revenues they need to provide services to their citizens.

While cities have much to account for in terms of their own spending and mismanagement of money at times, when 80% of our population lives in urban centres that collect a mere 7% to 10% of the total tax base, it is a structural problem.

This funding shortfall is even more pronounced with the unfunded mandates (a.k.a. downloading) being heaped upon our cities and towns by both provincial and federal governments in areas from water regulations to public health to environmental stewardship.

National discussions on all these issues must involve fewer sound bites and more substance and less confrontation and more collaboration. Political parties that take the lead in facilitating these discussions will be rewarded, those that refuse, will be trounced.