20 April 2006

Canadians Envy Canberra!

| johnboy
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The Ottawa Citizen has a story in which academics dream of bringing the bliss of Canberra’s arrangements to the Great White North as they attempt to reform the governance of Ottawa.

Taylor says the biggest advantage of a provincial status, similar to the system in Canberra, is that its powers are defined and not subject to the whims of a federal government that can change from time to time.

”Essentially what you have now in Ottawa is three dogs and one bone. If you have provincial status, you have one top dog that the federal government can’t mess with,” he says.

The grass is always greener eh?

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Bring back iron bar i say.

If I’m reading this right, the equivalent situation would be if the NCA had ultimate planning responsibility over all of Canberra, not just the Parliamentary Triangle as they do now.

Yes, the NCA have veto rights on developments in the ACT (cf. the GDE), but the point is that they don’t initiate planning activities on how Canberra land use.

If you read other stories on the issue, it does sound like the current situation is even worse. From the NCC’s official webpage:

The NCC’s mandate includes: coordinating the policies and programs of the Government of Canada respecting the organization, sponsorship or promotion by federal departments of public activities and events related to the National Capital Region (NCR); and approving the design of buildings and land use, as well as any changes in use relating to federal lands in the NCR.

Slinky the Shocker3:04 pm 20 Apr 06

We should send Wilson Tuckey over there… 😉

‘Taylor says the biggest advantage of a provincial status, similar to the system in Canberra, is that its powers are defined and not subject to the whims of a federal government that can change from time to time.’

.. is clearly wrong. While the feds have given the ACT powers over certain things, they still retain absolute powers over these. In the case that the ACT proposes laws that the feds don’t like, it’s overturn and possibly removing that right to legislate in that area in future also. What’s more whimsical and asinine than that!

Remember the NT’s euthanasia laws. And more recently the proposed Civil Union Bill in the ACT – completely at the whim of howard and his bigoted ideology.

Perhaps Taylow needs to look closely at the reality of ACT teritorry governance. And this from a country that has not only refused civil unions but legalised marriage equality for Everyone.

“Not subject to the whims of a federal government…”?
Boy, do they ever need to come and live here for a while.

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