Should New York City secede from New York State? My answer: yes. But check out this op-ed in the Atlantic for the argument. It's in reaction to Albany's rejection of congestion pricing in NYC.
I think it's generally a good idea for dense urban areas to govern themselves independently of vast rural areas with distinctly different problems and politics. How much does the lower mainland really have in common with Fort St. John and Fort Nelson? Or the golden horseshoe with Thunder Bay and Sault Ste. Marie? This all goes back to my suggestions earlier that we need more debate on constitutional amendment in western democracies. The division of powers between federal and provincial governments (and lack of constitutional power for municipalities) was established in 1867. We have a very different country now, with much higher rates of urbanization and an entirely different set of challenges for governments to address. It would be much easier to address underlying structural problems of governance with respect to the proper division of powers if we had a political culture that was more introspective of our institutions and more open to public discourse on constitutional change.
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4 comments:
You're so smart.
This is something that never occurred to me. And of course is makes sense. I'm going to do some mulling and consider what kind of division of power would make sense when including municipalities. I'll get back to you.
our current constitutional division of powers is here.
s. 91 (federal) and s. 92(provincial) of the Constitution Act, 1867. The preamble for s. 91 attempted to establish a residual power for the federal government ("to make Laws for the Peace, Order, and good Government of Canada, in relation to all Matters not coming within the Classes of Subjects by this Act"). But early court decisions took a largely narrow reading of the "peace, order and good government" power - reading it as allowing only for federal legislation on matters of national emergency or "national concern". The de facto residual power was read into s. 92(13) - property and civil rights - and s. 92(16) - local matters.
So by this logic, would you consider yourself a Quebec Separatist? Or do differences in cultural priorities not justify secession the way differences in economic priorities do?
quebec should separate if they want to do. i would prefer they not, but it wouldn't be the end of the world or anything. im talking more about a smarter division of powers as opposed to a decentralization of powers. i wasn't suggestion nyc should secede from the united states.... just from ny state.
like in ny's case, its absurd that the state legislature should have the ability to veto what amounts to a local traffic management plan. on the other hand, some powers that are exercised by the provinces here are much more suitable to a national government - labour policy, securities regulation, carbon taxation/regulation.
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