The Mickster’s not playing in the proper jurisdiction according to Brian Lilley of the QMI Agency (I quite agree with the analysis):

Ignatieff in wrong house
Liberal leader sounds like he should be vying for provincial job

Michael Ignatieff travelled 56,000 kilometres across Canada this summer speaking to “the Canadians” and he learned something very important. He wants to be premier.

Sure, if you ask Ignatieff and his supporters they will tell you that he’s in Ottawa to lead the Liberal Party to victory and be the next prime minister of Canada. But listen to his priorities and it becomes clear: Ignatieff wants to run a province near you.

“The government’s priorities are prisons, planes and publicity,” Ignatieff has said. “The priorities of Canadians are education, health care and retirement security.”

Ignatieff has made it clear that his priorities are also education, health care and retirement security which are all fine except that they are mostly the responsibility of the provinces.

Without a doubt, it is the provinces that are responsible for running our schools and health-care systems, leaving Ignatieff with half a priority were he to become prime minister — pensions are a shared jurisdiction…

If the provinces are responsible for health care, let them pay for it and then we know who to hold accountable when the hospital isn’t working properly, or when the wait times are too long. The way things work now, everyone pays for everything and no one is responsible.

How many times have you heard your premier say they wished they could do more but they needed more money from Ottawa?..

Last year the federal government sent $53 billion to the provinces to pay for things the federal government has no business being involved in.

That’s almost 20% of every dollar Ottawa collects sent out the door to the provinces and that figure doesn’t include the huge infrastructure spending.

Here’s the part they never tell you, if the provinces spend the federal dollars on something else, there is very little the feds can do. In the past, money from Ottawa sent to the provinces for healthcare has been used for everything from buying lawn mowers to cutting taxes.

If the feds cut their taxes by 20% across the board, the provinces could decide to either give us all a break or raise their own taxes to pay for what a Nanos poll this week said is the number one priority for Canadians, health care.

Every politician needs to be able to tell voters why we should mark an X next to their name…

Exactly. Three from 2006 at Daimnation!:

Why not let the provinces look after their constitutional responsibilities?

Fixing federalism

You gotta get out of their space

Now if only the Conservatives would propose abolishing the Canada Health Act (much more here from the feds on “medicare”). Surely the Bloc could not object? Fat flipping chance from this government.

Mark
Ottawa