Letters to the editor Solution to Canada’s economic malaise

There are probably as many beefs about government spending as there are Canadians (T.N.M., Jan. 21/91). One could point to the continual waste by CIDA and most recently the $14 million spent on the Yangtze River hydro project. One can witness the waste in the Department of Indian Affairs described by Eric Neilson. The complexities, irritations and costs in the goods and services tax is the main source of opposition though it might have been an improved tax. Canadians are the mostover-governed and over-taxed people in the world. The duplication of services between provincial and federal bureaucrats is so great that they compete for power. No matter how these facts are sliced, they all add up to a good part of our constitutional crisis. We read that politicians want to trim 14,000 from the federal payroll in addition to the 15,000 Finance Minister Michael Wilson claims he has already trimmed.

At the same time the civil servants union opposes any reduction. This raises th questio wh federa employee shoul b treate differentl fro tax-paying workers in the public sector.

The beef about political layoffs is that the government merely contracts out services that are supposedly to be cut. That only increases the money going to patronage and does nothing to decreasing the costs of government. The polarization of Quebec in federal politics and the domination of French-Canadian prime ministers since 1967 have not been conducive to relieving the divisional tensions. Thereseems to be two major factors required to reform Canada. Quebec will accept, as a minimum, increased provincial powers in many areas. That automatically has to be matched with increased powers for the other provinces and a decrease in federal power.

The main hurdle to this solution seems to be the bureaucratic union. It is not the wages paid to these people that cause the problem. It is the billions that must be spent to keep them apparently occupied. It would be cheaper to pension off the surplus federal bureaucrats than to retain them. As all money spent by governments can be linked to patronage, reducing federal powers will spread it out more evenly. Thus all the various ideologies will also benefit from this move. Without reduced spending in Ottawa, no amount of additional taxes will reduce the debt and war costs will compound the problem.

The conclusion, therefore, is that we should not fear this apparent divisive force in Quebec but to express our gratitude to them for leading us into anew reformed Canada. R.W. Thompkins emeritus professor mining engineering Queen’s University