A new Canadian Union

Mr. Solomon's article today in the FP Comment Section of the National Post entitled "Canada needs Quebec", rather than building sound arguments to keep Quebec within the Canadian federation, actually builds a stronger argument for ALL provinces to go their separate ways. If it takes ongoing federal bribes, as Mr. Solomon has correctly explained,   to hold this country together, then a Canadian Union (a CU like the  EU) make up of +/- 10 distinct sovereign "nations" may be a  better "Canadian" concept than the status quo.                       

In fact, in such an exercise of rethinking Canada, it is likely that the current 10 provincial boundaries and 2 territories would be re-shaped into 5 or less  geographically defined entities. This would naturally occur when the citizens within each region were asked to assess and re-imagine their geographic, economic and cultural assets as well as their potential political and trading advantages as new sovereign quasi-national entities - an exercise that is exactly the same as  Quebec separatists have done for themselves.  The federal government would be disbanded with the exception of the  Bank of Canada (renamed the Canadian Union Central Bank- CUCB ) and "national defense" renamed as the Canadian Union Defense Coalition (CUDC). 

Federal taxation would also disappear and each CU participant "sovereign" nation would collect its own taxes and "tithe" a fixed  amount per citizen (say $100 annually)  to the CUCB and CUDC to be managed by one elected governors per CU nation that would collectively function as a CU Board of Governors (CUBG).    Each citizen of all CU nations would pay a levy to eliminate the current federal debt which would never again be allowed to grow because the CUBG would have  no powers to borrow on behalf of the CU nations.                                                                                                       

If the European Union is a concept that is good enough for 18 European countries, it should clearly be an acceptable model here.  Our advantage is that we have the unique opportunity to reshape our "sovereign" boundaries in a way that should result in new quasi-national entities 

that would enjoy better economic balance than exists in Europe where the disparity between their nations with respect to language,  industrial/economic base and culture is much more challenging to reconcile than within Canada.                                                                                                                                                       

If we are going to consider a Quebec referendum, then - I say -  let's consider a totally new concept of Canada along these lines - a new Canadian Union.