Grim piece on Canada’s Covid failure
A scientist writing in Maclean’s sees Canada’s weak federalism as one reason our pandemic numbers are so much worse than those in comparable countries.
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Kate
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david1010 23:32 on 2020-05-31 Permalink
Germany is a weak federal system in the same way. China is as strong as they get (and everyone knows they’re lying about their numbers). Italy and Spain are looser semi-federal states, in France, South Korea, Japan, and the UK the capitals run the show, totally unitary. In Argentina, Australia, Brazil, and the good old US of A, we have something in the middle.
SO . . . this article is political and not really providing much indo.
Raymond Lutz 08:49 on 2020-06-01 Permalink
Each country popular adherence to COVID policies and the policies themselves (their degree of harshness and their timeline) depend on collective social values… NOT on the way stratified power is distributed among municipal, provincial and national levels.
This will be a treasure trove of data for social and political studies. Outliers to observe: Vietnam! Venezuela! USA! New-Zealand! Brazil, Sweden, Germany, whole Africa.
JaneyB 13:19 on 2020-06-01 Permalink
It’s not really ‘weak federalism’, it’s decentralized and it has its virtues for our culture. Only Switzerland is more decentralized (‘confederal’). I’d like to see their numbers.
The main reason our numbers are not great is because we have a cultural tradition of coasting on our prosperity, our remoteness from the world’s conflicts, and our cities are buffered by huge distances so we can’t even get internal momentum and unrest. We basically don’t have to organize much ever. Most other countries have to deal with constant threats and they get good at all kinds of defence. We have been a lucky country for a long, long time. It’s not just JT’s government; it goes all the way back and all the way down. I’m not sure Canada, (mostly Ont, QC & Ottawa), will ever be able to plan pre-emptively. This is a cultural disposition much more than a structural problem.
Kate 13:45 on 2020-06-01 Permalink
That’s a very good point, JaneyB.