Economic Aspects of Federalism: A Prairie View

Abstract

As one reads the report of the Nova Scotia Royal Commission of Economic Inquiry, he becomes aware that he is in a new area lying between the field of economics proper and the field of political science. In this area the economist gropes uneasily, finding the familiar concepts of economics strained in an attempt to answer unfamiliar questions. There is an important difference, however, between the case for Nova Scotia, as it was presented to the Royal Commission and the case for the Prairie Provinces. A great part of the brief for Nova Scotia is concerned with negotiations preliminary to the passing of the British North America Act and many of the grievances rightly go back to that period. The Prairie Provinces entered a Confederation already in existence with a lively sense of benefits to be obtained. The alternative was not, as for Nova Scotia, of coming into Confederation or of remaining a separate colony, but of coming in or of remaining a territory of the Dominion. We were not beguiled into Confederation with the connivance of the secretary of state for the colonies. Nor have we since coming into Confederation seen our formerly prospering industries languish and die. We are not obsessed with the memory of a glory that has departed. On the contrary, our growth was steadily upward, interrupted only by disturbances that were common to the whole country. Our protest is hot concerning what we once were and now are but rather about what we are now and what we might be,—but this does not mean that the protest is any the less real. The protest of to-day is not new in anything except its vigour and yet it manifests a difference in degree that is equivalent to a change in quality.