CANADIAN COSTS

Hokitika Guardian, 19 July 1933, Page 3

CANADIAN COSTS

OF THE GOVERNMENT.

DEAXAND; FOR REDUCTION,

VANCOUVER, June 21

The assault on the cost of government in Canada keeps up. British Columbia has cut three members out of its Qrfbinet of eleven members, Ontario .Tias reduced its Legislature by twenty-two members. A strong body of public opinion is demanding reduction in . Federal representation, amalgamation of Provincial Governments in the three Prairie Provinces .and the three Maritime Provinces, and the elimination of the office of Provincial Licutenan-Goverhor. It is now generally believed that five provinces could no the work of the present nine. There is a growing revolt at tho tjmee forms of taxation .prevalent: federal, provincial, and municipal.

When Canada started out oii a national career, after Confederation in 1837, the assumption was that the Dominion would be .the supreme authority in .Canada, and that Provincial Governments would be more in tne form of county councils, somewhat similar to those in New Zealand and South Africa, looking after purely local affairs, and subordinate to the Feleral JGovernment. Instead, the provinces ’ have grown at the expense of the Dominion, until We .have now ten more or less sovereign bodies, and the smaller of those is continually challenging the larger on one point or other. An impdsse is approaching.