Federalism and Social Gravity

“We at the provincial level, territorial level, all are basically filling the void if I can say,” said Couillard, adding that in Ottawa’s absence, the provinces and territories are “showing to the rest of the world that we are acting.”

The Political right isn't big on centralization.  They dislike the notion of Big Government, national strategies for things like healthcare, etc.  Team Harper has gone out of their way to reduce government revenue through tax cuts and the like in an endeavour to handicap and future government for upping spending, service provision, etc.

And yet.

That's the lesson of history, the one History's Actors fail to recognize; you can't stop social gravity.  The bigger a community gets, like any organism, the greater becomes the demand for a centralized coordination network, like a nervous system.  If you dismantle that system at one level, another will step in to fill the void.

And on that front, we're just beginning.