Can We Get A Piece of This?

I see that the U.S. state of South Dakota has decided to plunge into national politics and take a run at Roe vs Wade. (You can read the Washington Post article if you don't believe me.) In other words, some folks in this flyblown state have decided to unravel the rights of more than 150 million of their fellow citizens and impose their Talibanic views on the greater society.

South Dakota -- as represented by its state legislature and illustrious governor -- has decided to outlaw abortion except in cases where the woman's life is in danger. Legislators did so in full knowledge that their decision tweaks the nose of a Supreme Court decision from the 1970s. They adamently reject that decision, and with it the concept that a woman could have some jurisdiction over her own body.

South Dakotans, bless their hearts, are willing to fight the Supreme Court all the way to the Supreme Court. And they feel chuffed about their chances because the U.S. president has just stacked the Supreme Court with a couple of "conservative" justices who might be expected to support the jewel of the American middling west in its puritanical frenzy.

If everything goes according to plan, South Dakota may realize its dream of dictating its wet-dream morals to the huddled masses of New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Seattle, Miami and Phoenix.

What on earth is South Dakota anyway? It is a rough collection of about 760,000 people. Seven hundred and sixty thousand. About the size as a respectable city in more civilized climes.

It's also about the same population as Northern Ontario which, if you're following my rambling rants, has exactly no -- zero, nada, rien, jamais -- expression of its popular will. No legislature to launch neo-con adventures. No regional body to challenge anyone's court. Not even an appointed governor. Not even an appointed overseer with a panel of local advisors, something that was generally granted by oldtime colonial rulers.

According to opinion polls, the people of South Dakota are evenly split on the their anti-abortion legislation. At best, counting all the babes in arms and drooling seniors, fewer than 400,000 residents of South Dakota actually support the drive to strike down an American woman's right to choose.

Amazing!

Contrast that with Northern Ontario.

Even in its wildest hallucinations, Northern Ontario couldn't impose its will on Fenelon Falls, let alone dictate the morality of the nation. It can't even impose a dog licence bylaw on its own citizens. Technically speaking, it doesn't even have citizens. It just sits there like a big, mute, ineffectual moron, waiting for a kind voice from its provincial master, while the feisty citizens of South Dakota wallow in their democracy like pigs in a mudhole.

I'm beginning to wonder when the Americans will start exporting their brand of democracy up here.

Just think what the people of Northern Ontario could do with an ittybitty slice of good old American-style democracy. We wouldn't have to rewrite the morality of the nation or force women to don burkas. Maybe just a little control over land-use planning...or economic development...or dog licensing bylaws.

Global Migration

I was reading the New York Times today and I saw that Vermont is experiencing an exodus of young people.

The state is worried because a) it's bad for your image if you're losing population and b) there are fewer working people to pay for the services so beloved by the old folks at home.

Vermont, of course, is not alone. Lots of places at the periphery (you are so not at the centre of the universe, baby) have the same problem. Russia, Britain, the U.S., Africa, China -- all over the world, there's a perceptible shift in population from the rural hinterland to the urban centres.

It made me think of my beloved Northern Ontario, which has been wracked by youth out-migration for the last two decades.

Here's the difference, though. And it's an interesting one.

Vermont can take action to try to stem the tide of its young people. It can apply its ingenuity. It can call upon its people to rally 'round the cause. It can try its damnedness to stem the outflow. It may fail. But at least it can try.

Northern Ontario can do nothing but watch the lifeblood of its future slip away.

Vermont, you see, is a state. It has a governor. And a state legislature. And a voice in federal Congress and Senate. It has State Power.

With a population of 620,000 people. Count 'em. Six hundred and twenty thousand.

Northern Ontario, with a population of close to 800,000, has nothing. Even though it has way more people than little Vermont, it has no government to look out for it. Not even close to a state legislature. It has nothing. It has no counties. Even though it has districts, it has no district governments. It has no regional governments beyond municipalities. It has nothing but municipalities and the provincial government.

It is a big (800,000 square kilometres), sorry, democratic wasteland. No voice, no power, no nothing.

It can only sit, watch and hope that the provincial legislature in far-off Toronto -- which has problems of too many people in too small an area -- puts aside some time one day to consider the problems of the distant north.

About as likely as the wealthy West doing more than lip-service about the problems of Africa.

Lucky Vermont.

Poor Northern Ontario.

How sad.

Another democratic deficit.