If the federal minority government was just a temporary anomaly, economic platforms on Parliament Hill that are light on vision and well-designed policy would be just an irritant we would have to live with.

But the minority government has turned out to be a far from temporary condition, and the irritant has become a major threat to Canada’s economic development.

It is a very good bet that Canada will have another minority government after the next election — and possibly long after that — as Quebec remains a fortress for the Bloc Québécois.

Here in Ottawa (when we are not fixated with lurid tabloid tales of alleged influence peddling and busty hookers), the prevailing wisdom is that tough policy decisions just have to wait until someone gets the upper hand in the minority government standoff and takes a majority. As a result, neither of the major parties have been willing to stick their necks out much on economic and fiscal policy.

This scenario, of course, is more myth than theory. Minority federal governments in the post-war period have been far from temporary. The previous period of extended minority ate up most of the 1960s, and we now are on the verge of having lived through the longest period of minority government in Canadian history.

So, in the interests of curing some nagging economic problems, here are some issues that Canadians should demand be placed on the public agenda:

> Thinking The Unthinkable About Equalization. Things sure have changed since former Ontario Premier Mitch Hepburn said with a sniff: “If it were not for the riches of Ontario, I don’t know what would happen to the rest of the Dominion.’’

Now, equalization payments in Canada have morphed to the point at which health care and other services are better in the so-called “have not” provinces than they are in the three traditional cash cows of Confederation — Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia.

This past winter, the Frontier Centre for Public Policy, a Western Canada think-tank, presented a well-documented case for scrapping equalization payments altogether. But the study got scant attention, as neither the national media nor federal politicians like using multi-syllable words much these days.

The FCPP’s study found that Nova Scotia and Quebec have more doctors per capita than the three wealthiest provinces. Tuition historically has been cheaper in the have-not provinces than in the Big Three.

Alberta Finance Minister Ted Morton wants equalizations put on the agenda for future federal/provincial talks. Ontario and B.C. should join him in insisting it is.

> Thinking The Unthinkable About Health Care. When health-care spending is projected to eat up 70% of revenue by the end of the decade in some of the wealthiest provinces, we should all be on notice that the system is no longer fiscally sustainable.

This is why Quebec probably did us all a favour by introducing user fees. True, the Canada Health Act prohibits such fees. However, there is some flexibility or wiggle room in the legislation, which might explain why the government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper has been giving cautious answers that really amount to: “User fees if necessary, but not necessarily user fees.”

(Who knew the former president of the National Citizens’ Coalition was a student of Mackenzie King all along?)

Ironically, the first known advocate of user fees in health care, Tommy Douglas, said in the Saskatchewan legislature in 1963 that a totally free health-care system was bound to be abused and misused by Canadians.

Hence, the need for some sort of user fees. A sustainable health-care system is an urgent matter that cannot wait. Ottawa needs to get involved.

> Getting Serious About Productivity. Productivity has been one of those issues the economists have been nagging us about for years, just as your Grade 5 teacher nagged you about penmanship. But because productivity is the direct result of everything from corporate taxes to education and skilled labour policies, it is time we paid attention.

The Canadian economy may never again be able to count on a cheap currency to make its goods and services affordable around the world.

Now that we are a petro-state — and a major one at that — our dollar may be very strong in relation to most currencies around the world for most of this century.