Explain why, 76 years ago, the Rowell-Sirois Commission argued that:

"The quality of education and welfare services is no longer a matter of purely provincial and local concern. In Canada today, freedom of movement and equality of opportunity are more important than ever before, and these depend in part on the maintenance of at least minimum national standards for education, public health and care of the indigent. The most economically distressed areas are the ones least capable of supporting these services, and yet are also the ones in which the needs are likely to be greatest. Whether the remedy lies in emigration from these areas or in the development of alternative means of livelihood, they must not be allowed to become backwaters of illiteracy and disease. Not only national duty and decency, if Canada is to be a nation at all, but equity and national self-interest demand that the residents of these areas be given average services and equal opportunities -- equity because these areas may have been impoverished by the national economic policies which enriched other areas, and which were adopted in the general interest. Those whose interests were sacrificed have some claim that the partnership should work both ways. National self-interest demands it because the existence of areas of inferior educational and public health standards affects the whole population, and creates many grave and dangerous problems. "

a. Report of the Royal Commission on Dominion -- Provincial Relations, Book 2, page 128 (Rowell -- Sirois, 1940)

What policies have been implemented as a result of this analysis? Have they succeeded?