In the decade following Charlottetown’s defeat, federal-provincial relations muddled along without formal agreements. This laxity contributed to the near-death experience in the 1995 Quebec referendum on sovereignty, a razor-thin victory for the “No” forces. But the confluence of other factors appears now to have resulted in Paul Martin granting to all provinces that which Quebec wants. By charting a course that Canadians had previously rejected, he now runs the risk of setting Canada on a path toward dissolution.
Whether the Fathers of Confederation would have preferred a more centralized state is open to debate. But there is little question that the “French fact” and the need to accommodate Quebec forced Canada to divide “sovereign powers” between two orders of government. It appears that first Prime Minister John A. Macdonald favoured real power in the centre as the provinces were granted authority over “matters of merely local and private nature,” while Ottawa assumed the broader “peace, order and good government” mandate and grabbed a “residual power” encompassing everything not spelled out specifically in the British North America (bna) Act.
For decades the power and authority of the two levels of government ebbed and flowed, but by 1940 the ravages of the Depression and a newfound nationalism emerging out of Canada’s war efforts conspired to force a change. That year, the Rowell-Sirois Commission concluded there was a need for a larger federal role in Canada’s social programs to help protect against future economic calamities. Four years later, Ottawa responded by introducing family allowances and, in so doing, established a precedent of federal spending in areas of provincial jurisdiction.
Even more seminal in shaping federal-provincial affairs was the introduction of equalization payments in 1957. Newfoundland had ended its isolation eight years before, and, with regional disparities apparent to all but the blind and/or greedy, Ottawa began transferring funds to “have not” provinces. Inherent inequities militated against full participation in the country’s growing fortunes, and to keep Canada whole and prevent parts from fracturing it was widely accepted that Canadians needed to be each other’s keepers.
This was national-character-defining legislation, and Quebec was a willing partner. While Premier Maurice Duplessis rattled his sabre at Ottawa from time to time (over such intrusions as federal grants to universities), the province was quietly trying to transform itself from a rural, sectarian society into an urban and secular one, and needed to keep the doors open to such federal initiatives.
In 1963, responding to a more aggressive Premier Jean Lesage and his demands to be “maître chez nous,” the federal government demonstrated its flexibility by appointing the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism. The commission reaffirmed that Canada was a partnership based on a historical “pact” between English and French. But this attempt to build bridges was being undermined by massive, multi-ethnic immigration into English Canada. Prior to official multicultural policies, these new Canadians felt little fealty to historical pacts, and were beginning to make demands of their own. Concurrent with this trend was the rise of dissenting voices by provincial governments—i.e., by those jointly responsible for the new entrants—over the federal government’s superior revenue- generating capacity through the Income Tax Act.
Prime Minister Lester Pearson set out to smooth waters through “co-operative federalism,” wherein national programs would be funded on a 50:50 shared-cost basis and any province that wished to opt out could do so and still be fully compensated. Under this scheme, federal-provincial relations flourished. Medicare, the Canada Pension Plan (cpp), the Canada Assistance Plan, and funding for post-secondary education were all introduced. These areas of “provincial jurisdiction” now had a federal godfather and were part of a network of policies binding the country together. Irresistible as it was to the other nine provinces, Quebec nonetheless took Ottawa at its word and opted out of the cpp, choosing to set up its own plan. This move, the University of Toronto historian Michael Bliss told me, was “the camel’s nose in the tent.”
When Trudeau came to power, he moved away from unconditional transfers. He insisted that Ottawa’s job was to curb the excesses of the regions, and he set out to enforce a national vision around which geographic and ethnic differences would be forced to bend. In 1971, with the memory of tanks on the streets of Montreal still raw in the public consciousness and debate still swirling about his imposition of the War Measures Act, Trudeau gambled that the time was ripe for change. But, at the constitutional conference in Victoria, B.C., he failed to get agreement on a package of reforms when Quebec demanded more control over its own social programs. Dejected, Trudeau stewed for almost a decade before finally threatening to unilaterally patriate the Constitution. All took note, especially in Quebec.
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