The Case for Centralized Federalism

Introduction

1 In the 2008 federal election, the Conservative party won 21.7 percent of the popular vote in Quebec, which gave it 10 seats. In the previous election, in 2006, the party also won 10 seats but its popular vote total in the province was 24.6 percent (Elections Canada 2009). What is interesting about these figures is that between 2006 and 2008 the Conservative party declared the Quebecois to be a nation, gave the government of the province a seat at UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization), responded to Quebec’s concerns about the so-called “fiscal imbalance”, and generally articulated a highly provincialist vision of Canadian federalism. Apparently, the voters in the province were not impressed. Going back a little further, the Liberal party won 21 seats and 33.9 percent of the vote in Quebec in the 2004 federal election, down from 36 seats and 44.2 percent of the vote in the 2000 election (Elections Canada 2009). The reason for the drastic decline in the fortunes of the Liberal party in Quebec, of course, was the sponsorship scandal. In an effort to stem the party’s hemorrhaging, shortly before the 2004 election, then Prime Minister Paul Martin agreed to devolve responsibility for parental benefits to the government of the province―even before the Supreme Court handed down its decision on the constitutionality of the federal parental bene fits initiative. Not surprisingly, the devolution move was Introduction Gordon DiGiacomo and Maryantonett Flumian 2 Gordon DiGiacomo and Maryantonett Flumian not able to dissipate the stench of corruption that hung over the Liberal party. What the above electoral comparisons contain is the germ of a proposition. Maybe, just maybe, the citizens of the Province of Quebec have become more interested in clean, progressive government than in seeing the provincial political elite acquire more power from the federal government. If this is the case, then the traditional tactic of federal parties trying to win votes in Quebec by diminishing the role of Ottawa in the province has run its course. It is a possibility devoutly to be wished not only in the case of Quebec but of all provinces. Over the past several years, Ottawa has demonstrated an extraordinary degree of subservience to the provinces, repeatedly backing off from playing a leadership role on several issues, even when the issue falls squarely within its jurisdiction. In general, the six readings in this book condemn this jurisdictional timidity and call for a new federal assertiveness. The arguments presented in the readings make a convincing case that the absence of federal policy leadership has led to abysmal national performance. As a result, to paraphrase Theda Skocpol, it is time to bring Ottawa back in. The federal government’s diminished status has prompted one veteran political scientist to conclude that there is no government of Canada! Richard Simeon has written: It is important to get away from the rhetoric that says, “We are the government of Canada.” The federal government is one government, with specific responsibilities, in a system of multi-level governance. “Government” in Canada is the combined actions, individually and collectively , of federal, provincial, and increasingly municipal and aboriginal governments. We do not have the hierarchy implied by “levels” of government; we have equal “orders” of government (Simeon et al. 2006: 3).1 Simeon’s view is becoming the common view among politicians , bureaucrats and scholars. It is distressing that it is. Introduction 3 It is difficult to imagine a scholar in the United States or Australia (or any other advanced federal country for that matter, aside from Belgium and Switzerland) presenting such a view. It is also difficult to imagine that Canadian citizens want their federal government to be considered just one of the many governments in Canada, on the same level as, say, the governments of the cities of Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island and Windsor, Ontario, and the government of the Yukon territory. It is particularly disturbing that this transformation of Ottawa’s role appears to have the support of all federal political parties. Simeon makes another observation that merits a reaction . He contends that the argument that “decentralization inevitably leads to a ‘rush to the bottom’ in terms of social justice or environmental standards, simply has no empirical support. The image that national standards must be defined and enforced by Ottawa, in Ottawa, to stave off provincial...