Excerpts
Life would be easy if the problems we faced adhered to the 1867 Constitution Act. Most challenges, however, transcend the individual categories of jurisdiction. Collaboration among jurisdictions is therefore essential to meet the individual and collective needs of Canadians.
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How exactly to work together?
Nonetheless, the significance of intergovernmental relations in implementing policy continues to be overlooked, including by the victorious Liberals.
The Liberal Party’s Canada Strong platform refers eight times to nation-building projects. But it fails to acknowledge the need to transform intergovernmental relations for 21st century challenges.
Instead, the Constitution is seemingly perceived as a minor inconvenience, not as a key governance challenge: “We will work with the provinces and territories,” the policy says, seemingly hoping that somehow things will work out.
Federal leaders seem oblivious to the fact that Canada is one of the most decentralized federations worldwide. The provinces exercise fiscal and jurisdictional autonomy exceeding those of other countries. In the meantime, the decisions of individual provinces and territories have implications that stretch far beyond their own borders.
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Ottawa isn’t really the ‘leader’
There is a simple truth here: orders of government in Canada are not completely autonomous over their areas of jurisdiction. The federal government does not have the legitimate authority to compel provincial-territorial action; in the meantime, provinces and territories have little means to influence federal policy according to the needs and wants of their constituents.
Rather than tackling this institutional problem, the federal government often asserts itself as the leader Alternatively, the federal government evokes an ad hoc “Team Canada” approach in response to imminent crises, like the re-negotiation of the former NAFTA agreement in 2017 and today’s threats and tariffs by U.S. President Donald Trump.
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Without taking tangible steps to reimagine Canada’s outdated system of intergovernmental relations or developing a road map for institutional reform, the lasting policy changes that are needed to reposition Canada in an increasingly hostile environment are unlikely to materialize.
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