Updating the way governments work together

Opinion

For a day last week, Canada’s premiers ran the country. The most powerful governing institution wasn’t Parliament or the Prime Minister’s Office but the Council of the Federation. More than 20 years after it was founded in 2003 at Charlottetown, this idealistic and antagonistic avatar of federalism showed its worth. And all because they brought the prime minister to town.

When the Council of the Federation (CoF, pronounced “cough” by officials) was formed, Quebec’s participation in the federation was the issue. The federalist Liberals had returned to power under Jean Charest, after 10 years of separatist Parti Québécois government and the near-death referendum result of 1995. All premiers were responsive to Quebec’s imitative to create a new, stronger version of the summer Annual Premiers Conference to revitalize the role of provinces and territories in Canada and, in the process, begin the re-engagement of a distinctive Quebec with the federalist idea. Charest called it “internal diplomacy to build alliances.”

For other premiers, the imperative was “strength in unity.” They would have a better shot at influencing the federal government if they stood and acted as one. Consensus was in, “asterisks” denoting dissent were out. Unilateral federal cutbacks to health-care transfers and equalization payments by the Chrétien/Martin governments had angered all premiers. They pointed to a growing fiscal imbalance between Ottawa and among the provinces.

While CoF created a “table of equals,” one government was primus intra pares, or first among equals — the federal government. No matter that CoF’s founding agreement stated that “Canada’s two orders of government are of equal status, neither subordinate to the other,” they could not force the federal government to act that way. While premiers and prime ministers are all styled “first ministers,” it is always the prime minister intent on preserving his prerogatives that calls and hosts first minister meetings, inviting premiers, not the other way around.

This is what makes Prime Minister Mark Carney’s decision to show up for a CoF meeting in Huntsville, Ont., so notable. No matter that it formally reverted to a First Ministers Meeting chaired by the PM for the time he was there, it was to CoF he decamped. This was a first.

To date, Canada’s CoF has been more influential as a governing institution outside of Canada. Australia too is a federal state. Three years after ours came into being, the Council for the Australian Federation consisting of chief ministers of all states and territories formed. It emulates fully the purpose and operations of Canada’s council, even borrowing some of the same wording in its founding agreement. The catalyst for its formation was the same too, frustration with the central Commonwealth government’s approach to federalism, where it was accused of “dictating the agenda” of what governments discussed. Sound familiar?

One glaring difference stands out. Australia had a formal central/state/territorial intergovernmental mechanism for more than a decade before, called the Council of Australian Governments or COAG. Whatever benefits accrued from having all governments at the table for some matters were seen as inadequate by others. Canada’s example seemed better to increasingly frustrated sub-national governments.

But then COVID hit COAG. The pandemic reordered federalism mechanisms in Australia. Intergovernmental co-ordination and co-operation imperatives led to the creation of a national cabinet of chief ministers, supplanting COAG. Today, that new structure is the governing institution for federalism in Australia. This proves the flexible nature of federalism. It can change to meet the moment without changing the constitution to do so. Canada should take note.

To his credit, Carney is investing serious time and effort in working with premiers and Indigenous leaders. He needs to if he is to succeed in rallying the country to meet this moment of economic consequence and change facing the country. Trouble is, we’ve all seen the movie. An initial “era of good feelings” is followed by episodes of intergovernmental fratricide.

Why? Because there is no established institution of federalism involving all constitutional orders of government in running the country. A place to conciliate. We are already seeing the limits to two orders of government — Ottawa and the provinces and territories — wanting to advance on infrastructure projects faster and more purposefully than some Indigenous governments. Demanding a seat at the table will continue until there is one. Disruptive presences outside can often become ameliorating presences inside.

Canada is setting itself an historic agenda for economic and political change in response to the American tariff and trade threats. For this to succeed, we need to update how we govern ourselves as one country.

The CoF founding agreement calls itself an “enduring and evolving institution.” No question it has endured as a regular forum to demand more money and powers from the federal government. The question now is whether it can evolve into a true Council of the Federation involving representatives of all orders of government: federal, provincial, territorial and, yes, Indigenous. For the first time, Canada can imagine so.

David McLaughlin is a former clerk of the executive council and cabinet secretary in the Manitoba government.