Democracy Gone Astray

Democracy, being a human construct, needs to be thought of as directionality rather than an object. As such, to understand it requires not so much a description of existing structures and/or other related phenomena but a declaration of intentionality.
This blog aims at creating labeled lists of published infringements of such intentionality, of points in time where democracy strays from its intended directionality. In addition to outright infringements, this blog also collects important contemporary information and/or discussions that impact our socio-political landscape.

All the posts here were published in the electronic media – main-stream as well as fringe, and maintain links to the original texts.

[NOTE: Due to changes I haven't caught on time in the blogging software, all of the 'Original Article' links were nullified between September 11, 2012 and December 11, 2012. My apologies.]

Tuesday, August 07, 2012

Federalism upside down: Who speaks for Canada now?

Something strange is going on. It is as though a ventriloquist had taken control of our federal and provincial leaders and was making them speak with each other’s voices.

While the federal government defends classical federalism, the provinces rise to argue for pan-Canadianism. Veterans of the constitutional wars must be shaking their heads in disbelief.

However, while this role-reversal may be disorienting, it is not just a muddle. The premiers are quite literally re-inventing the federation — and, in our view, not a moment too soon. To see why, let us start by providing some context.

A recent survey by the Institute for Research on Public Policy and Nanos Research found that a scant 9.4 percent of respondents still have confidence in the federal government’s ability to solve our policy problems, while 18 percent have none. Things are even worse for the provinces. Only 7.1 percent have confidence in them, while 24.3 percent have none.

If this sounds alarming, the news is not as bad as it sounds. The survey also asked people how confident they are about their government’s ability to solve the issues that matter most to them. Their answers varied with the issue. For example, border protection, natural resources and safe communities scored relatively high, while social programs, aging and health care scored relatively low.

Nik Nanos attributes the variation to complexity and we agree. Basically, solutions to complex issues involve lots of steps and players, which, in turn, weaken confidence. For example, an effort to reduce hospital wait times requires collaboration between governments, hospitals, doctors, nurses, and technicians.

By contrast, what Nanos calls “transactional issues” are less complex, presumably because they can be resolved with significantly less effort. Thus issues around border protection may be resolved through a bilateral agreement between the two governments.

So, on closer inspection, the really interesting lesson from the survey is that people have no trouble distinguishing between complex and transactional issues. This, in turn, suggests that when they say they have lost confidence in governments, they are really saying that they doubt whether governments are willing and able to develop the plans and build the partnerships needed to solve complex issues. Are they right?

This may be the political question of the decade. People already seem to be lining up on one side or the other — which brings us back to the federation.

As Nanos notes, the federal government seems to have opted for a more transactional approach to governance, concentrating on issues like border security, crime and natural resources. The Harper government seems uncomfortable with complex processes and relationships, so its guiding principle is to keep things as simple as possible.

By contrast, the Council of the Federation (COF) is emerging as a new kind of collaborative forum. The provinces are using it to build and test the strategies and coalitions they think governments need to solve complex issues. Premiers Robert Ghiz and Brad Wall’s effort on healthcare and Alison Redford’s push for a national energy strategy are examples.

Now, as already noted, this role-reversal is baffling. After all, for most of our history the provinces were the inward-looking members of the federation, while the federal government insisted on the need to “speak for Canada,” as Pierre Trudeau famously put it.

However, the IRPP/Nanos survey helps us see why these roles are now turning upside down. The provinces, recall, have responsibility for many of the issues that register the least confidence (and highest complexity), such as health, education and other social services.

As a result, the pressure on them to experiment and collaborate is growing exponentially. This, in turn, is pushing them toward more pan-Canadian approaches, while the federal government, which views its responsibilities as more transactional, is returning to watertight compartments and bilateral relationships.

Can the provinces pull off this pan-Canadian coup? And, if so, how long can the federal government remain on the sidelines? Let’s conclude with a few thoughts about the future.

First, the fact that Canadians continue to identify complex issues such as health and jobs as high priorities suggests to us they are still hopeful these issues can be solved. This is welcome news. However, with confidence levels now below 10 percent, governments who wish to rebuild the public’s confidence must do more than make promises.

In future, they need to produce credible plans for how to solve these issues. They need to map out, step-by-step, how the plan will unfold and why it will engage the partners needed to make it work. To their credit, the premiers are tackling this problem, though they still have a long way to go.

This brings us to the federal government. It is under growing pressure to join this effort. So far, however, Ottawa is resisting. For example, it has declined an invitation from the COF to meet with the premiers next fall to discuss the economy.

It should be noted, however, that at the departmental level the federal government is very engaged with the provinces/territories on a number of files. If it is reluctant to get involved at the first ministers’ level, perhaps it fears that such a meeting will be little more than a collective effort by the provinces to raid the federal treasury, as Geoff Norquay recently argued in an iPolitics op-ed.

Nevertheless, if the provincial effort is even modestly successful, we don’t think the federal government can avoid engaging for long. We believe it has a natural leadership role in this new, pan-Canadian environment. Its networks, infrastructure, resources, and legislative authority would make an essential contribution to solving issues around energy, healthcare and innovation. Eventually, the federal government will have to come back to the table — whether it be this government or some future one.

That said, a return to old-style first ministers conferences and executive federalism seems very unlikely. In those days, the federal government invited the provinces to a first ministers conference to discuss its agenda for Canada. Now it is the provinces who are inviting the federal government to join them at COF to discuss their agenda.

Times have changed and the lesson, apparently, is that in this new era all our governments must be ready to speak for Canada — together.

Original Article
Source: ipolitics
Author: Don Lenihan and Graham Fox 

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