Alberta Premier Danielle Smith thinks her province is getting a raw deal from Confederation and is making it easier for Albertans to trigger a referendum, including one on independence.JASON FRANSON/The Canadian Press
In his first days as an elected Prime Minister, Mark Carney faces threats both from without and within.
The threat from without poses the most imminent danger. This country is under assault from its greatest friend. Its economic health and its very existence are at stake.
But Mr. Carney is handling himself well so far. With a bit of luck and a little time, the threat might well fade. Donald Trump will not be President of the United States forever, thank goodness, much as he would clearly like to be.
The threat from within is more complicated. The Trump assault has brought Canadians together in a show of unity and defiance. Yet, even as national pride surges, separatism is rearing its head again in Quebec and the West.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith thinks her province is getting a raw deal from Confederation. She is making it easier for Albertans to trigger a referendum, including one on independence. She said this week that she herself is not in favour of taking her province out of Canada, but suggested she would allow and respect the outcome of such a vote. Shades of David Cameron, the British prime minister who called a referendum on a proposal that he wanted to fail. Result: the disaster that is Brexit.
Naturally, the leader of the Parti Québécois, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, cheered Ms. Smith for putting a knife to Ottawa’s throat. He said she was only telling Ottawa that “if you do not respect our democracy, you do not respect our financial choices and our priorities, I will respond to your abuse of power with concrete actions.” The PQ itself has vowed to hold a third referendum on Quebec independence if it comes to power in next year’s provincial election, as the polls suggest it could.
As incredible as it seems, Mr. Carney could face independence votes in two parts of Canada during the life of his government. How should he respond?
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One way is to offer concessions to the dissatisfied provincial governments in hopes of dampening the fires of division. Doug Ford, Ontario’s Premier, says Mr. Carney needs to “start showing some love” to Saskatchewan and Alberta, which “have been treated terribly, to be very frank.”
Recent Canadian history suggests that this will fail. Negotiating under threat only serves to legitimize the cause of the complainants. They will say, in essence: Look, we got Ottawa to cough up more powers. Keep threatening separation and we will get even more. Eventually, some will say, we will get the whole enchilada: an independent state of our own.
A far better course for Mr. Carney is simply to speak for Canada. Canadian federalism is a brilliant success. People come from all over the world to study how a big, diverse country with a significant linguistic minority has managed to survive and prosper in the world.
It is often said that our federation works badly in theory, but very well in practice. That is what Mr. Carney should stress in his talks with Ms. Smith and other provincial premiers who have complaints about the state of the nation.
Canada’s federation is remarkably decentralized. The provinces have primary jurisdiction over education, natural resources and health care. Every important governing body, from the federal Cabinet to the Supreme Court, is carefully balanced to ensure that it includes the appropriate level of participation from each region. Among other special considerations, Quebec has its own civil code to deal with matters of property, the family and succession. Alberta, for its part, has become Canada’s richest province, with a strong voice in the national conversation and healthy representation in Ottawa.
Canada’s is not a “domineering” federalism. It is a co-operative federalism. It is a give-and-take federalism. It is a federalism that works.
It could be made to work even better. With the American threat spurring them on, Ottawa and the provinces may succeed in tearing down many of the barriers to interprovincial trade that stifle our economic growth. They have also vowed to move more quickly on pipelines and other big infrastructure projects to help Canada wean itself off its overwhelming dependence on the United States.
If Mr. Carney can show this kind of progress, it will do far more for national unity than any concession he might make to the endless demands of Quebec’s nationalists or Alberta’s Ottawa bashers. Generations of experience (remember Meech Lake? How about Charlottetown?) have shown that when Ottawa acts, to borrow a phrase from Pierre Trudeau, as a mere headwaiter to the provinces the result is more demands and more division.
Instead of catering to their complaints, Mr. Carney should show them how Canadian federalism can get things done.