Monday's landslide win by Phillipe Couillard and his Québec Liberal Party is a great sign that the idea of sovereignty may have been set aside for a long time. But I think it should lead to something more. It should lead to the federation our Founders wanted but has often wavered from this principle, especially under Stephen Harper.
At the outset, I have to say that with the win, the new governing party will definitely have to come clean about its possible role in the ongoing corruption investigation into kickbacks in the construction industry and fast. If campaign and other contributions found its way from dirty money into its coffers, it will have to be paid back and openly. Being frank and honest is the best kind of government, which will set a best practice for the rest of the country, including the federal government.
But beyond that, there is a much more important issue. That is the Harper government doing so many things unilaterally without the advice or the consent of the provinces and territories. And in some cases, even infringing on their jurisdiction and not caring.
The provinces and territories are not "glorified municipalities" as John A. Macdonald dismissively referred to them. The provinces are the primary components of our federation. Otherwise, they'd have the same status as the National Assemblies in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland - the national government in the UK can shut them down permanently simply with an Act of Parliament. (The territories, which form the rest of our country, do exist at the wim of the feds, but disbanding their Assemblies would be unthinkable.)
I'm not just talking about the fact there has been no meeting where all jurisdictions sit with Harper at the same table.
Nor am I just talking about crime legislation which impedes jurisdictional authority to have sentencing options that are appropriate to each individual offense rather than a blanket "my way or the highway" mandatory minimums. We've seen how that works in the States (i.e. grossly overpopulated prisons).
It goes further. Even though the Meech Lake and Charlottetown Accords
failed, the federal government under four Prime Ministers took at least
two of the planks seriously and made it semi-official policy. Harper has not. And perhaps with a federalist government in Québec, the push-back that is required will have much more credibility.
One of the planks is shared cost
programs and the principle if a province or territory wants to opt out
it should have access to federal funds if they create a program with
similar objectives. When we created Medicare in the 1970s, for instance, it was understood that it would not be the feds managing a national program - we left it to the jurisdictions.
I for one cannot understand, for example, why Harper created the Canada Jobs Grant without considering that every province and territory already have their own job retraining programs that actually work for many of the applicants that need them. This is insanity. Federal funding should be increased of course, but leave it to those who know best to implement their own policies (the principle of subsidiarity).
The other plank somewhat related, and I think much more important, is immigration. As I've noted here several times, immigration is a shared head of power. Canada may be the only federation in the world that has this feature. But at present, it is only Québec that has actually excercised their rights and insisted on selecting its own regular (i.e. skilled workers) class immigrants. By all accounts this has been a successful program. And frankly, using its best practices, the other provinces can a) insist to the federal government they have the power do the same, and b) they get the same level of per capita settlement funds as Québec does.
It is true the Québec arrangement has its origins in an agreement signed back in 1977 under René Levesque. Pierre Trudeau wisely consented to this with his former friend turned enemy (despite the then Prime Minister's "One Canada" policy) because he knew what the Constitution said, that the provinces do indeed have this privilege, and it was hoped it would be a role model for the English speaking provinces to follow. Why they haven't I don't know but it's way past time they should. We know who the best workers are that can contribute to our "community of communities" - not the feds.
Actually having a federalist party enforcing its rights on this and other heads of power, gives the other provinces leverage. And I think, the opportunity to make Harper deal with his co-equal partners as they are. This is, right now, the best way to move things forward and to give the incumbent a much needed lesson in what our Constitution says, and means.
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