Ottawa acts with the provinces like a helicopter parent, incapable of giving its children the autonomy necessary for their development.
It is not only Quebec that is fed up, but all the provinces which, with the federal elections approaching, would benefit from joining forces to obtain more freedom.
Almost everywhere, discontent is heard. At the end of May, Newfoundland and Labrador went to court to invalidate the equalization formula, which it considers unfair.
For its part, Alberta is seeking to extract itself from the Canada Pension Plan to manage its own nest egg, like the Quebec Pension Plan. There, Quebec is now seen as a model for obtaining more latitude from the federal government1.
From coast to coast, dissatisfaction with federalism is growing, shows a recent Environics poll2.
Less than one in two Canadians (45%) consider that federalism has more advantages than disadvantages, a much lower proportion than twenty years ago (60%).
This widespread dissatisfaction could create fertile ground for reviewing the balance of powers, as the Premier of Quebec wishes.
François Legault ended the parliamentary session by announcing the creation of an advisory committee which will look into ways to increase Quebec’s autonomy.
But the committee’s mandate is very broad (on the menu: appointment of judges, secularism, immigration, language, culture, international representation, etc.) and the time allocated to the committee is rather short (deadline: October 15) .
Is this just an artifice to allow the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) to puff out its chest by reaffirming its intention to obtain gains from Ottawa, despite its mixed success?
Is this really a way to prepare the ground to come back with a grocery list next fall?
Less than a year before the federal elections, the provinces will then have a better balance of power to convince the pretenders to the crown to meet their expectations, something that the Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, was reluctant to do after the pandemic. The provinces also emerged bitter from their negotiations to increase health transfers.
But concretely, what can we expect from this committee?
We still need realistic objectives, not chimeras like asking for full immigration powers. What is the point of holding a referendum on this issue? A country will never cede this type of powers (border security, issuing passports) to a subnational government.
François Legault seems to be looking for original ideas, in line with the modification made by Law 96 which made it possible to add to the Canadian Constitution that Quebec is a nation and that French is its only official language.
This change undoubtedly has symbolic value. But no one saw any effect in their everyday life. Even on a legal level, the effect is limited, even questionable. In short, we are more in the realm of political spectacle than on the farm.
If we want something concrete, we have to talk about fiscal imbalance.
Little has changed since the Séguin commission pleaded, in 2002, for a new sharing of financial resources in Canada. This commission mandated by Quebec started from the observation that the needs were in the provinces (in health, in particular), but that the surpluses were at the federal level.
Except that today, there are deficits everywhere! But precisely, if Ottawa is in the red, it is largely because it spends as best it can by launching programs in areas of provincial jurisdiction. Whether in health or housing, this money always comes with conditions. Ottawa thus forces the provinces to do its bidding, which violates the spirit of sharing skills and amplifies tensions.
The worst part is that Ottawa ends up having to increase taxes to pay the bill, as we saw in the last budget. In the end, the taxpayer pays.
And the provinces lack the money to finance the essentials. And the essentials will cost more and more in the future with the aging of the population, the deterioration of infrastructure, the lack of housing, etc.
To reduce eternal tensions, Ottawa could outright transfer GST or tax points, as it has done in the past.
Clearly, the federal government would lower its taxes or its sales tax to leave the provinces new tax space. An adjustment would be made to equalization for the benefit of less well-off provinces in order to ensure uniform services across Canada. In this way, the provinces would themselves control the levers to finance the services that are within their field of jurisdiction.
Of course, the provinces will always pull their own weight to obtain the maximum amount of money from the federal government. But if their common objective is to achieve greater autonomy, they would have every interest in sticking together to create a balance of power against Ottawa.
Faced with its helicopter parent, Quebec must play as a team with the other provinces.
1. Read “Quebec as a Model for Provincial Autonomy in Alberta and Beyond”
2. Check out the Environics survey