Everything indicates that Quebec will soon join the nine provinces that have finalized the agreement on the Canada Health Transfer (CHT) concluded last month with the Trudeau government.
Despite an understandable haste to move on, after the lamentable failure of the common front, Prime Minister Legault no doubt wanted to make a last stand by being the last to capitulate.
The ability to pass off bladders for lanterns is part of the art of politics. It would be an exaggeration to say that the champagne corks will pop in Quebec and that Mr. Legault will smoke a cigar with Dominic LeBlanc, as his friend Doug Ford did, but we should not be unduly surprised that the little billion that will be added to the TCS eventually appears on the list of benefits of federalism, which Mr. Legault hastens to draw up as soon as one dares to wonder about its real advantages.
According to the recent Léger-The duty, Quebeckers seem quite ready to applaud the agreement. Nearly half (48%) say they are satisfied, while 36% are not. It should be noted, however, that the number of dissatisfied people increases with age: it is barely 18% among 18-34 year olds, perhaps less concerned about the subject, but it is 50% among 55 years and older.
It must be said that the pollsters do not like overly complex questions, which risk confusing the respondents. Thus, it was not specified that the $46 billion over 10 years obtained by the provinces represents only one-sixth of what they were claiming.
It doesn’t matter that we got screwed, the cuckolds are happy. Therefore, why would Mr. Legault undeceive them by insisting on his discomfiture? He once left the PQ precisely because Quebeckers refused to believe him when he tried to explain to them that Canada was a scam.
It remains to be seen the size of the snake that he himself will accept to swallow. The agreements reached with the provinces have all come from the same mould. Only the figures differ according to the importance of the population of each. How will the famous “asymmetry” that the Charest government succeeded in introducing into the TCS in 2004 manifest itself?
It is true that the priorities named in these agreements are broad enough to include practically everything that can be considered as health services, including home care, which seems to leave a lot of leeway.
The Legault government has indicated that it has no objection to sharing all the data it has, but it does not stop there. The agreements with the provinces also provide for “the development of a bilateral agreement based on an initial three-year action plan identifying targets, timelines and other indicators related to the common health priorities of each jurisdiction” .
If the words have any meaning, this “initial” three-year plan is simply a first step, which will be followed by others. Setting targets and setting deadlines goes far beyond good intentions. We may well refuse to call these “conditions”, but a spade remains a spade, whether we pronounce the word or not.
Even if no penalty is provided for in the event of non-compliance, there is a kind of spiral here. Centralization is a slow but continuous process. And when you put your finger in the wringer, it can be very difficult — and painful — to get out of it afterwards. Does Mr. Legault want to try the experiment?
If, with each round of CHT negotiations, the so-called common front ends up collapsing, it is not simply because the provinces are in urgent need of money that renders them impotent in the face of the federal government’s spending power.
Beyond the usual formulas on respect for the division of powers provided for in the Constitution, Canadians have always recognized that their national government was located in Ottawa and that it was up to the latter to chart the way forward, the provinces more akin to administrative districts, as Pierre Elliott Trudeau explicitly said. Quebecers see things differently for obvious identity reasons.
Former Liberal minister and constitutionalist emeritus Benoit Pelletier criticizes the PLQ today for being populated “by people who do not understand that federalism implies first and foremost the autonomy of the provinces and even the sovereignty of the provinces in their areas of jurisdiction. “.
He is probably right, but it is not clear that we understand him more or that we want him in the rest of the country, except in seminars and law schools.