Frances Russell versus Maxime Bernier on decentralization

Frances Russell, a columnist at Winnipeg Free Press, has come out in defense of a large and all encompassing central government for Canada’s federation. This is in response, primarily, to Maxime Bernier’s speech where he suggested that provincial governments should be allowed to decide their own health care policy without so much interference from the federal government. His strategy to do this was to change the funding strategy of the Canada Health Act so that the federal government could no longer use health care funding as a stick to beat down provincial innovation.

In the first half of her column Ms. Russell focuses on an ad hominem attack against both M. Bernier and Stephen Harper. Among other things she somehow manages to slip in an accusation that the NCC is racist. I skimmed over this part waiting for her to address her arguments for how power in federal states should be balanced.

Finally she begins her first real argument:

Decentralism and provincial power has been a common refrain from Canada's Right for decades. It doesn't conform to Canadian reality. Unlike the U.S. Constitution, an icon of the modern Canadian Conservative movement, the Canadian constitution awards all residual powers, those powers not specifically assigned to one or the other level of government, to the federal government, not to the provinces.

Putting aside that Oliver Mowat and Wilfrid Laurier (both Liberals) were the original proponents of Provincial Rights, Ms. Russell is absolutely right that residual power resides with the federal government and she defines residual powers accurately.

The problem is that health care is not a residual power. The provincial level of government has been given specific authority over health care. Maxime Bernier’s argument is that we should respect the constitutional authority of provincial governments. Blabbing about residual power is completely irrelevant to that discussion.

Ms. Russells then goes on to say that provincial governments do not have the fiscal power to respond to economic emergencies such as the Great Depression. She accredits supposed failures of Canada’s fiscal system during that period for our modern equalization system.

This is again an odd topic to bring up because it has nothing to do with health transfers. I would be happy to debate the social goals and effectiveness of the equalization system, but this is an entirely separate issue from health care financial transfers. They are negotiated separately and no one to my knowledge is proposing an end to equalization.

In conclusion I can’t help but notice that all of Ms. Russell’s points are completely irrelevant to M. Bernier’s argument. The closest she comes is when she says that the greater fiscal capacity of the federal government allows for more state activism. She accuses of Maxime Bernier of secretly liking decentralization for this reason. This is like accusing a Conservative of being conservative, something that I am usually loath to do.

(As a side note Maxime Bernier has come out against the Conservative Party’s policy of creating a centralized securities system. This brings into question much of Ms. Russell’s assertions about M. Bernier acting as a front man for the real Stephen Harper.)