Co-Operative Federalism, Prime Minister CEO, And Other Canadian Fantasies

Mark Carney is trying to run Canada like a business while looking for harmonious relationships with the provinces and territories. That approach won't work.

Synergizing dimensional input connections, just how Mackenzie King taught us to. Photo by Vardan Papikyan on Unsplash

Canada is a tough country to govern. It’s a cliché, but it’s worth recalling it from time to time. You’ve got to be at least a little nuts to try to run this place. You’ve got to be tinged with hubris and a distinct lack of self-awareness. You’ve also got to be willing to be branded in your own time, and perhaps by history, as an utter scoundrel of national proportions. Governing Canada is like trying to pass the Kobayashi Maru training test. The question isn’t whether you’re going to fail, but how. If you’re going to succeed at all, however, you’ve got to be able to do politics. That starts with managing the complexities of the country.

Way up the list of things that make Canada a nightmare to run is federalism. Not only does a prime minister have to negotiate relationships with Parliament (their caucus, opposition caucuses, the Senate), the judiciary, interest groups, social movements, Indigenous nations, foreign states, and the preferences and prejudices and expectations of individual voters, they must also sort out how to deal with sub-national units within the federation. You can’t manage in the style a chief executive officer would a company. You shouldn’t even try.