The Case For Centralized Federalism

The Case for Centralized Federalism and its sister volume The Case for Decentralized Federalism are the outcome of the Federalism Redux Project, created to stimulate a serious and useful conversation on federalism in Canada. They provide the vocabulary and arguments needed to articulate the case for a centralized or a decentralized Canadian federalism. In The Case for Centralized Federalism, an array of experts condemns the federal government’s submissiveness in its dealings with the provinces and calls for a renewed federal assertiveness. They argue that the federal government is best placed to create effective policy, support democracy and respond to issues of national importance.

The Case for Decentralized Federalism and its sister volume The Case for Centralized Federalism are the outcome of the Federalism Redux Project, created to stimulate a serious and useful conversation on federalism in Canada. They provide the vocabulary and arguments needed to articulate the case for a centralized or a decentralized Canadian federalism. The Case for Decentralized Federalism brings together experts who believe decentralized federalism is the optimal arrangement for governing the contextual diversity and cultural pluralism in Canada. Using different approaches, they argue that by dividing the work of public governance among different levels of government, it is easier to address the needs and aspirations of the diverse groups that make up Canada.

This book is an outcome of the round table conference held in 1984 in Switzerland. It deals with decision of decentralization, structure of decentralized units, external power of decentralized unit, financial autonomy and decentralization and the protection of the basic rights.

The Case for Centralized Federalism and its sister volume The Case for Decentralized Federalism are the outcome of the Federalism Redux Project, created to stimulate a serious and useful conversation on federalism in Canada. They provide the vocabulary and arguments needed to articulate the case for a centralized or a decentralized Canadian federalism. In The Case for Centralized Federalism, an array of experts condemns the federal government’s submissiveness in its dealings with the provinces and calls for a renewed federal assertiveness. They argue that the federal government is best placed to create effective policy, support democracy and respond to issues of national importance.

Courts are key players in the dynamics of federal countries since their rulings have a direct impact on the ability of governments to centralize and decentralize power. Courts in Federal Countries examines the role high courts play in thirteen countries, including Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, India, Nigeria, Spain, and the United States. The volume’s contributors analyse the centralizing or decentralizing forces at play following a court’s ruling on issues such as individual rights, economic affairs, social issues, and other matters. The thirteen substantive chapters have been written to facilitate comparability between the countries. Each chapter outlines a country’s federal system, explains the constitutional and institutional status of the court system, and discusses the high court’s jurisprudence in light of these features. Courts in Federal Countries offers insightful explanations of judicial behaviour in the world’s leading federations.

The British North America Act of 1867 fashioned a Canadian federation which was intended to be a highly centralized union led by a powerful national government. Soon after Confederation, however, the government of Ontario took the lead in demanding a greater share of the power for the provinces, and it has continued to press this case. Professor Armstrong analyses the forces which promoted decentralization and the responses which these elicited from the federal government. He explains Ontario's reasons for pursuing this particular policy from 1867 to the Second World War. The author's sources are the private papers of federal and provincial premiers and other contemporary political figures, government publications, parliamentary debates, and newspapers. He has identified and developed three separate but related themes: the dynamic role played by private business interests in generating intergovernmental conflicts; Ontario's policy of promoting its economic growth by encouraging the processing of its resources at home; and the tremendous influence exerted by increasing urbanization and industrialization on the growth of the responsibilities of the provinces. During the 1930s, efforts to restructure the federal system were rejected by Ontario because it preferred to maintain the status quo,and was unsympathetic to greater equalization between the regions. Consequently, Ontario took a leading part in opposing the redivision of powers recommended by the Royal Commission on Dominion-Provincial Relations in 1940. This book provides part of the historical context into which current debates on the question of federalism may be fitted. It thus will be of importance and interest to historians, students of Canadian history, and the general reader alike. (Ontario Historical Studies Series: Themes)

What does federalism have to do with the political struggle between conservatives and progressives over economic policy? How do economic theories of fiscal federalism influence European, North American, and global forms of governance? In the first comprehensive account of the left-right politics of multilevel governance across federal, regional, and global levels, Adam Harmes identifies both free-market and interventionist political projects related to fiscal federalism. Harmes argues that these political projects and the interests that promote them explain a diverse range of phenomena across national contexts, across levels of governance, and over time. This includes the left-right dynamics of US and Canadian federalism, the free-market origins of British euroscepticism and the Brexit vote, the complex politics behind the NAFTA renegotiations, and the emergence of both populist and progressive challenges to global free trade. A highly accessible outline of fiscal federalism theory, The Politics of Fiscal Federalism also expands upon the broader value and policy differences between neoliberal, classical liberal, and Keynesian welfare economics on issues such as the role of the state, subnational and global trade, economic nationalism, and monetary integration. This original and innovative work demonstrates that a political economy approach is essential to the study of federalism, and why federalism and multilevel governance is a critical area of study for political economists.

The Canadian system of federalism divides the power to govern between the central federal parliament and the provincial and territorial legislative assemblies. In what can be seen as a double federation, power is also divided culturally, between English and French Canada. The divisions of power and responsibility, however, have not remained static since 1867. The federal language regime (1969), for example, reconfigured cultural federalism, generating constitutional tension as governments sought to make institutions more representative of the country's diversity. In Federalism and the Constitution of Canada, award-winning author David E. Smith examines a series of royal commission and task force inquiries, a succession of federal-provincial conferences, and the competing and controversial terms of the Constitution Act of 1982 in order to evaluate both the popular and governmental understanding of federalism. In the process, Smith uncovers the reasons constitutional agreement has historically proved difficult to reach and argues that Canadian federalism 'in practice' has been more successful at accommodating foundational change than may be immediately apparent.