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Comments the controversy in Canada over whether or not to ratify the "Meech Lake Accord". Overview of the accord; Background of the constitutional crisis in Canada; Proposed establishment of a "distinct society clause" for Quebec; Opposing viewpoints on the meaning of the clause; Reasons why the accord should be ratified; Primary aim of the accord to correct a major flaw in the constitution; Accord's acknowledgment that language needs community to survive; Constitutional amendments proposed by Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and the premiers of Canada's ten provinces.

Reports on the failure of the Meech Lake accord in June 1990 and how Canada is still living with the consequences of that failure 10 years later. What the accord was suppose to do; How Meech Lake's influence has been as great in failure as it might have been in success; Which tenets of the accord sparked the most controversy.

In this article the author discusses Progressive Conservative party losses in Manitoba and Ontario in the 2011 Canadian provincial elections. He notes that the candidates Tim Hudak and Hugh McFadyen, though relatively inexperienced, did not have strong opponents, making their losses surprising. He complains that the Conservatives in Canada have lost confidence in themselves, which lost them voters. He believes that unless they take stronger positions on issues, they will not win.

The article focuses on efforts of Paul Martin to gain votes and political support in western Canada. In the last federal election, the Liberals took 14 seats in the four western provinces. Martin says he will judge the success of his regime as prime minister by its ability to assuage, if not entirely slay, western alienation. Polling done by the Canada West Foundation, the region's foremost political and social affairs think tank, shows 84 per cent of westerners want an elected Senate in which each province has the same number of seats, a move aimed at providing an effective counterbalance to the representation-by-population House of Commons. Support is firm in all four provinces, and across age groups and genders. Polls in the rest of the country show people evenly split on the Senate's fate, with half wanting to abolish it and the other half to reform it. One of Martin's earliest forays into top-level political activity -- before he was a well-known quantity in Ottawa circles -- showed his frustration with Liberal insensitivity to the western point of view. Martin's sympathy for the energy-producing west and his pro-business outlook went together then -- and still do today.

Discusses the debate about the role of the federal government in the health care systems of Canada. Views of Canadian Prime MinisterJean Chretien with regard to health care policy; Distribution of powers; Suggestion that Senate reform will occur with the election of a new federal government; Feelings of Ted Morton, a professor of political science at the University of Calgary, with regard to the delegation of environmental responsibilities in the Canadian provinces.

This article reports on Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his cabinet's trip through the provinces of Nunavut, the Northwest Territories, and the Yukon Territory. The article discusses Harper's policies related to issues including sovereignty, the military, and social conditions. Information is also provided on how climate change is affecting the ice caps on the northern provinces.

The article discusses Canada's provincial premiers' opinions on the suspended World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations and domestic issues at their annual "Council of the Federation" meeting. The author states that, despite what politicians want to believe, Canada does not have enough power to affect WTO negotiations. The premiers have fought in the past with the national government and themselves for fair and equal treatment of the provinces, but have never appeared to be satisfied with the government's response.

This article examines the views of current Prime Minister Paul Martin on national unity in regards to the province of Quebec. (Jean) Lapierre is important because he will be Martin's Quebec lieutenant if the Liberals win the next election. If words have any meaning, then Lapierre was saying the constitution of 1867 hasn't been respected yet. Generally in Quebec when somebody says the constitution is being flouted, they mean the federal government is intruding into the province's business -- mostly health and education. So does Martin's federal government plan to stop spending billions of dollars on health and education? Not as far as I can tell. So did Lapierre mean anything? It's hard to know. The question matters because this can be a difficult country to hold together. Most of our prime ministers have faced a serious national-unity crisis while in office.

The article comments on the pledge of Prime Minister Paul Martin, to find funds for urban renewal and to improve the lot of Canada's increasingly restive urban-dwellers. Mr Martin himself deserves a share of the blame for the cities' problems. As finance minister for nearly nine years, Mr Martin chopped billions from federal transfers to the provinces to help eliminate budget deficits. The provinces offloaded responsibility for a range of social services to local municipalities, and cut their own cash transfers. Among federal states that the OECD monitors, the upper levels of government in Canada give least to their cities. Meanwhile, in population terms, Canadian cities have boomed. A century ago, 80% of the population was rural; today 80% of the country's 31m people live in towns and cities, and half are concentrated in five city-regions. The cities, however, are revolting. The amalgamation of a dozen or so municipalities into mega-cities--undertaken by the provinces to cut their own costs--has helped to produce a new crop of mayors with big ideas and new influence. The election, in November, of David Miller as Toronto's reforming mayor gave extra strength to a coalition of uppity civic leaders. Glen Murray, mayor of Winnipeg, has called for a new deal to allow "tax shifting", along Scandinavian lines. The new prime minister has hinted that he would allocate half the revenues from a federal fuel tax, worth C$2.5 billion ($1.9 billion) a year, directly to the cities. He has appointed John Godfrey, a well-regarded Ontario MP, as his urban adviser, and persuaded Mike Harcourt, a former premier of British Columbia and once mayor of Vancouver, to chair a high-powered advisory committee on urban issues.

This article comments on the issue of national unity in Canada. It is our destiny that national unity will forever be an issue. But we are in a rare spell of relative peace. The provinces are doing their bit for unity, too. Early last month, premiers and territorial leaders put the finishing touches on their Council of the Federation, which will bring them together twice a year and create an Ottawa-based secretariat. "The provinces know they are being dragged apart by the pressures of north-south trade between different regions of Canada and the U.S. This is a way to strengthen some of the social and political east-west ties." But there will always be strains in any federation: if not Quebec, Alberta may be tugging at its ties. Perhaps all we can do is relish the fact that we have a break. And not expect it to last.

This article describes the sense of unpredictability that characterizes current Canadian politics. "It's a strange time," an Ontario Liberal MP said. "People kind of feel, 'Whoa, all this stuff's gonna happen,' right? But they don't know what's gonna happen." Precisely. A new prime minister is about to take office. He will face a new, merged Conservative opposition. A strong new New Democrat leader is already campaigning for what everybody in Ottawa expects will be a spring election. Everybody except me. Just in case I'm wrong, I called a few dozen MPs from every party and asked what the mood is. The answer is that everybody expects some stuff to happen. They just aren't sure what. In Saskatchewan and Manitoba, New Democrats are worried that the new grand chief of the Assembly of First Nations, Phil Fontaine, is putting the sizable Aboriginal vote behind the Grits. In urban Ontario, meanwhile, higher support for Layton's NDP will come at the expense of the Liberals--allowing Conservatives to pick off some seats.

This article discusses the deterioration of Canadian infrastructure, such as roads, parks, and bridges, due to an increased spending on health care and social programs. Early in 2000, Norman Betts stood in the New Brunswick legislature as finance minister in the brand-new government of Bernard Lord's Conservatives. Betts announced he was putting the province's money where the people wanted it: health care, education, tax cuts. What he mentioned only in passing was how he was going to pay for all the sexy stuff: by spending a lot less on less-sexy stuff. The province's infrastructure budget took a $100-million cut that year. An aide to Lord said last week that the infrastructure budget -- which pays for roads, parks, sewers, and the rest of the province's essential capital stock -- has inched upward in every subsequent budget. But it still isn't up to its 1999 level. The province's health-care budget, meanwhile, has continued to rocket from big increase to big increase. Multiply the New Brunswick experience across every government jurisdiction in Canada and across a couple of decades of policy-making decisions. The result is the mess a growing number of experts say Canada is in: a massive infrastructure debt -- that's the gap between what has been spent on infrastructure and what should have been spent -- which translates into clogged roads, deteriorating cities and decaying sewers. Estimates of the total infrastructure debt run as high as $130 billion. But the supply of dollars will never come close to matching the supply of demands. The hard choices about how to allocate dollars are now Martin's. Don't cry for him: he volunteered for the job. There will be days when he will wonder why.

Contends that the Ontario election points to a significant reversal of fiscal policy in Canada. Implications of the win by Liberals in Ontario; Overview of fiscal policy in Canada; How the provinces are facing much tighter budgets than the federal government; Pressure to continue Canada's prudent fiscal approach; Competitiveness of Western Canada's tax system.

This article encourages the leaders of Canada's provinces to evaluate the country's health care system. There is a tiny chart tucked innocuously into a recent report by the Canadian Institute for Health Information on medical imaging. You wouldn't give it a second glance if you were examining the study's scrupulous tally of what machines are where. But it's an eye-opener: CIHI has figured out how Ontario spent its $229-million share of Ottawa's$ 1-billion Medical Equipment Fund, announced with such fanfare in 2000. It didn't happen--because there is a critical gap in the health system. Last year, both the Romanow commission and the Senate report on health care called for the creation of a federal-provincial council to do that monitoring.

Reports on the election of liberal Dalton McGuinty as premier of Ontario. Landslide election which ousted Ernie Eves who became mired in controversy; Historically significant as the first time in 60 years the leaders of Canada's two most populous provinces belong to the same party; Hopes for a rebalancing of power between the federal government and the provinces.

Discusses the role of the Canadian Supreme Court in the Clarity Act. Effect of a provincial referendum on constitutional change; Legal duties of Ottawa and the other provinces; Ground rules for provinces.

Suggests that fundamental change is the only solution for provincial discontent in Canada. Consideration of the provincial-rights movements in Alberta; How the residents feel disrespected by the national government; Status of the electoral system and the Parliament.

Discusses the efforts of the Canadian federal government to enact its revenue transfer plans. How people from Alberta and Ontario pay for the welfare of people in the poorer provinces; Consideration of the gross domestic product in Canada; Views from Finn Poschmann, a senior policy analyst with the C.D. Howe Institute; Suggestion that the federal government trespasses on provincial responsibilities.

Presents the views of the author with regard to the proposed refederation of Canada. Consideration of how the federal system will not support resource producers; Suggestion that the Canadian provinces should construct a new deal of organization among themselves; Need for the provinces to avoid unilateral separatism; Status of Trudeau's 1982 Charter of Rights, an attempt to limit government power.

Discusses the retirement of Prime Minister Jean Chretien of Canada. Idea of former Alberta premier Peter Lougheed that Chretien will try to expand federal power at the expense of Alberta; Support of Alberta in the controversy over the National Energy Program by all provinces except Ontario; Outlook for a challenge against laws proposed by the government to implement the Kyoto protocol for environmental protection.

Offers the author's opinion on how Canada should be governed. Discussion of provincial autonomy, separatism, and secession; Topic of Quebec province's distinctiveness; Issue of western Canada forming an alliance like that of Atlantic Canada.

Comments on two provincial referendums in Quebec. How the initiatives show a division in political direction; Reasons why the author views Quebec province as an adolescent in Canada.

Examines how Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien has been able to effectively stifle his opponents and critics among the provincial premiers by offering increased federal spending. The control that Chretien has been able to secure for his Liberal party in Canadian politics; Why Chretien was receiving criticism from several provincial premiers; Outlook for the Liberal party.

Comments on the historic agreement between provincial and federal leaders in Canada in early 1999 regarding social policy and programs. The role that increased federal expenditures played in bringing provincial leaders to agreement; Changes that Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien proposed to the design and setup of new social programs; Why Lucien Bouchard, premier of Quebec, felt that the federal government was not doing enough to involve the provinces in social policy and programs.

Comments on a February 1999 agreement between the provincial leaders in Canada and the federal government in which the provinces will spend more federal money on health care. Cuts to health care funding in Canada and the impact they have had on the quality of care; How the agreement changes politics in Canada; Outlook for the success of the agreement.

Focuses on the conflict between the Canadian federal government and provincial governments concerning health care funding in early 1999. Federal health care payments that the Canadian government is not willing to transfer until the provinces sign a declaration ensuring that the funds will be used for health care; Threats from Prime Minister Jean Chretien to block any new health care spending until the provinces sign the declaration.

Editorial. Discusses the importance of addressing the equality of all Canadians, counterbalancing Quebec and Ontario with provinces having economic and political clout, and destroying interprovincial trade barriers instead of operating by tenets that divide. Negotiation of the Charlottetown accord; Absence of interprovincial trade barriers.

Reports the results from the 39th annual Premier's Conference in Saskatoon, Canada. Attendance of Quebec Premier Lucien Bouchard; What the premiers agreed upon, especially in relation to the federal government; Plans for future talks; Bouchard's strategic position; Consideration of the federal budget surplus; Federal government set on unilateralism regarding the provinces; Views of Roger Gibbins of the Canada West Foundation in Calgary.

The article discusses the political and economic problems faced by Canada after Quebec voted against separation. It compares the economic performance of Quebec against other Canadian provinces, observing that the province lags behind the other provinces because Quebec has little resources. It also discusses the call of provinces, especially Quebec, for the redistribution of power from the federal government to the provinces. Finally, it concludes that Canada's future as a nation remains unpredictable.