I have thoughts about the pipeline as a "policy", but my comment here really is only about the "politics" - and how we arrived at this pipeline controversy in the first place: Because of significant institutional deficits.

We seem to be making the same mistakes, time and again. No learning from past experience.

It is not because there is a lack of knowledge. It is all there, it only needs to be mobilized and used.

www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/artic...

....facilitate long-term collaborative planning, based on:

"...careful studies of the country's economic sectors to discover what the various possibilities are, the elaboration of possible development strategies, followed by
the discussion of these with the affected parties."

...is "an arrangement in which the incentive system works towards cooperation and integration rather than in the direction of competition and confrontation. This can only be brought about if we create a new institution."

A joint federal-provincial intergovernmental institution, with a mandate to...

Thorburn's analysis still applies:

"Now let us consider the options among which we must choose: more of the same, leadership by the federal government, the acceptance of provincial autonomy, and the creation of a new federal-provincial institution to build collaboration."

This "fourth option"....

German municipalities also had limited authority but collectively pushed back, demanding full legislative autonomy to adopt 30km/h. They didn't get everything they demanded, but were quite successful.

A collective effort - at the end 1000+ joined the initiative.⬇️

bsky.app/profile/jbro...

I know, I know.... it's the broader philosophy behind the phrase. Politics as deal-making. That's what it's all about.

It is sad because earlier this year, we really had an opportunity to do things differently in Canadian federalism. But back to the politics of bilateral deal-making.

An institutionalized FMC with a permanent secretariat would be one option, but not the only one. Not going to happen though, I agree. Just realized again today when preparing my class that intergovernmental cooperation btw. EU-CDN is more formalized than within CDN federalism.

However, they don’t seem to mobilize a lot, if anything, to maintain "strategic autonomy". To be fair – Trump 1.0 was before Russia invaded Ukraine.

This, and: Unlike Canada, the EU has developed an entire arsenal of relatively integrated policies to respond to a dramatically changing geopolitical environment. Among them the Anti-Coercion Instrument, a framework for a collective response that could include Non-EU members like Canada. ....

This was exactly Ottawa's argument. But the dispute was at least as much about politics as it was about policy. The feds first unilaterally cutting transfers and then - again unilaterally - launching new programs instead of restoring the CHT and CST.

It was during the time I worked on my PhD on Canadian federalism :)

The VFI was one focus of the interviews I carried out back then. The provinces all insisted the VFI was significant, Ottawa essentially denied that it even existed.

In the aftermath of the 1998 budget, the first "post-deficit", and new federal spending initiatives, Canadian federalism was all about the vertical fiscal imbalance. But it's true - the terminology disappeared entirely under Harper.

But then came the "Dutch disease"....

....for example by drawing on best practices from other federations and, importantly, a commitment to establish sufficient administrative capacity to support robust intergovernmental coordination.

Neither: Most IGR frameworks don't have a constitutional or even legislative foundation. Building on efforts in the late 1990s/early 2000s, Carney could relaunch an initiative of "non-constitutional renewal".

This would require showing leadership in the intergovernmental arena....

What we are seeing instead is bold rhetoric about generational "nation-building" in a highly interdependent federation where top-level, apex-intergovernmental coordination happens "on the fly" + ad hoc.

The last in-person meeting was on July 22, 2025, by the way.

Premiers would like to cover four topics: