Building the Social Union: Perspectives, Directions and Challenges

David E. Smith is a professor of political Studies at the University of
Saskatchewan. He is the author of Building a Province: A History of
Saskatchewan in Documents, The Invisible Crown, and Republican Option in
Canada, Past and Present.

In 1999 the federal government and nine provinces (excluding Quebec)
signed the Social Union Framework Agreement (SUFA). The agreement was
meant to be a framework to guide intergovernmental co-operation and
collaboration in matters relating to social policy. Seven of this
book’s eight chapters first appeared in 2000 as papers given at an
academic conference sponsored by the Saskatchewan Institute of Public
Policy. Although only a year in operation the SUFA warranted attention
on several grounds.

After the tumult of the Quebec referendum of 1995, some success was
necessary to show all Canadians that federalism could work. Social
policy is a constitutional area where provincial responsibility
predominates but where Ottawa has a strong interest in promoting
national standards. The SUFA was an intergovernmental agreement (no
legislation was necessary) whose parties undertook joint management of
social programs. The provinces recognized for the first time Ottawa’s
right to spend in an area previously jealously guarded, and the federal
government recognized that it could do so only if it met conditions to
promote the stability of programs.

Contributors to this volume examine the SUFA from several perspectives,
which include citizen engagement, Quebec, social assistance,
postsecondary education, Aboriginal organization and the labour market.
The contributions display a harmony of organization and a clarity of
expression that the governments of the federation can only hope to
imitate.

The subject of the social union may sound esoteric. Yet, as these
papers make clear, it touches everyday life. Here, and not the
composition of the amending formula, is where federalism forms the view
Canadians hold of the effectiveness of their governments.

These papers were written too early in the agreement’s history to
evaluate its success. Although the SUFA was up for renewal in 2002, as
of summer 2004 nothing had formally happened. One can only hope, along
with the contributors, that when it does, a new confidence in practical
federalism will have emerged.