Canadian Government Executive - Volume 24 - Issue 06

32 / Canadian Government Executive // December 2018/January 2019 MULTI-LEVEL GOVERNMENTS Ambiguity in Purpose The first federal-provincial Conference of First Ministers following Confederation was held in 1906. Convened by Prime Minister Laurier at the repeated requests of the provinces, no formal agenda was issued and no communiqué was released at the end. The closed-door discussions centred on financial subsidies to the prov- inces, and proceedings were suspended on four occasions so that provincial delegates could meet with their federal counterparts in joint sessions. From that point onwards, these high-lev- el conferences of the leaders were called intermittently by various prime ministers for a whole host of reasons. Post-war recon- struction plans, fiscal arrangements, the cornerstones of the welfare state – face-to- face conferences engendered considerable rhetoric and some concrete action, while injecting some direction and support into core planks of policymaking. The ill-fated Victoria Charter of 1971 included a specific provision for annual meetings to take place among the prime minister of Canada and the other first min- isters. Part VIII read: “A Conference com- posed of the Prime Minister of Canada and the First Ministers of Provinces shall be called by the Prime Minister of Canada at least once a year unless, in a year, a major- ity of those composing the Conference de- cide that it shall not be held.” While meet- ings of the heads of government continued to be called, they remained an ad hoc and often unpredictable encounter. Re-engaging this mechanism of in- tergovernmental relations, after it was largely mothballed by his predecessor, was a campaign promise of Prime Minis- ter Trudeau. The commitment to calling First Ministers’ Meetings annually marked a first in Canadian history. A quick glance at the four agendas of these most recent FMMs confirms that the purpose of these meetings remains somewhat ambiguous. The first two FMMs called by Prime Minister Trudeau centred on devising a collective means to address climate change, and – through the active collaboration of the Council of Canadian Ministers of the Environment – generated the Pan-Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change. The latter two FMMs were more open-ended and convened without an agreement in mind. A cynic would say the latter FMMs were held simply to fulfil a campaign promise. An optimist, however, would argue that these FMMs offered the opportunity for Ca- nadians to see the leaders together, gather representatives from all the bureaucracies together, and symbolically acknowledge the deep and pervasive interdependence of the Canadian federation: a potential clear purpose for the FMMs moving forward, if some small adjustments are made. Resilience in Organization The tradition of federal dominance and the pre-eminence of the prime minister is the most consistent and enduring feature of the FMMs. Premiers are often invited to speak according to their entry into Confed- eration, and the leaders of the territories were only invited to the table as full par- ticipants in 1992. Unlike some other sec- toral tables, FMMs are not supported by a regular committee of deputy ministers or a permanent secretariat. Called exclusively at the pleasure of the The first federal- provincial Conference of First Ministers following Confederation was held in 1906. Convened by Prime Minister Laurier at the repeated requests of the provinces, no formal agenda was issued and no communiqué was released at the end. First Minister’s conference delegation