Intergovernmental relations, social policy and federal transfers after Romanow

This article explores the new and old intergovernmental dynamics around federal transfers to the provinces for health and social policy spending in the aftermath of the Romanow report and the decision to split the Canada Health and Social Transfer (CHST) into its two component parts. Though the provinces have agreed to the split, the federal government undertook the allocation of the transfer to the new Canada Health Transfer and the Canada Social. Transfer unilaterally. At the same time, the federal government has simultaneously been increasing its own social spending in areas of provincial jurisdiction in recent years. In response, the provinces have been taking an increasingly hard line towards Ottawa's unilateral actions, as demonstrated by the creation of the Council of the Federation and its focus on the so-called fiscal imbalance in the federation. These dynamics make the intergovernmental commitment to collaborative federalism ring somewhat hollow. The article argues that the inability of both orders of government to take collaborative federalism and policy interdependence seriously poses significant threats not only to the health of the federation but also to efforts to create healthy public policy.