All things Canadian are now regional

All in all, the United States has looked mainly to its constitution, political institutions (i.e. the Senate), and the market to address regional differences in economic modernization and only to a very limited extent, regional programmes. Canada, meanwhile, has mainly looked to regional development programmes to address the problem. The Canadian constitution (section 36) commits federal governments to "furthering economic development to reduce disparity in opportunities and providing essential public services of reasonable quality to all Canadians." From the Diefenbaker era to the end of the Mulroney years, federal regional development programmes were a sacred cow in Canada, and successive governments rivalled each other in seeking new forms of organization to carry it out. But in all its guises, the sacred cow limped badly, and never achieved significant reductions of regional gaps in economic development.

Since the Chretien government came to power in 1993, it appears that the sacred cow has been put out to pasture. Regional development programmes have been substantially cut back. In fairness, however, the need to repair Ottawa's balance sheet and the ambitious programme review exercise (1994-96) have affected all areas of government activities and regional development programmes were not specially singled out. Still, the Chretien government has made no effort to offer a new vision or new policies to promote economic development in Atlantic Canada, at least from the time it came to office in 1993 to the beginning of the year 2000.

There are reports that Finance Minister Paul Martin has asked two government backbenchers and two Liberal senators to write a report suggesting ways to strengthen the economy of Atlantic Canada. This is noteworthy in two ways. First, the prime minister, not the Finance minister, would, in more ordinary times, assign such a task. For obvious reasons, only the prime minister has, or should have, the capacity to assign departmental responsibilities to ministers. Second, asking two backbenchers and two senators to deal with the matter hints at a lack of commitment; one could hardly imagine, for example, the minister of Finance or Industry asking two backbenchers and two unelected senators to deal with the future of the high tech sector or the aerospace industry. These would be more properly be dealt with on the advice of a multitude of federal public servants working in Ottawa in the departments of Finance and Industry and in the Privy Council Office. This brings to mind Tom Kent's observation, made nearly 30 years ago, that "From the point of view of almost all conventional wisdom in Ottawa, the idea of regional development was a rather improper one that some otherwise quite reasonable politician brought in like a baby on a doorstep from an election campaign" (Canada 1973). In any event, the report findings, if pursued, will be introduced just in time to be showcased before the next federal election expected in 2001. One can only assume that development programmes for Atlantic Canada may make for better politics than economics in the eyes of policy-makers in Ottawa.