Painting a new picture of the future of Canada: Does the future of our country's federalism resemble a colourful mosaic by Mondrian, or the strange, ill-fitting perspectives of a Picasso portrait?

Does Janice Stein sleep? It's an odd question, certainly, but the political scientist is seemingly everywhere at once, doing everything. An explanation is called for and an ability to work around the clock without lapsing into the unconsciousness to which lesser mortals succumb would do.

One morning in the restaurant of the Chateau Laurier, Ms. Stein insists she does sleep. It's 8 a.m., her cappuccino has yet to arrive, but she is even more enthusiastic and energetic than she is in the countless television appearances that have made her one of Canada's most famous talking heads.

Punditry is merely a hobby, however. Her real work is at the University of Toronto, as Belzberg professor of conflict management. She is also director of the U of T's Munk Centre for International Studies. Author of countless books and papers. Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. Member of the editorial board of scholarly journals. Adviser to a long list of organizations. And sought-after consultant.

Hence the question about sleep.

It's a workload that would break the back of a mule, but Ms. Stein -- perhaps believing her resume needs a little padding -- has taken on another role. She is one of three Conference Board of Canada scholars-in-residence whose task is to examine Canadian federalism and imagine how it could be done better. Each has written an essay that will be published later this year in the book Canada by Picasso.

This new gig is a major departure. In her four-decade-long career, Ms. Stein has always looked beyond Canada's borders, particularly to the Middle East, where she made her name studying conflict and negotiation.

It's hard to imagine a greater contrast than that between the world's most violent and tumultuous region and our own peaceable kingdom, but Ms. Stein found at least one similarity. "One of the things that I found striking while travelling across the country, interviewing provincial officials, (was that) the language they use about the federal government was exactly what I was used to in the Middle East." The same was true on the federal side. "They talk about power-grabbing, money-grabbing provinces with endless appetites. 'We can't make any concessions to them because no matter what you give them, they'll always ask for money.' That's the kind of 'enemy' language I've heard all my life."

People don't realize how nasty the language is, or how much mistrust is poisoning the air, because they've known nothing else, Ms. Stein says. But as an outsider -- in a sense -- she saw and heard things insiders didn't.

That unique perspective resulted in a particularly jarring observation that is the source of the forthcoming book's title. Canada By Picasso refers to the strange portraits of Pablo Picasso, who often painted the same face from two different perspectives. Put together, the two faces don't match.

Canada also has two faces, Ms. Stein says, one international and the other domestic.

Internationally, Canada promotes new agreements, pushes for consensus, and insists that nations follow the rules they create. But domestically, the federal government behaves far more arbitrarily. It sometimes ignores the concerns of provinces and municipalities. It acts unilaterally. And it walks away from signed agreements.

"The two faces don't match," Ms. Stein says. And this has been true for decades. "It doesn't matter which government or political party is in power."

Stephen Harper has promised an "open federalism" marked by greater respect for the provinces, but, Ms. Stein notes, one of Mr. Harper's first acts upon taking power was to walk away from signed agreements on child care and aboriginal issues. "There is no rules-based regime," she says.

Does that mean the federal government behaves domestically like the Bush administration does internationally? "Yeah," she says, laughing. "I wouldn't use precisely those words. I was careful to say they behave often like the governments they're most critical of."

In certain circles in Ottawa, this is not a popular observation. "I've seen some federal officials squirm."

It's not the only impolitic observation Ms. Stein makes about Canadian federalism. On the central question of the division of powers, she notes, "the conventional wisdom now is let's reorganize this. Let's get the federal government squarely out of provincial jurisdiction. They're like two boys quarrelling in the schoolyard. Let's just separate them so they won't bump into each other."

This is the approach taken by Roger Gibbins, Ms. Stein's fellow scholar-in-residence, and president of the public policy research group, the Canada West Foundation. His essay calls for the federal government to abandon some fields to the provinces and draw bright lines between each government's turf. Trespassing would be strictly forbidden.

Ms. Stein says all such schemes are doomed. "If you look at most programs, they're shared," she says. That jurisdictional overlap isn't the result of federal imperialism. It simply reflects the fact that the concerns of the feds and the provinces overlap.

"I cannot think of an issue where there are not overlapping interests by at least the two levels of government, and often the third level of government, which is municipalities.
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"Best example, the Western premiers' summit," she says. "Totally focused on domestic issues. Couldn't be a more domestic meeting. But there is a day on borders, which is squarely within federal jurisdiction." And because the premiers were discussing borders, they had to bring in the other interested parties. "So you had the premier of Ontario, the premier of Quebec, (American state) governors, ambassadors." Even Mexican officials attended.

With interests as jumbled as this, any attempt to draw bright lines would fail as soon as it came time to discuss the details. Mr. Gibbins' proposal -- which says the federal government should focus on strengthening the country's economic capacity and leave other issues to the provinces -- is a case in point. Based on his economic framework, Mr. Gibbins calls for the federal government to stay out of primary and secondary school education, but take charge of post-secondary education because that sector is vital to a strong economy.

But one could argue -- Ms. Stein doesn't, but one could -- that the federal government should take over primary and secondary education for the same reason. After all, core literacy and numeracy are arguably more important for a productive workforce than higher education -- as proven by the Nordic countries, whose productivity has been boosted by a major focus on giving basic skills to children and teens.

Arguments like this would be endless. And hopeless, Ms. Stein says. Governments can't be separated like squabbling schoolboys. Nor should they be, even if it were possible.

One result would be more clashes, Ms. Stein suggests, not fewer. "We tend to think when we have clear lines, we're better off. But, counter-intuitively, when you have clear lines you sharpen conflict." Coming from an expert on conflict and negotiation in the Middle East, that's a potent warning.

But Ms. Stein's main message is positive. Jurisdictional overlap can be a creative force, she says -- if it is embraced and implemented intelligently.

Ms. Stein calls it "networked federalism." To explain it, she starts with the business world.

In a traditional organization, people are slotted into boxes on an organization chart. The box sends its information and ideas up the chain to the next box, while having little or nothing to do with the boxes beside it and even less to do with boxes in other organizations. In this model, organizations are rigid, standalone structures -- or silos, as they like to say in business school.

In a network, the walls of the box become permeable. The people inside are encouraged to connect with the boxes beside them, or even look outside the organization. Information and ideas flow in all directions.

"Most corporations have become network-like in the last 10 years. Certainly all of our global corporations are. They're not concerned with organization charts. They're concerned with getting the right people they need to the table at the right moment, gathering the information they need, and then being able to get the results they want."

The explosion of information technology makes all sorts of connections possible, Ms. Stein says, and business is eagerly exploring them. So is the voluntary sector. "But we have a lagging public sector. And, to some extent, that's appropriate. It needs to be slower. It needs to be more reflective," she says. But still the public service will have to follow other organizations and "move outside the formal structure and say, what's the problem? What's the result we need?"

Abstract as this may sound, the consequences of failing to change are very concrete. In some cases, they may even be tragic. "There's no easier case to make against silos than on public security. The biggest failure of the first decade of the 21st century was 9/11. Why? Silos. An inability to move information horizontally. The FBI, the CIA, Homeland Security are still struggling to build some sort of functioning network."

Pushing the federal and provincial governments apart would be, in Ms. Stein's view, like forcing them into even more rigid silos at the very time that other organizations around the world are transforming themselves into networks. Forget it, she says. Instead, the overlap that exists now should be multiplied many times over.

This would be the beginning of networked federalism. But to create a network that really makes sense for the realities of modern Canada, Ms. Stein says, cities must be included.

Thanks to a Constitution designed to serve the needs of the agrarian Canada of the 19th century, cities have no constitutional standing in the post-industrial, overwhelmingly urban Canada of the 21st century. It is generally agreed that this makes no sense. It is also generally agreed that because constitutional amendments are next to impossible, this is not going to change.

"But you don't need a constitutional amendment to transfer power to the cities," Ms. Stein says. "You can just do it." What the Ontario Liberal government is doing with Toronto is a good start. "It breaks new ground. Not only is the province giving the city new powers of regulation, which the province occupies, in other words the province is pulling back. Beyond that they are doing exactly what I am talking about. They are giving the City of Toronto a new role in policy development." The federal and provincial governments should work together to extend this model to other cities across the country, she said.

Once the network of federalism is created -- linking the federal, provincial, territorial and municipal governments -- the next step is to take it internationally: Allow provinces, territories and cities to take a seat at international forums and to form international connections and associations of their own. It is this that will make federalism an asset in an era of globalization, Ms. Stein argues, because it will more fully integrate Canada within the constantly expanding networks -- of trade, culture, migration, information -- that are the essence of globalization.
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Inevitably, this raises the issue of Quebec's seat at UNESCO, recently granted by the Harper government. Many argued against the move, saying it weakens the federal government in an area -- international relations -- that clearly belongs to the national government.

"But we have an Ontario trade representative in Paris. How long has that been? Thirty years," Ms. Stein retorts. And "what do you make of a Maritime premiers' and New England governors' association that's been meeting for 10 years? That has concluded a whole series of informal agreements on how they manage cross-border issues, on how they work together to lobby their own governments on matters that matter to them. Why aren't we alarmed about that?"

Of course, Quebec is the only province in which there is a major political movement seeking separation. Allowing Quebec a greater international presence, it is argued, only makes the province look more like a country. And that strengthens the separatists' hand.

Not necessarily, says Ms. Stein. Federalist Quebecers think of themselves in dual terms -- Quebecers and Canadians. Allowing Quebec a greater international role will only expand the duality -- which is precisely the sort of multiplication of identities that globalization is producing around the world.

Besides, she warns, to refuse this to Quebec is to say, in effect, "you can't do what other provinces are doing." And that won't do the country much good.

So federalism is networked. And the network is international. Ms. Stein sees one last step: Non-governmental voices have to be plugged in.

Of course, this is already happening to a considerable extent. The classic example is the international treaty banning landmines, which was driven as much by citizens linked by e-mail and non-governmental organizations as it was by national governments -- Canada's in particular -- and the United Nations.

But still, Canadian governments have to make a greater effort to reach out, Ms. Stein says. "We do it less than other societies. The United States is much better at it than us." She cites the example of a consulting company asked by the U.S. government to examine border issues. The company brought together an astonishingly diverse group of experts from across North America -- including Ms. Stein -- to brainstorm, loop in still more experts and then develop promising new ideas.

This is the future of policy development, Ms. Stein says. She likens it to the development of open-source software. The walls of the company effectively disappear and anyone can suggest a programming solution. The result is a pool of knowledge, skills and ideas far greater than any organization could muster alone -- and a superior product.

This is not some anarchist Utopia, Ms. Stein quickly adds. What makes open-source software work is the presence of someone in charge at the centre of the network who ultimately decides whether an idea will be accepted or rejected. It's not like Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia that can be written or edited by anybody with little or no central control involved -- and plenty of errors and nonsense as a result.

The same would be true of networked federalism, she says. It's often argued that if many governments and organizations are involved, no one will be in charge. And that means no one will be accountable for results.

Not so, because "ultimately, accountability resides where legal decision-making ability resides. So if the border is mismanaged, it's ultimately the responsibility of the U.S. federal government and the Canadian federal government. But they will mismanage it unless they can develop some models which bring in the provinces, the cities and the states."

No matter how open and free-flowing a networked organization may be, there will always be someone who makes the final decision. That's where the buck stops, as the little sign on Harry Truman's Oval Office desk famously declared. "And that will never change. I am not one of those who believe the state is going away in the era of globalization. On the contrary, the state is more important than it ever was," Ms. Stein says. "But its role is changing. It's not a micromanager."

Ms. Stein is not fond of organization charts, of course, but for those who insist on knowing what networked federalism would look like on paper, she suggests taking a look at the work of Dutch artist Piet Mondrian: Asymmetrical mosaics of various shapes and colours connected in every direction to other shapes and colours.

As the title of her paper notes, networked federalism would be "Canada by Mondrian" -- an improvement, whatever one's taste in art, over Canada by Picasso.

This summer, Citizen writers are examining the concepts discussed by the Conference Board of Canada's CIBC scholars in residence, and their implications for the future of our country.

This is the fourth in the series.

You can contact Dan Gardner at the Ottawa Citizen.
E-mail: dgardner@thecitizen.canwest.com

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