Constitutional and Non-constitutional Asymmetries in the Canada Federation: An Exploration into the Policy Fields of Immigration and Manpower Training. A Country Study on Constitutional Asymmetry in Canada

Abstract

The development of federalism in Canada corresponds to an ongoing and dual process of coming together and coming apart. There has been and continue to have a strong resistance against various expressions of formal or constitutional asymmetry in Canada. The main argument made is that it would create two types of citizens in the country by granting a specific political community a set of privileges. Such actions on the part of Ottawa contributed to augment political tensions between Quebec and the central government. By looking at the case of two policy sectors—immigration and manpower training—this chapter explores the capacity of Canadian provinces to move from political to constitutional asymmetrical federalism. Three main conclusions can be drawn from the exercise: (1) Quebec’s desire to force Ottawa out of provincial jurisdictions was not expressed with the same intensity in the rest of the country; (2) the presence of two cohabitating political communities has a lot to do with the idea behind the implementation of asymmetrical federalism; (3) the development of asymmetrical solutions in the case of complex federations is to be found at the levels of political actors and high civil servants who want to make sure that power does not escape them.