Overview Of The Negation Of Ideal Of Federalism By Francois Rocher

In the paper “The Quebec-Canada Dynamic or the Negation of the Ideal of Federalism”, Francois Rocher sets out to analyze and discuss how Canadian political literature has portrayed the historical and present characteristics of Canada’s federal system. However, Rocher argues that the two distinct points of view fail to normatively judge and solve potential problems that occur within the federal system. Beginning with the different interpretations of Canadian federalism, Rocher identifies a distinction between the opinions of scholars originating in French versus scholars originating in other parts of Canada. In analyzing the considerable contrast, Rocher concluded that French scholars were predominantly concerned with arguments of provincial

He also does an excellent job in discussing and analyzing how the two separate views lead to two separate and distinct end goals, which gives the reader an in depth ability to truly understand the complexity of the situation, and the bottleneck that it places on federal-provincial institutions. Although there are multiple points of agreement with the author's argument, there are also points of disagreement, for example he is arguing that both sides of the argument do not allow for people to make a normative judgement on the issues at hand, but downplays the problem as a whole by stating that Canadian citizens only care about policy outcomes, and not whether or not federal-provincial conflict can be balanced. In order to be more efficient in problem solving, as well as incorporate a wider range of potential solutions, the betterment of federal-provincial institutions should be made a pressing issue, and not downplayed

The greatest factor that the article to persuade me in agreeing with the Rocher’s statement was how the article was structured, for example when discussing the differences between the French and English scholars and how it affects political decisions. The article first labeled Quebec’s autonomy approach by citing the Tremblay commission and discussing how the commission's views on philosophical, historical, judicial, and instutionalital justifications influenced the priority of autonomy from the rest of Canada. After showing background and distinguishing these key ideas, the article showed the contrast with the opposing English scholar view and how the two views clashed with one another. From there, Rocher highlighted that with these two separate priorities on the agenda, the true normative qualities of Canada’s federal system could not discussed, as well as problems with the federal system (levels of autonomy per province) were not capable of being solved. If Canada wishes to keep its place as one of the paradigm examples of liberal democracy and a successful federal state on the world stage, then it must put forth adequate resources and time to solving these