SASKATOON – Western Canada is split on Jean ChrŽtien’s plan to appease Quebec.
While Manitoba and Saskatchewan have signalled they are willing to examine the prime minister’s proposal, Alberta and British Columbia bristle at it. The proposal gives Ontario and Quebec vetoes over constitutional change but forces all of Atlantic Canada to share one veto and Western Canada another.
Alberta premier Ralph Klein said that assaults the notion that all provinces are equal and it gives special powers to the provinces of Quebec and Ontario.
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B.C. premier Mike Harcourt has pilloried the proposal for relegating his province to second-class status and said any plan for regional vetoes should make B.C. a region by itself.
But while Saskatchewan premier Roy Romanow has said he needs to see the details of ChrŽtien’s proposal before he can accept or reject it, he praised ChrŽtien’s willingness to meet the Quebec issue head-on.
“What I like about what the prime minister is doing is that he’s taking a leadership role and an initiative,” he told reporters. “I certainly welcome the initiative taken by the prime minister in moving relatively quickly.”
Romanow said no easy solution to Quebec’s traditional demand for a veto on constitutional change presented itself, so all ideas should be considered: “There is not one blindingly obvious formula.”
And he challenged the idea that creating the regional vetoes fundamentally weakened the powers of provincial governments.
He said the ChrŽtien proposal was mainly concerned with regulating its own conduct.
“Let’s be clear: It’s not a unilateral amendment to the amending formula. It can’t be done. All that it is is the federal government setting for itself its own terms and conditions by which it would or wouldn’t consent to an amendment. So we’re not harmed by that in any way,” he said.
But Romanow also said he understood B.C.’s wish to be considered its own region.
Manitoba premier Gary Filmon did not dismiss the proposal although he said he wasn’t a big fan of vetoes at all.
