All indications are that Quebec will soon join the nine provinces that completed the Canadian Health Transfer Agreement (CHT) signed with the Trudeau government last month.

Despite an understandable rush to move on, Prime Minister Legault undoubtedly wanted to show a last stand by being the last to capitulate after the unfortunate failure of the united front.

The ability to pass bubbles as lanterns is part of the art of politics. It would be an overstatement to say that champagne corks will be popping in Quebec and Mr. Legault will be smoking a cigar with Dominic LeBlanc like his friend Doug Ford did, but we shouldn’t be overly surprised that the tiny billion-dollar addition to the TCS finally emerges on the list of advantages of federalism that Mr Legault hastily draws up when one dares to wonder about its real advantages.

Believe the latest Leger surveyThe duty, Quebeckers seem quite ready to applaud the agreement. Almost half (48%) say they are satisfied, while 36% are not. However, the number of dissatisfied people increases with age: among 18-34 year olds it is barely 18%, who are perhaps less concerned with the topic, but among 55-year-olds and older it is 50%.

It has to be said that pollsters don’t like overly complex questions that might confuse respondents. Therefore, it was not stated that the $46 billion the provinces received over 10 years is only one-sixth of what they claimed.

It doesn’t matter that we got fucked, the cuckolds are happy. So why should Mr. Legault disappoint her by insisting on his discomfort? He once left the PQ precisely because Quebecers refused to believe him when he tried to explain to them that Canada was a scam.

It remains to be seen how big the snake he will swallow himself. The agreements with the provinces are all of a piece. Only the numbers differ depending on the importance of the population. How will the famous “asymmetry” that the Charest government successfully introduced into the TCS in 2004 manifest itself?

It is true that the priorities set out in these agreements are broad enough to cover virtually everything that can be considered health services, including home care, which seems to leave a lot of leeway.

The Legault government has indicated that it has no objection to the release of any data it has, but it doesn’t stop there. The agreements with the provinces also envisage “the development of a bilateral agreement based on an initial three-year plan of action that will establish targets, timetables and other indicators related to each jurisdiction’s shared health priorities.”

If the words have any meaning, this “first” three-year plan is just a first step, with others to follow. Setting goals and deadlines goes well beyond good intentions. We may refuse to name these “conditions”, but spades are spades whether we say the word or not.

Even if there is no penalty for non-compliance, there is a kind of spiral here. Centralization is a slow but continuous process. And once you put your finger in the press, it can be very difficult — and painful — to get it out afterwards. Does Mr. Legault want to try the experiment?

If the so-called common front collapses with every round of CHT negotiations, it is not only because the federal states urgently need money, which makes them powerless in relation to the purchasing power of the federal government.

Aside from the usual formulas for respecting the separation of powers enshrined in the constitution, Canadians have always recognized that their national government resides in Ottawa and that it is up to Ottawa to determine the way forward, with provinces more like administrative units, like Pierre Elliott Trudeau specifically said. Quebecers see things differently for obvious identity reasons.

Former Liberal Minister and Emeritus Constitutional Lawyer Benoit Pelletier today criticizes the PLQ for being “populated by people who do not understand that federalism primarily implies provincial autonomy and even provincial sovereignty in their areas of competence”.

He’s probably right, but it’s not clear if we understand him better or want him in the rest of the country except in seminaries and law schools.

To see in the video