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This is not, strictly speaking, their job. As enumerated in the Constitution, the list of provincial powers is quite explicit. “Demanding a Say in Federal Budget-making” is not among them. Neither is “Instructing the Federal Government in Matters of Federal Jurisdiction.”

Ideally premiers would limit themselves to executive work in their own provinces, collaborating and exchanging with their counterparts on matters within their competence. While it is true that premiers have assumed the role over the years of speaking for the less populous regions, as a counterweight to the rep-by-pop House of Commons, this was always the intended role of the Senate, though one it has been unable to fulfill owing to its institutional atrophy. One of the more compelling arguments for Senate reform is that it would send the premiers back to their capitals.

Contributing to the premiers’ invasion of the national stage is the rise of “fiscal federalism,” the systematic transfer of federal revenues to the provinces — not only for equalization, where the intent is to improve the financial position of the less-advantaged provinces, but for the financing of provincial social programs generally, where the intent is much less clear. The provinces now depend on federal transfers to a quite striking degree: 21 per cent, on average, according to a report released this week by the C.D. Howe Institute. In some provinces it is close to 40 per cent.