Quebec, of course, has played a special role. When federalists were important in Quebec City (Robert Bourassa as Premier, 1970-76 and 1985-93 and Claude Ryan as Opposition Leader vs. Rene Levesque) proposals were floated for renewal of the federation, often in considerable detail, up to and including the famous "Allaire Report" of the early '90s, calling for massive devolution of power. Without doubt, Quebec's angst has provided the main impetus for change. However, that province has not been able to produce solutions acceptable to the rest of Canada.

The other provinces have been much quieter. John Robarts of Ontario did sponsor the "Confederation of Tomorrow" conference in 1968, but it was a pretty bland affair, especially compared with the enormous influence of the earlier Ontario Premier Oliver Mowat in increasing provincial powers in the crucial early years of confederation. In this century, Ontario has tended to see little difference between its own interests and those of the country as a whole. Ontario was Canada, during the twentieth century. (This has begun to change again.)

Apart from Quebec, only British Columbia, in 1978-79, produced a truly comprehensive, well thought out blueprint for change and significant devolution of power to the provinces under the government of Bill Bennett. Unhappily, those proposals were either the subject of some central Canadian amusement at the upstart westerners, or simply ignored entirely. (Many of the main ideas were to resurface in then Quebec Liberal Leader Claude Ryan's "Beige Paper" of 1980, which document Pierre Trudeau proceeded to sink like a stone, alarmed by its decentralist nature).

From 1979 onwards, the provinces were quiet—until now. Unusual circumstances rekindled the latent British Columbia interest in the structure of the federation once again in 1997.

In May 1996, the NDP government of the new Premier Glen Clark scored a surprising upset over Gordon Campbell's Liberals. The NDP won with only 39 percent of the vote—a victory possible only because Jack Weisgerber's Reform Party and Gordon Wilson's Progressive Democratic Alliance took 9 percent and 6 percent of the vote; two and one seats, respectively. Voters who did not like either the Liberals or NDP found a home in the two small parties. The NDP was the clear beneficiary.

This lesson was clearly not lost on Premier Clark. With only 39 out of 75 seats—and having to provide a Speaker from that number—the arithmetic of aging, accidents, and the (remote) possibility of recall of some of his members under a new law—would lead any sensible person to look for possible allies. The two small parties were logical candidates, but as a practical matter, Reform, for various reasons, was a non-starter.

However, Gordon Wilson, as the Leader and sole elected MLA of the Progressive Democratic Alliance after the election of May 1996, was looking for ways to be helpful to his province. He settled upon the constitutional file for a variety of reasons. The first and most important was his long time and passionate involvement with this topic.

Mr. Wilson—then as Liberal leader—was a strong opponent of Meech Lake in the late '80s, and, later, of the Charlottetown Accord. He was and is deeply concerned with national unity, and about the role of British Columbia in whatever scenarios might unfold. He was also aware that the new Clark government had more urgent concerns, with little time for the unity business. The Minister of Intergovernmental Relations, Andrew Petter, was himself a constitutional expert, but he was also Minister of Finance, and for a variety of reasons was totally absorbed with that responsibility.

Thus Mr. Wilson made a most unusual proposal to Messrs. Petter and Clark. Though not of the government party, he would assist them in developing a position for British Columbia by producing—with others and in cooperation with the government—a public discussion document setting out the main issues. He proposed that historian John Munro write about the relationship of BC with Canada from pre-confederation times, and that I look into the future with a description of British Columbia's options. The main options were to do with how to make Canada work. The fallback options were about what to do if Quebec voted to leave, and actually did so.

To its great credit, no doubt for a variety of reasons but in the tradition of British Columbia as a bit of a constitutional maverick and sparkplug in these matters (see the Munro text for chapter and verse), the government accepted the proposition in early 1997 and gave Mr. Wilson a budget of $100,000 to get about this work. (Full disclosure: this writer, working independently, was paid $20,000 for his contribution.)

By July 1997, the writing was done, and the Wilson, Munro, and Gibson papers (with an appendix to the Wilson paper by broadcaster Rafe Mair, once minister in charge of the aforementioned 1978 BC government papers) were submitted to a government appointed "Reference Committee" to consider whether the documents formed a useful basis for public debate.

In its composition, the Reference Committee was as "politically correct" as could be imagined. Nevertheless, and even though it represented many social agendas at the table, it focused entirely on the unity issue, assessing the issue as a higher order matter (at least in the short term). I publicly thank them for that; it is so easy to fall into the temptation to "hijack" any given issue in the service of one's own particular concern.

The committee gave a strong recommendation to the government to publish the work and get on with consultation of the BC public as a matter of urgency.

My own guess is that the government was a bit taken aback. The moment of truth had arrived, on an exercise that seemed a bit distant and academic when first approved. Now, however, was the imminent matter of publication of government-financed speculation about, at the most controversial, the breakup of Canada and the independence of BC, and even at the least controversial, a radical restructuring of the federation. What to do? Especially since the Annual Premiers' Conference was scheduled a couple of weeks hence, where this sort of document could create a stir.

Again to its great credit—and I do not suggest that this was easily achieved, nor without an eventual appeal by Mr. Wilson to Mr. Clark—the work was tabled in the BC Legislature, with the approval of the government (but please note, not tabled by the government, but rather by Mr. Wilson).

Dissemination was another matter. The Wilson budget for the work only allowed the publication of 100 copies. I cannot speak to intent, but only to result. The net result is that in the beginning, the work was effectively smothered at birth. The Intergovernmental Relations Secretariat got almost all of the copies, and did not distribute them to other governments except upon specific request. Press copies were few.

Then in an irony which students of government will enjoy, the privatized part of the Queen's Printer (now called Crown Publications) picked the Wilson papers up as a commercial venture, and is publishing them in volume. The government will now assist with the cost to make the works more readily available to the public. These papers stand as the first provincial documents on the table in the new round of reforming the federation, kicked off at the Premiers' Conference in Calgary in mid-September.

For one reason and another, British Columbia has never had the influence merited by its size and views in the evolution of Canada since Confederation. This time, by virtue of a head start and an interested Legislature, and if we can reach an agreement to speak with a more or less unified voice, we may play our proper role in the current round of the federation's renewal.