are you being served?

Bob Rae - along with just about every other potential leadership candidate - has identified fixing federalism as a priority. Thus far, he has had the opportunity to put the most meat on his theoretical bones:

"If you’re going to have an equalization formula, everybody has to understand it, everybody has to stick to it, it has to be consistent, it has to be clear. You can’t have one deal for one province and a completely different deal for another province and nobody being clear about what the overall impact is going to be."

Is this a call to return to some semblance of federal symmetry? It's difficult to tell out of context - he may be just dealing with the offshore oil agreements in isolation.

But this is what we should see from all leadership candidates - a substantial discussion about competing visions of the federation. The debate has been muted in recent years. Paul Martin was able to conduct a quietly unLiberal federal policy, yet it was his "dithering" that the party membersip took issue with.

We know how Headwaiter Harper would construe our federation. Admittedly this has become more confused recently, ever since Jim Flaherty came to understand just how trumped up our notions of the fiscal imbalance truly are. Also since taking office Harper has been very unReform in the way that he has held on to the central processes of power with Liberal-like zeal. Nevertheless, his 'open federalism' still constitutes a legitimately defined federal vision.

This leaves leadership contendors with the potential to clearly assert their opposing visions, their Liberal visions... if those do still exist. This is an issue of increasing concern to some, myself included. When you have Martin Cauchon, purportedly of the Trudeau school, advocating "pragmatic federalism" and "fiscal fairness" it leaves one wondering if the Liberal party has abandoned one of its most central tenents. There are still those of us that believe this sacred cow should remain in our pasture.

I hope the new class of Liberal leadership will prove my trepidations false. But even if they do not, a healthy and substantive debate on federalism should be a central element of the race. And clucking our tongues about the fiscal gap does not suffice.