Feng Shui Federalism

While the brilliance of Stephen Harper's election campaign rested on the slogan "Stand Up for Canada," now that the house has been bought and the dust has settled our new prime minister has a problem: his internal clock is set to a different era. Slogans aside, as Canadians consider their nation-building options for the twenty-first century, Harper's concept of our state remains rooted in the nineteenth century. Eschewing the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the magnanimity of redistributed wealth across a vast and variegated landscape, and the current pressing question of a new deal for cities, Harper sees his job as resuscitating the 1867 British North America Act. In dealing with the supposed "fiscal imbalance" between Ottawa and the provinces—framed as ballooning federal surpluses versus escalating provincial deficits—expect him to give us first a history lesson and then a magical carpet ride backward in time.

That's from this Walrus article. I thought it wasn't bad. Parts of it, in the middle particularly, are pretty standard fare. But nevertheless, I feel like I should read the Walrus more closely.