The short answer to your question is no. I think federalism has moved on from the days of federal cost-sharing, when the federal government was the senior partner because federal money really drove social policy. That's no longer the case. The provinces have equal weight when it comes to social policy. I think we have to view it policy by policy, as Sherri mentioned.
We've used the term “framework federalism”. With child care the notion of a set of principles, not unlike the medicare principles in the Canada Health Act, doesn't give you the kind of accountability you might want, because you can never really know where the money goes. But one gets a sort of policy consensus as to what's going on, and we can get provinces, territories, and the federal government working together.
The national child benefit, for example, is interesting from an historic and social policy point of view because it's one of the few times I know of when the federal government and the provincial and territorial governments made changes to their programs that required a change in the other order of government. In other words, they didn't just say, “We're cooperating because we're going to get together and have a meeting every so often.” They actually made changes to their policy that wouldn't have worked unless they had done it together. The provinces took child benefits out of welfare and moved it into other income-tested programs. The federal government pushed more money into what had been provincial territory. There was a reinvestment agreement, as Sherri said.
Another example of this kind of friendly, less formal federalism is the working income tax benefit--the new program that came in two years ago. One of its features is that the provincial and territorial governments can vary the configuration of the federal program to meet their own income security priorities and needs. Quebec, B.C., and Nunavut so far have done that. We analyzed this in the paper we did commenting on the budget. There are quite remarkable differences in the design of those programs, but the federal government has allowed this as long as the cost isn't any more than it is now. It's another example of how the federal and provincial governments can work together in common policy principles.