The moment when international trade was added to the list of provincial powers may be fixed with some precision. It was at a meeting of the "First Ministers" last December, apparently at the suggestion of B.C. Premier Mike Harcourt. Thus was born the many-headed beast known as "Team Canada," in which the task of representing Canada abroad is no longer assigned to the government of Canada, but is instead to be a joint effort of the Prime Minister and the premiers.

To judge by the nosegay of favourable headlines it produced, the affair was a huge success. "Team effort pays off in China"; "Chinese mission bears fruit"; "The Chinese bonanza." And that's just in The Globe.

Judged by any other standard, the trip appears in a much darker light. It would not be fair to say that the Prime Minister had abandoned principle in his dealings with China, since he does not appear to have started with any. Nonetheless, the trip was repugnant in an impressive number of ways. In a week of wining and signing, Team Canada managed to excuse the Chinese government's unfortunate habit of torturing and murdering dissidents; to underwrite its nuclear ambitions with two new Candu reactors; and to implicate this country in a colossal environmental disaster in the making, the Three Gorges dam. All of this, on top of the further mutilation of what remains of federalism in Canada.

Naturally, this was the aspect most approvingly remarked upon. The trip, it was said, showed that the federation could work, if only because the Prime Minister and the premiers got along so well (you know what a long voyage can be like). In fact, the premiers had such a good time that they vowed to make it a precedent. "There's no reason why we can't keep doing this," volunteered Ontario's Bob Rae. Mr. Harcourt is already talking up a similar junket to India. At which point one is obliged to ask: Why bring the PM? If the premiers collectively represent Canada, why do they need a chaperon?

It fell to the premiers to defend the federal role. There was the matter of the minivans. No, they modestly demurred, they did not mind riding behind the Prime Minister's limousine in the official motorcade, though Alberta's Ralph Klein confessed he found it "somewhat humbling." Quebec International Affairs Minister Bernard Landry, on the other hand, saw this as reason enough for his premier to stay home. The Prime Minister, he fumed, "is the primus inter pares" - first among equals. Mr. Landry is of course mistaken. He has confused the First Ministers with the federal cabinet. Understandably.

Get this straight. The reason we have a federation - the only reason - is to have a federal government. If we don't want a federal government, we don't need a federation. If all we want to do is get along, we can live as 10 separate states and exchange ambassadors. The reason we might want a federal government is to do federal things, like represent the country abroad. If we don't want it to do those things, we don't need a federal government.

This is not, after all, an isolated incident. What would we want a federal government to do? Regulate internal trade? That is now a matter to be negotiated among the provinces. Control our borders? Any province may now set its own immigration policy by agreement with Ottawa. Defend the rights of minorities? Break up local monopolies? Prevent one province from imposing its borrowing costs on another? In any other federation, even in the European Union, yes. No Canadian government would dare.

Yet the only proposals for change one ever hears are to pass still more powers to the provinces, including effective control over federal institutions: the Supreme Court, the Senate, the Bank of Canada, even the House of Commons, in some respects. So far have things degenerated that those few who seek merely to slow the pace of devolution are known as "centralists."

There are jurisdictions that fall naturally to the provinces. But if any area should be left to Ottawa it is surely international trade. When the President of the United States, or the Prime Minister of Australia, or the Chancellor of Germany goes on a trade mission, he does not cart along the premier of every little state or lander. But then, those are all federations.