No, they weren't talking about Quebec. The party for whom the premiers reserved their most scathing remarks was the federal government, their long- time benefactor in the funding of social programs like medicare. You might think the premiers would be inclined to be a little more polite in addressing the government that every year provides them with more than $17-billion, cash, in transfers for health care, postsecondary education and welfare - not to mention $9-billion in equalization payments - but if so, you don't understand fiscal federalism, at least as it is practiced in Canada.

In brief, the premiers were hurt. Not only had Ottawa brought down a budget that cut back provincial transfers by $7-billion over three years without consulting them, but it had the temerity to insist the provinces continue to meet certain national standards in social programs: for example, the five principles of medicare (universality and all that) enshrined in the 1984 Canada Health Act. The premiers seemed particularly intent to yoke the two measures together, as if this compounded the insult. Ottawa, they complained, was "unilaterally" cutting funding for social programs, even as it was "dictating" the terms of their delivery.

It was hard not to detect in the premiers' communiques the imperious voice of a schoolmarm. "Ottawa must revise attitude, provinces say," a Globe headline read. Otherwise, we can only assume it will go down on Ottawa's permanent record. The federal government, it was suggested, had lost its "moral authority" to set the rules. It had "disqualified" itself as a major player. Manitoba Premier Gary Filmon, satisfying the media's appetite for doggerel, was the most widely quoted: "You can't be both gate-keeper and purse-snatcher at the same time."

Actually, yes you can. The federal government does not, as it is sometimes said, "buy its way" into provincial jurisdiction through these transfers. It remains strictly within its own. Constitutionally, of course, it is allowed to spend money on any matter it likes: the aptly labelled spending power. But even with the money it provides, it does not and cannot directly regulate, say, health care, which is indeed a provincial responsibility. Its authority in such matters is neither legal nor moral. It is strictly contractual.

When the provinces accuse the federal government of "unilaterally" deciding the rules under the Canada Health Act, they are simply saying they do not like the terms of the bargain. This is a federal law, after all, governing the expenditure of federal money. It does not and cannot "dictate" anything. All it does is set certain conditions - national standards - under which Ottawa will transfer the funds. The provinces are not obliged to take the money, any more than they are required to accept national standards. The only constraint they are under is that if they take the one, they have to accept the other.

What the provinces are demanding is that they should be relieved of even this constraint: that Ottawa should continue to supply them with cash, on terms of their own prescription. It is they who presume upon federal grounds, in other words, not the other way around. If the savings from some now-verboten practice are worth the cost in reduced federal transfers, there is nothing stopping them from adopting it. If their citizens then complain they are not receiving the same return on their federal taxes as those in other provinces, that is not Ottawa's fault.

True, the penalty for non-compliance will grow less effective as the provinces' dependence on federal transfers dwindles: As they bear more of the cost of health care themselves, the provinces will have less to lose if they ignore national standards. But to say there would be less cost to provinces that so choose is not to say that there should be no cost. If Ottawa's influence is really so minimal, or about to become so, why are the premiers so insistent that it should be curtailed?

At any rate, their enthusiasm for jurisdictional clarity seems oddly limited. The premiers, most of them anyway, are not suggesting that Ottawa cease cutting them the cheques to help pay for these exclusively provincial programs. But once you make the transfer unconditional, it's hard to see what the point of the exercise is. It's like equalization, only without the equalization. A transfer program that collects money mostly from the big, rich provinces, only to send most of it back to the big, rich provinces, would seem to have achieved little, apart from allowing the two levels of government to spend the same money twice.

More puzzling still is the premiers' insistence that they can set national standards all by themselves. "We all agree that national standards are important," a provincial official explained, "but national standards aren't necessarily federal standards." But if the provinces are so keen on national standards as to make federal prodding unnecessary, then they cannot possibly object to it either: at worst it is irrelevant.

What, in the end, is the point of "standards" the premiers set for themselves? The purpose of setting rules, presumably, is to force people to do things they might not do otherwise. Either the constraint binds, then, or it does not. If it does, how is it to be enforced? If it does not, then we have a solemn agreement among the premiers that each will do whatever he likes.