To be sure, this is no longer couched in terms of special status or asymmetric federalism. Rather, federalists like Daniel Johnson or Jean Charest coo, the whole of Canada wants a massive devolution of power from the federal to provincial governments. Or if it does not want it, it is all the same inevitable - the national debt and all that.

And so, as the referendum campaign winds down, the target will more and more come to be the federal government - not just in the rhetoric of the Ouis, but of the Nons as well. Devolution will be portrayed as part of the "healing process," a means of sealing the federalist victory. Quebeckers have said No to separation, we will be warned. They have not said Yes to the status quo. Enormous pressure will come to bear on Ottawa to begin dismantling itself ASAP.

And not only from Quebec. The Reform Party is using the referendum to frame the debate for the next federal election: between Liberal "centralists," who resist further devolution of the world's most decentralized federation, and Reform's "New Canada," where all power would rest with the provinces. Provincial premiers will couple warnings that Quebec would get no special treatment as a separate country with assurances that it will find them allies as a province in the coming struggle with Ottawa.

Leave aside for the moment what this means for the country. Is it even smart politics? The referendum is, remember, about one thing: whether federal law and federal power should apply in Quebec. If we want to persuade Quebeckers to remain in the federation, it will not be by stripping the federation of its raison d'etre: a federal government, equipped with the power to do federal things - even where this means overriding the provinces' presumed right to do whatever they please.

As it is, the federal government has little role left except as a ready resource for the provinces, supplying either cash or grievances as the premiers' needs dictate. If that's all there is to it, if all Quebeckers see the federal government do is take their taxes and run up debt, they may be forgiven for wondering whether the show is worth the price.

There is no particular reason, beyond the hot lust of the provinces, why devolution should always and everywhere be the desiderata of constitutional reform. Nor is it inevitable. The federal government has ample room to balance its budget without eliminating the social transfers on which national standards depend; or if it did, it could still enforce national standards by other means: the Peace, Order and Good Government power for starters.

Indeed, there are a great many areas in which, far from devolution, a stronger federal presence is needed: the internal common market, certainly, but also the environment, securities regulation, and most matters to do with "human capital," including post-secondary education: if labour is mobile, then there is one national labour market, not several. We should not be shy of saying so.

Some federalists, to be fair, have been emphasizing the uses of federal power. But it is a curiously one-sided model. Robert Bourassa popped up recently to point out the immense leverage Quebec has within the federation: by allying itself with Ontario, it succeeded in imposing the National Energy Program on the West; in alliance with the West, it imposed free trade on Ontario; with the Atlantic provinces, it can impose an unaffordable welfare state on everyone else. The one rule in this game, of course, is that Quebec can never lose. Had it been Ontario in favour of free trade, and Quebec opposed, it would have been called "domineering federalism."

In the same vein, Lucien Bouchard last week was heard boasting - boasting - that the Mulroney government's infamous 1986 diversion of the CF-18 maintenance contract from the winning bidder, Winnipeg's Bristol Aerospace, to Montreal's Bombardier was indeed owing to pressure from the Quebec caucus. Yet it was hardly more inspiring to see Mr. Johnson try to turn this brazen bit of federalisme rentable to his advantage. As an argument for separation, it was bizarre; as an argument for federalism, it is simply nauseating. Maybe this is the way of the world. But the least they could do is be hypocritical about it.

If the case for federalism is not made by dismantling the federal government, neither is it by portraying it as merely an extension of the National Assembly, for the exploitation of the hinterland hors Quebec. Someone will have to tell Quebeckers: If you want the benefits of a federation, you also have to accept its obligations. Even in Quebec, sometimes the federal government must rule.