FRI DEC.29,1995 PG: B7

We must retie the bonds

THE major challenge before Canada in the coming year is to begin to retie the bonds between individual Canadians and their national government. This is not only the task in Quebec but in all parts of the country. It is not so much that Canada is divided - the most sovereigntist Quebecker insists he bears no ill will toward other Canadians - as it is disintegrated. The only reason to have a federation, after all, is to have a federal government. If we don't want a federal government - a useful, functioning federal government, not the shell we have now - then there's no point in carrying on with the federation.

To be useful, it cannot be merely a government of governments - an emissary of the provinces, forbidden to do anything that does not meet with their approval. It must have a direct relationship with the citizen, unmediated by provincial interlopers. It must, as the phrase has it, appeal "over the heads of the premiers."

The Charter of Rights and Freedoms is a good example, encouraging Canadians to look to federal law and federal power to protect them from abuses of government power. Now the challenge is to extend that idea in other spheres: in the political, through such innovative means as referendums; and in the social, through reforms that put federal funds for social programs directly in the hands of individuals, rather than sending them to provincial governments.

We don't need to have Big Government in Ottawa run everything to hold together as a nation. But Big Government in the provinces will surely pull us apart.