Thus, when the federal government speaks to outsiders, its voice does not
necessarily speak for the provinces; and when it makes agreements in some
areas, it does not necessarily bind the provinces. Negotiators from other govern-
ments do not always clearly understand this situation. All the more confusing are
situations in which a province is actually competing with the federal govern-
ment. One such case arose during the negotiations between Canada and the
United States over the hydroelectric power and flood control of the Columbia
River in the early 1960s. After Canada and the United States had come to agree-
ment on the terms of the treaty, the British Columbia premier took a different
tack from the federal government and delayed ratification of the treaty until it
was modified.

Relations between the two levels of government do not traditionally involve
"high politics" in foreign affairs, despite the rather murky provisions regarding
the federal government's powers to deal with foreign relations, originally part of
the British North America Act, which has been renamed the Constitution
Act, 1867. Canadian foreign policy in recent years, however, has increasingly
dealt with questions other than alliances and similar noneconomic matters and
more and more with matters over which the provinces have some jurisdiction.

The province that has most questioned federal supremacy in foreign affairs is
Quebec. There have been disagreements, bitter at times, over the extent of
Quebec's right to have its own representation abroad, mainly with Francophone
countries. Such claims were connected with the movement for
"sovereignty-association" pressed by the Parti Quebecois, which was the gov-
erning party in Quebec from 1976 to 1986 and which was returned to power in
1994.

Quebec's voters, in a special referendum in 1980, turned down a proposal to
separate Quebec in most respects from Canada by forming a more or less inde-
pendent state, but this vote did not end the controversy over Quebec's right to
participate actively in the conduct of foreign policy. Although such a claim arose
from the expansion of the "quiet revolution", the rapid modernization in Quebec
society and the blossoming of its culture starting in the 1960s, it reflected earlier
differences about Canada's foreign policy. Quebec in the pre-World War II years
was much more isolationist than other parts of Canada. The dramatic conflicts
over conscription in both world wars, and the decision to adopt conscription in
World War I over the strenuous objections of the French Canadians, were
sources of controversy so serious as to threaten the unity of the country.
Although the federal government handled the conscription problem much more
tactfully and sensitively in World War II, the memory of the differences lingered

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