Every kindergarten teacher tells their students about the
benefits of cooperation. Cooperation, the theory goes, means
working together, allowing people to hit heights of accomplishment
that they could never reach by themselves. We are told that when we
cooperate, nap time is more fun, everyone's milk and cookies
are a little more delicious, and no one throws sand in your
face.
Anyone who follows federal-provincial relations in Canada knows
that kindergarten can be an apt metaphor. But it turns out that the
courts—forced to play referee in the federalism
"sandbox"—often prefer solid legal doctrines to
vague notions like "cooperation". While cooperative
federalism has been invoked by the Supreme Court to blunt some
overarching federal powers, arguments relying heavily on
cooperative federalism are often rejected.
