The Social Union Framework Agreement, or SUFA, was an agreement made in

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

in 1999 between

Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister i ...

Jean Chrétien and the premiers of the

provinces and territories of Canada Within the geographical areas of Canada, the ten provinces and three territories are sub-national administrative divisions under the jurisdiction of the Canadian Constitution. In the 1867 Canadian Confederation, three provinces of British Nort ...

, except

Quebec Premier The premier of Quebec (French: ''premier ministre du Québec'' (masculine) or ''première ministre du Québec'' (feminine)) is the head of government of the Canadian province of Quebec. The current premier of Quebec is François Legault of th ...

Lucien Bouchard Lucien Bouchard (; born December 22, 1938) is a Canadian lawyer, diplomat and retired politician. Minister for two years in the Mulroney cabinet, Bouchard then led the emerging Bloc Québécois and became Leader of the Opposition in the Ho ...

. It concerns

equality of opportunity Equal opportunity is a state of fairness in which individuals are treated similarly, unhampered by artificial barriers, prejudices, or preferences, except when particular distinctions can be explicitly justified. The intent is that the important ...

, social programs,

mobility rights Freedom of movement, mobility rights, or the right to travel is a human rights concept encompassing the right of individuals to travel from place to place within the territory of a country,Jérémiee Gilbert, ''Nomadic Peoples and Human Rights' ...

and other rights.

Background

According to Professor Alain Noël, the idea of a Canadian "social union" was a "fairly recent" one at the time of his writing in 1998. It emerged in the 1990s to describe economic and social policies in Canada. However, Noël notes some politicians and academics believed the social union in Canada was older, having been established at

Canadian Confederation Canadian Confederation (french: Confédération canadienne, link=no) was the process by which three British North American provinces, the Province of Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick, were united into one federation called the Dominion ...

or after

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

.Alain Noël, "The Three Social Unions," tr. Geoffrey Hale, ''Policy Options'' 19:9, November 1998, pp. 26-29. Entrenching a social union into the

Constitution of Canada The Constitution of Canada (french: Constitution du Canada) is the supreme law in Canada. It outlines Canada's system of government and the civil and human rights of those who are citizens of Canada and non-citizens in Canada. Its contents a ...

was discussed in 1992 with a package of ultimately rejected amendments called the

Charlottetown Accord The Charlottetown Accord (french: Accord de Charlottetown) was a package of proposed amendments to the Constitution of Canada, proposed by the Canadian federal and provincial governments in 1992. It was submitted to a public referendum on October ...

. This social union was proposed by the

New Democratic Party of Ontario The Ontario New Democratic Party (french: link=no, Nouveau Parti démocratique de l'Ontario; abbr. ONDP or NDP) is a social-democratic political party in Ontario, Canada. The party currently forms the Official Opposition in Ontario following t ...

. The social charter emphasized having common standards of social programs across Canada. Prime Minister Chrétien, coming to power in 1993, was not interested in constitutional reform, but became interested in a social union to repair

Canadian federalism Canadian federalism () involves the current nature and historical development of the federal system in Canada. Canada is a federation with eleven components: the national Government of Canada and ten provincial governments. All eleven ...

after the 1995 Quebec referendum on sovereignty.

The Agreement

The agreement reached in 1999 recognized a number of principles and rights of Canadians, including common quality for social programs across Canada, and

health care in Canada Healthcare in Canada is delivered through the provincial and territorial systems of publicly funded health care, informally called Medicare. It is guided by the provisions of the '' Canada Health Act'' of 1984, and is universal. The 2002 Roya ...

with "comprehensiveness, universality, portability, public administration and accessibility." The agreement reaffirmed mobility rights for Canadian citizens, and the governments of Canada pledged to establish "no new barriers to mobility" through "new social policy initiatives." The Agreement also stated that "nothing in this agreement abrogates or derogates from any Aboriginal, treaty or other rights of

Aboriginal peoples Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...

including self-government." Under the Agreement, new cross-Canada social programs with federal financial support may also be established with the agreement of the federal government and a majority of the provincial governments. As scholar Jennifer Smith notes, "There is no additional requirement of a population minimum" of the provinces supporting the programs. While theoretically the federal government could easily achieve new programs by appealing to "poorer provinces," particularly in Atlantic Canada, Smith notes that this view "assumes... that the poorer provinces are indiscriminate program takers."Jennifer Smith, "Informal Constitutional Development: Change by Other Means," ''Canadian Federalism: Performance, Effectiveness, and Legitimacy'', eds. Herman Bakvis and Grace Skogstad, Don Mills, Ontario: Oxford University Press, 2002, pp. 50-51.

Background

The Agreement

References

Further reading