Canada

The second largest country in the world, Canada has relied on its federal system to help manage the challenges of multiple geographic, economic and social cleavages. Canada is among the most active federations in forming intergovernmental agreements in this comparative analysis, creating ninety-two national accords between 1945 and 2009. This makes Canada the second most prolific in terms of agreement creation and, together with Australia and Germany, the most active in forming new intergovernmental institutions. While Canada's history may be rooted in the struggles and successes of the British and French cultures, its government and political structure draw almost exclusively from the English tradition. Canada's constitutional authors believed that they were designing a highly centralized federation, free from the substantial subnational powers that they felt helped destabilize their American neighbors. Canada's Senate provides no amount of intrastate federalism and thus no substitute for the normal processes of intergovernmental relations and the creation of agreements.