The speech from the throne raises a fundamental conundrum that will dog Jean Chrétien's final months in power.

How can a political leader suddenly have an activist agenda that seems so contrary to the same leader's record of nine years in office? It's made even more problematic by the fact the previous nine years were very successful politically.

While commentators have been quick to label everything the Chrétien government announced in the throne speech as a return to an activist agenda, there's one question no one seems to be asking.

Where is the evidence that Canadians – let alone Liberals – are clamouring for their federal government to return to such social activism? In fact, the public seems quite happy with what the Liberals have been doing.

Traditionally the Liberals turned activist when there was a rise in public support for the New Democratic Party. There's no evidence of that today and there hasn't been for some time. Maybe the current NDP leadership race that's attracting no media attention will change that, but not likely.

The provinces have no interest in an activist federal government that does anything more than write cheques and forward them to provincial capitals.

They realize that the great majority of initiatives in the throne speech that are labelled the Liberal government's activist agenda actually fall under provincial control. Health care, municipalities, urban infrastructure, job training and post-secondary education, welfare and poverty and even many environmental issues including Kyoto all fall under or share provincial jurisdiction. They have no interest in Ottawa poking its nose into their world.

(By contrast, the speech contained very little about a lot of areas that lie within the federal government's control and responsibility - trade, defence, foreign affairs, transportation, national security and justice.)

To many, talk of an activist federal government sounds like a return to the Liberals of the 1970s - the years Mr. Chrétien cut his teeth in Pierre Trudeau's cabinets. But these aren't the 1970s and there is little evidence that Canadians want to relive that decade.

Canadians no longer seem as interested in having government play as big a role in their economic or personal lives as they did in the 1970s. That suggests they may not be as interested in an activist government as Mr. Chrétien may be.

They need not worry. There is simply no time or money to translate much of the activist talk into activist action.

Speaking in the throne debate, the prime minister made it very clear where his priorities lie and also suggested much of John Manley's budget next February is already wrapped up. In the process, Mr. Chrétien succeeds in tying the fiscal hands of his successor.

He indicated that in February's budget his government will provide multi-year funding for three critical areas - health care, an expanded child tax benefit and infrastructure spending. They will eat up so much money there will be virtually nothing left for anything else.

It is true that no prime minister can bind his successor. Spending and legislation can always be changed. Mr. Chrétien, though, is wily enough to know that subsequently backing down on the federal government's announced financial contribution to health care, infrastructure or helping low-income children can only be done at significant political cost. He is gambling Paul Martin, as a new prime minister, won't want to risk that. It seems a safe bet.

So, although he can't bind his successor, in fact he can.

At the same time, Mr. Chrétien's desire for activism will come down to two issues: health care and infrastructure. The question is, in 2003 how much of the 1960s and 1970s does the prime minister want to replicate?

In those years, Ottawa transferred a lot of money to the provinces but it was often in the form of conditional grants. Provinces could take the money, provided they accepted the strings that Ottawa attached to the cash regarding how it would be spent.

The complaint from premiers was they were left with little or no ability to shape spending to suit the particular needs of their provinces or to suit their political agendas. It was Ottawa calling the shots as Ottawa was providing the dollars.

Next February, will Mr. Chrétien want to attach conditions to the multi-year money he'll offer to the provinces for health care and infrastructure?

There are no easy answers to that one.

On the one hand, the federal government, and presumably the prime minister and Liberal members of Parliament, all have firm beliefs about how that infrastructure and health care money should be spent. On health care, the prime minister will have the ideas of the recently-completed Romanow report in his pocket when he sits down with the premiers early next year.

The federal government has a right to those beliefs and to try to translate them into policy, as it is federal tax revenue being transferred to the provinces.

However, if Mr. Chrétien attempts to impose conditions on the provinces, they will resist and the result could be another feature of the 1970s - federal-provincial wrangling. The verbal exchanges over the Kyoto Protocol may simply be a warm-up for the main act - a fight over who controls health-care spending.

That could delay agreements and implementation beyond Mr. Chrétien's departure date. Suddenly his successor would no longer be bound by what Mr. Chrétien wanted to do, but couldn't complete.

Mr. Chrétien has laid out his agenda to be activist, but he still has some very difficult decisions to make. The last few months won't be easy.