CANADA IS BROKEN, AND THE CITIZENS CENTRE FOR FREEDOM AND DEMOCRACY WANTS TO HELP FIX IT.

But the Citizens Centre, the country's newest and fastest-growing public-interest movement, doesn't only want to look to the past to recapture the pride and achievement for which Canada was once justifiably famous. Rather, the Citizens Centre is advancing a forward-looking plan to help reshape Canada into a country that will better respond to the needs of citizens in the 21st century.

The plan is called Refederation.

To understand what refederation entails, one has to appreciate the fact that Canada is now not only badly governed but also over-governed. Governments at all levels are too big, and they get in each other's way.

For more than a century now, various reform movements have arisen in Canada, particularly in the West, aimed at fixing the problem. They called for more accountability, less interference by Ottawa in local affairs and more equitable economic policies. In short, better government.

But from the time of Louis Riel, through the great Prairie farmers' movements, and up to the Reform and Canadian Alliance parties, the demand for fundamental change has gone largely unanswered. Canada is still dominated by institutions that are out of date, out of step and out of touch.

To make matters worse, the passage of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms two decades ago -- an event that might have heralded a weakening of government's grip on individual citizens -- has, instead, ushered in a new era in which the Supreme Court of Canada can veto laws that were duly passed by Parliament. At the same time, the powers of the Prime Minister's Office have grown so large as to remind many voters of a monarch.

Yet the provinces have within their power a unique tool to counter this. It's called the Clarity Act. Passed in response to Quebec's nationalistic aspirations, the act actually gives provinces the power to separate from Canada.

But the Citizens Centre is not proposing that provinces abandon Canada. Rather, the Centre wants to see interested provinces using the act as a way of taking power into their own hands and reworking Confederation for the benefit of all Canadians.

Here's how it would work. A province could act independently or could join other provinces in invoking the powers of the Clarity Act to strike a new deal with Ottawa or even to completely rewrite the terms of Confederation. This could finally give provinces more say over their own affairs. A streamlined and efficient federal government would be left to do the things it naturally should do best, such as run the post office and maintain the armed forces.

It's a win-win. The provinces would be better off. And the federal government would finally find its proper place in Confederation.