What do the premiers want after their latest meeting? More meetings, it seems
This week’s Council of the Federation meetings featured more process than progress.
No one’s suggesting a good process isn’t fundamental to good politics. Premiers and their officials in Winnipeg talked and listened, networked and took briefings from stakeholders who came to town to lobby on health care, justice reforms, trade infrastructure and more.
But reporters scanning the premiers’ kitchen-sink communiques for tangible actions, decisions and fixes were hard-pressed to find a headline. And the meeting’s host, Manitoba Premier Heather Stefanson, showed little ambition to use her time as chair to build a profile on the national stage for her leadership, or advance a specific priority.
On the hard issues, the premiers kicked the can and decided the best things to announce and demand were (wait for it) … more meetings.
On health care, they announced plans to meet again for a summit “aimed at advancing innovative work.”
On infrastructure, they demanded that the prime minister join them for a First Ministers’ meeting to discuss how the next round of federal funding should roll out. Justin Trudeau’s office forwarded this call to Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic LeBlanc’s office — which issued a statement reminding everyone that, of course, he meets regularly to discuss this subject with provinces and territories.
(That wasn’t exactly a hard no on a First Ministers’ meeting with Trudeau. It didn’t seem enthusiastic, either. Then again, the Prime Minister’s Office also rebuffed calls for a health-care summit with premiers until last February, when the winds shifted and Trudeau hosted them in Ottawa — on his terms.)
Finally, on the cost of implementing federal clean fuel regulations, Atlantic premiers demanded their own meeting with Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland to discuss some kind of offset or compensation. The premiers point to the disproportionate burden Atlantic consumers bear because inexpensive clean energy is scarce in their jurisdictions, at least in the near term.
Freeland’s office told CBC News it’s still exploring logistics but talks are underway on getting perhaps a half-dozen of Trudeau’s ministers from the Atlantic provinces to sit down with the region’s premiers next week to hear them out — a sign, perhaps, of how politically unpopular jumps at the pumps can be.
These latest complaints about climate measures unfairly burdening certain regions are part of a narrative that has pervaded federal-provincial relations ever since Trudeau’s first cabinet was sworn in.
They also gave Alberta Premier Danielle Smith an opportunity to speak for more than just herself when she accused the federal government of regulating what it doesn’t understand — Canada’s diverse array of energy production and consumption.
At the Council of the Federation’s closing news conference, a single question from CBC News about whether the premiers unanimously backed the Atlantic premiers’ call for a federal fuel offset prompted explanations, justifications and interventions from more than half of the group.
Federal policy, Smith said, has been all stick and no carrot.
While some free marketers endorse carbon pricing in theory, it’s been bumping up against record-high inflation over the past year. The cost of carbon pricing, layered on top of elevated fuel prices to meet shorter-term emissions targets, is really being felt by Canadians, Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe said.
Carbon pricing now resembles punishment for remote regions, Northwest Territories Premier Caroline Cochrane said. She reminded anyone inclined to take access to low-emissions electricity for granted that those who live in the North have limited energy alternatives.
Premiers fall short of a united front
If you want people to continue to live in the North to support Canada’s Arctic sovereignty, she warned, you shouldn’t make it more expensive than it already is.
Even though Ontario Premier Doug Ford enjoys a relatively clean electricity grid in his jurisdiction, he continues to sympathize with opponents of fuel taxes. Quebec Premier François Legault, on the other hand, sat relatively silent as his colleagues ranted. His province is poised to profit from its bountiful low-emissions hydroelectricity for the foreseeable future.
And when prompted Tuesday, B.C. Premier David Eby also made it clear there’s no clear consensus among the provinces in favour of pumping the brakes on emissions regulations. He reminded reporters that his province was an early adopter of carbon pricing and said pollution shouldn’t be free.
Some of the premiers who frequently scold the federal government for intervening in provincial energy jurisdiction issued a communique this week swinging hard against federal justice policies.
Premiers met with police chiefs and doubled down on their “deep disappointment” over the fact that federal legislation to restrict bail eligibility for those accused of violent crimes didn’t pass before summer recess. They called for more funding to enhance their provincial bail programs. But they didn’t stop there.
Premiers demanded federal changes to the Criminal Code to end conditional sentences for individuals convicted of sexual assault. They wanted more action at border crossings and ports to prevent gun and gang violence. They called for a crackdown on privately-made firearms.
They also want to be consulted on the future of the RCMP, which provides policing in provincial jurisdictions.
Amid all these demands for federal government action on public safety issues, little was said publicly in response to recent criticism from the Supreme Court’s chief justice — who warned of the consequences of provinces underfunding provincial and territorial justice systems.
Provinces tell Ottawa to stay off their patch
Looking ahead, an emerging debate over infrastructure financing looks set to reprise an argument from earlier child care and health care negotiations — about the sorts of strings that might be attached to new federal funding.
The premiers used their communique to call for “block transfers” — a phrase that presumably doesn’t mean transfers contingent on meeting certain federal criteria. Premiers complained about the reporting and red tape in the permanent community building fund that already subsidizes municipal priorities.
“I want the federal government to stop trying to use the federal spending power to manipulate provinces to get federal aspirations met,” Smith told Power & Politics on Wednesday.
They also repeated their June call for federal infrastructure investments to flow through them, not around them and directly to municipalities.
“The federal government needs to be more flexible, respect our jurisdiction, stop doing business directly with municipalities [and] make things easier, not tougher,” Legault said.
WATCH: Premiers call for sit-down with Trudeau on infrastructure
July 12, 2023 – Alberta Premier Danielle Smith explains the premiers’ request. Plus, we look at what the federal minister of labour is doing to end the port strike in British Columbia.
Trudeau already has signalled a new infrastructure program coming this fall will focus on building more housing.
But as they emerged from their final discussions Wednesday, premiers endorsed a recent call from a coalition of Canada’s top business stakeholders for a national trade infrastructure plan. They argued insufficient investment in supply chain facilities and transportation networks is hurting Canada’s international competitiveness and cramping the economic growth governments rely on for their revenue.
“The feds have said the right things but turned around and not put the money in the right places,” said Carlo Dade, director of the trade and investment centre at the Canada West Foundation, which documented the seriousness of this issue in a recent report.
“We don’t need more bad news. We don’t need more reports from the World Bank and others telling us how much of a problem we have. We don’t need more complaints from customers,” he said. “We need the feds to join the provinces in moving this forward by 2024.”
So will they? Fixing supply chain problems may seem less politically sexy than building more homes, but when essential goods are backlogged or jobs start to be lost, things turn sour for the economy.
“It shouldn’t be one at the expense of the other,” Stefanson told reporters.
Maybe so, but to govern is to choose. Premiers are familiar with not getting all they ask for.
