After days of building expectation that there was going to be drama at the First Ministers’ meeting, virtually none was had. Doug Ford was going to storm out, and then he didn’t, and his people started recanting the threats. And, well, other stories started emerging as well. And some other premiers claimed progress on their files, like François Legault saying he got closer to his demands for $300 million in repayment for irregular border crossers and dairy compensation; Rachel Notley could claim some progress on getting Ottawa to consider helping pay for her plan to buy more rail cars. That sort of thing.
Where there was some minor drama was Doug Ford and Scott Moe coming out at the end, complaining that the federal government was trying to “move the goal posts” on them when it comes to their climate action – which was immediately denounced by other premiers’ officials, and which also demonstrates that they don’t actually know what they’re talking about when it comes to the federal climate framework – in particular that Ford was walking back on some of the province’s earlier commitments to the tune of a 30-megatonne reduction in GHGs, which was not going to fly with anyone else. (Oh, and the federal government says that Ontario won’t get the $420 million promised as part of the Low Carbon Economy Fund after they pulled out of cap-and-trade).
Meanwhile, Andrew Coyne questions the point of these meetings, even from the standpoint of political theatre, while Chantal Hébert calls out Doug Ford’s marked inexperience and partisan petulance, and that he made threats with no reason to back them up. Paul Wells takes the opportunity to explore what these kinds of meetings mean for Trudeau’s style and his vision of federalism – before throwing some well-deserved shade at the final communiqué.
Good reads:
- In case you missed it, Statistics Canada reported record job numbers and the lowest unemployment rate since the current tracking began in 1976.
- Here’s a look into the arrest of Huawei’s CFO, and the extradition process that she will now be subject to. She didn’t get bail; our ambassador in China is on the case.
- The Canadian Institute of Health Research is doing away with virtual meetings citing lack of preparedness and distraction, but the trade-offs are travel costs.
- Some BC First Nations are looking to renegotiate their benefit agreements with Trans Mountain on the pipeline expansion.
- Crown attorneys will stop prosecuting some HIV non-disclosure cases as new prosecutorial guidelines come into effect.
- Here’s a good look at how Doug Ford and Jason Kenney are sowing distrust with the media for their own ends.
- Murray Brewster delves into the Crown’s filings on Mark Norman as part of their court case alleging he leaked shipyard information.
- Kevin Carmichael looks into the darker undersides of the good job numbers that came out yesterday.
- My weekend column calls out Andrew Scheer’s use of conspiracy theories as part of his war on truth that he hopes will give him an edge, but only feeds Russian trolls.
Odds and ends:
It looks like we’re seeing a renewed bout of really dumb takes on “Alberta separatism,” which seems to forget some pretty basic facts about their exports.
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The Prime Minister met the Premiers, something that Harper never did. He explained, they listened, they didn’t change their positions, some lied, some were overwhelmed, no one changed their views, Trudeau gave support for rail cars, he restated the federal government’s view on a revenue neutral levy on pollution. He offered more money to Quebec for immigrants. He assured them that the pipeline would be built. He re-explained the court decision that required more consultation with First Nations. I think Trudeau and his team did a good job, now if the Premiers could find it in themselves to do a better job Canada would be a better place.
Keep hearing from Jen Gerson her elk spouting off on how Alberta is use an indifferent rest of Canada as the cause of Alberta’s woes. Kind of forgets the rest of Canada is use to being unfairly blamed by Alberta for all of Alberta’s woes and it’s not as if a Maritime politician is calling for Alberta to battle its “culture of defeatism.”
Also on this repeated Conservative Party and its surrogates talking point about “Harper was right” on First Ministers meetings because of the “drama” of the last few days. Whether or not is was a specific meeting, Harper and the provincial premiers of his day had tons of very public drama and bad blood and recriminations which created way more bad press for Harper than one or two days and at least Trudeau is somewhat in control at a meeting responding in-person to the premiers’ laments. Plus a benefit for Trudeau having these meetings is showing how often the premiers themselves are totally different pages from each other. Harper was awful at dealing with them which one of the many reason he doesn’t have much of legacy since he didn’t work with the provinces.