Roundup: Premiers pleading poverty while demonstrating largesse

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Ontario premier Doug Ford met with Maritime premiers in New Brunswick yesterday, and wouldn’t you just know it, they demanded more federal healthcare dollars while simultaneously saying that throwing money at the problem wouldn’t fix things, so they want to go to more private delivery. The problem, of course, is that Ford didn’t even bother to spend his full healthcare budget last year as he continues to underpay nurses and doctors, and both he and Blaine Higgs in particular put pandemic healthcare dollars onto their bottom lines, and Higgs boasted a healthy surplus last year thanks to federal transfers. It’s hard to take premiers’ demands for cash seriously if they don’t actually spend the dollars they’re given, and that they keep boasting about their balance sheets while still steadfastly refusing to increase pay, or to reform billing systems. While François Legault wasn’t at the table today, he’s also promising a tax cut if he gets elected again, while crying poor and insisting the federal government needs to spend more. Erm, you know that the federal government can see you, right?

On that note, Saskatchewan premier Scott Moe announced that his province is so flush with money thanks to high oil and gas revenues that they’re going to give out vote-buying cheques to the whole province. But he too is going cap-in-hand to Ottawa for more health transfers, and he’s sending patients in his province to private clinics in Alberta and won’t pay for their transportation to get there either. (Oh, and giving cheques to everyone is going fuel inflation, but you knew that, right?

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 180:

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is banning public celebrations in advance of Ukraine’s independence day, citing fears that Russia will likely plan more severe attacks in line with the occasion, particularly around civilian infrastructure. Russians struck near Kharkiv and areas near Bakhmut in the Donbas, while the Ukrainan counter-attack continued to advance on Kherson in the south. There were also new claims of Russian shelling near the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, as international pleas to ensure a ceasefire around the area continue to go unheeded. Russians are also, not surprisingly, blaming the car bomb that killed the daughter of one of Putin’s advisors, on Ukraine.

Good reads:

  • At their press conference in Montreal, Justin Trudeau and Olaf Scholz discussed the clean energy transition and Russia’s attempt to weaponise natural gas in Europe.
  • Ahmed Hussen has cut funding to the Community Media Advocacy Centre for their “anti-racism” consultant who spewed antisemitism, and suspended their work.
  • Moderna will be supplying 12 million doses of the Omicron-specific boosters.
  • One of the original Karsh prints of his portrait of Sir Winston Churchill was stolen from the lobby of the Chateau Laurier and replaced with a copy.
  • Failed Conservative leadership wannabe Kevin O’Leary is backing Jean Charest, citing that Poilievre is “too polarising.”
  • Heather Scoffield worries that Canada is over-promising on green energy given our track record of timelines and delivery.
  • Paul Wells notes that Poilievre has shifted to talking about bread-and-butter issues, though his solutions are all bad and laughable, but he’s still talking about them.
  • My Xtra column catches up with NDP MP Randall Garrison and talks about what he’s accomplished in over a decade on the Hill, and what he has left to do.

Odds and ends:

For National Magazine, I preview the Supreme Court of Canada’s fall sitting.

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2 thoughts on “Roundup: Premiers pleading poverty while demonstrating largesse”

  1. Next to religion politics is the biggest scam going especially here in Canada.
    The provinces have raped the Feds for their 22% and spent it on other provincial purposes al the while screaming for more money but without strings. Covid has seen the end of Fed money without strings. Canadians want strings, the medical profession wants strings, patients need strings and taxpayers need strings. It is past time for the Federal government to change strings to ropes.

  2. So when will we see a reboot of Wells’ infamous “resistance” article, but with the premiers dressed in lab coats and holding their hands out to extort cash from the feds? Perhaps Ford can be front and centre, snapping a medical glove and positioning his hand in such a way as to indicate, “this’ll hurt a bit”…

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