Infrastructure, fuel taxes are high on the to-do list as premiers gather in Winnipeg

As Canada's premiers gather in Winnipeg this week, the priorities they're articulating seem to be less about their collective action and more — much more — about what they want the federal government to do next.

Is the Council of the Federation basically a lobbying shop now, with premiers meeting to line up their top targets and talking points and to disseminate their demands?

When this suggestion was put to Manitoba Premier Heather Stefanson on Monday, the chair of this week's talks disagreed with this premise and told reporters they needed to wait and see how the premiers might work together and share best practices.

"To the extent that there [is] common ground … we have no problem, no problem going to Ottawa as united provinces and territories," she said. "I look forward to having the discussions in the next couple of days to see what those will look like."

From climate change mitigation to child-care delivery, there's no shortage of ways provinces and territories could be sharing and co-operating on more than their wish lists for Ottawa. 

But the news conveyed to reporters covering the last premiers meeting in Victoria consisted mostly of demand after demand for the federal government.

The to-do list premiers are drafting this year for the federal government includes billions in infrastructure money and compensation for unaffordable federal fuel taxes. 

Last February, their big demand for long-term health-care funding was granted — not to the complete satisfaction of all, but only Quebec has yet to conclude negotiations. (Even without signing on to the federal conditions, its money is already flowing.)

Does that mean this year's meeting won't feature health-care demands? 

Of course not, particularly while there aren't enough health-care workers to improve service levels, something nurses unions will take up with the premiers first thing Tuesday morning. 

When the Council of the Federation was founded in 2003, premiers intended to find ways to exercise their jurisdictions and act on their own toward national goals, not just demand that Ottawa fix what's broken.

In 2010 they formed an alliance to work together on the bulk purchase of pharmaceutical drugs, for example, and this co-operation lowered the price of several hundred brand name and generic drugs within a decade. 

A national drug formulary as part of universal pharmacare coverage may eventually supersede this work — assuming this condition for the NDP's supply and confidence agreement with the Liberals leads to more price reductions than Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos has enabled to date. But the long march to lower drug costs started with the premiers.

By 2016's gathering, more collaboration among the premiers had landed an interprovincial trade agreement.