What do the premiers want after their latest meeting? More meetings, it seems
CBC
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.
Premier Susan Holt says she doesn’t have an explanation for why regulators, policy experts and others responsible for gas price regulation didn’t clue in to a simple way to lower prices for consumers until the end of 2025.
The new year will be bringing with it Toronto’s first traffic czar.
For the first time in 111 years, items once belonging to the late Albert Mullins were back in the hands of his family members thanks to the detective work of one Montreal historian.
The year that saw the remains of two First Nations women brought home from a Manitoba landfill and a search get underway for the remains of a third showed how far reconciliation efforts have come — and how far they still need to go, the families say
The RCMP has just released a warning stating there are dangerous, armed individuals on Big Island Cree Nation, near Meadow Lake.
A new land-use plan that Alberta’s government has for the province’s Upper Smoky region is drawing criticism from environmentalists who say they believe it lacks sufficient environmental safeguards, which poses a significant threat to the endangered southern woodland caribou.
Canadian officials made pains to show they were cracking down on illicit drug production in the country in 2025.
A year after the City of Hamilton cancelled its overnight warming bus, it is funding a new all-night warming centre for men at St. Paul’s Presbyterian Church on James Street S.
This year has, without a doubt, been a turbulent one for the Canadian auto industry. Uncertainty dominated the sector — both for auto workers hit with job changes and companies trying to manage a mix of tariffs and changing market conditions.
A woman died at a ski resort in the Canadian Rockies over the weekend, after falling into deep snow.
Two pregnant women who would otherwise be living in a cold tent. A man whose leg wound was so bad it required intravenous medication. Two young people who no longer need to couch surf to get by.
The province has added 12 kilometres of designated trails for all-terrain vehicles in western Prince Edward Island that will connect existing routes in O’Leary and Tignish.
Every year, CBC North publishes hundreds of stories online — breaking news, investigative reporting, political coverage, community features, longform storytelling, and much more.