Canada’s 13 premiers sat shoulder-to-shoulder Wednesday to both call on the federal government for help and to tell it to step away from their jurisdiction.
During the three days the premiers met for the annual Council of the Federation conference in Halifax, they described tensions in their relationship with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government. But the provincial and territorial leaders didn’t leave the sunny port city without first issuing a list of requests.
The premiers attacked what they see as Ottawa’s habit of intervening in areas of provincial responsibility ranging from dental care to the cod fishery.
As the meetings wrapped up Wednesday, Ontario Premier Doug Ford took aim at the federal government’s billion-dollar national school food program, which promises to deliver meals to an additional 400,000 children per year.
He said his province’s program feeds more kids, for less.
“Something’s broken. They’re wasting taxpayers money,” he said during the premiers’ closing news conference.
“You know what happens? The premiers get pissed, simple as that. They just jump in there and they think they know better than what we know.”
During the closing news conference at the premiers’ meeting in Halifax, Ontario Premier Doug Ford compares the federal government’s breakfast program funding to that of his province.
Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston, the chair of this year’s conference, said Ottawa’s approach to the federation “risks pitting provinces and territories, really Canadians, against one another.”
But the premiers aren’t asking for Ottawa to back off entirely. They floated several areas where they want to see the federal government play a bigger role, including infrastructure spending, Arctic security and immigration supports.
Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew said he’d be prepared to welcome more asylum seekers, especially francophones, but only if the province sees a boost in funding from the federal government.
“We have the housing needs, the health-care and social needs in Manitoba, and so we really do need the federal government, who has the fiscal resources to be able to move the needle here, to do so,” he said.
Kinew did wade into federal waters earlier today when he called on Ottawa to speed up defence investment.
After years of criticism from allies — most notably the United States — the Liberal government announced last week that it hopes to meet NATO’s military investment commitment of two per cent of alliance members’ gross domestic product by 2032.
Kinew urged Trudeau to reach that target in four years to alleviate concerns south of the border ahead of a presidential election that could return former president Donald Trump to the White House.
“If we’re not meeting our responsibility to our NATO allies, it is going to have an impact on [the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement] renewal. It is gonna have an impact on the relationship,” said the premier.
When asked if the premiers are asking for too much from the federal government on too many items, Houston said they’re asking the Liberals to refocus.
“We need to be focused on how and where that money is invested. We have a lot of ideas on that and we hope that they listen to us,” he said.