Pallister, Trudeau inch toward mending fences

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 31/07/2017 (3001 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

In this, the summer of federal-provincial discontent in Manitoba, a brief sign of hope.

This past Saturday, Premier Brian Pallister and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau met face to face to discuss a long list of grievances: Manitoba’s opposition to both the health-funding deal and a national climate-change framework; the province’s seeming unwillingness to deliver a plan for the sale and regulation of marijuana; the fate of Churchill and thousands of Manitobans living in the north who are facing down a winter without rail service.

There is always conflict between the federal government and the provinces. But by any measure, this is a long list of grievances. Too long.

There were some signs of progress following the brief, 30-minute Saturday meeting. Trudeau announced his government would invest $35 million in the Assiniboine Park Conservancy’s Diversity Gardens project, with the province kicking in another $15 million.

That’s hardly a seismic shift in federal-provincial relations. But it’s not nothing.

On the other files, sources from both governments indicated the leaders took baby steps toward resolving their disputes.

On Trudeau’s demand that every province introduce a carbon-pricing mechanism by next year, there was little more than a positive and respectful exchange of views, the sources said.

On health care, sources from both governments suggested a resolution could be close at hand that allows Trudeau and Pallister to agree to disagree on the terms of annual funding without either side having to say uncle. Both sides are apparently working toward a situation in which Manitoba could sign bilateral agreements to access its $40-million annual share of home care and mental-health funding.

As for Churchill, the stalemate continues. Sources said Pallister insisted Ottawa force Omnitrax to fix the railway between The Pas and Churchill, or use its powers to seize the line for failure to keep it in working order.

That message seems to have gotten through. Trudeau said Saturday that Omnitrax has a legal obligation to fix the railway, and the federal government would be “using the tools at our disposal to ensure that and to stand up for the people of Churchill.”

To date, Pallister has borne the brunt of criticism for the unresolved disputes. And it’s true that right now, Pallister’s default setting on federal-provincial relations involves raising a middle finger and pointing it in Ottawa’s direction.

All that having been said, Trudeau is hardly blameless for the discord.

Many of the prime minister’s priority initiatives have involved ‘take-it-or-leave-it’ terms that have rankled many of the provinces. And, if we know anything about Manitoba’s new premier, it is that he would much rather play the bully than the bullied. That’s a real problem because it appears the prime minister likes to operate pretty much the same way.

However, that is not the limit of the federal government’s culpability.

When striking his first cabinet in 2015, Trudeau elected to dispense with the venerable tradition of naming a cabinet minister from each province to serve as regional minister. Instead, he demanded provinces speak directly to the ministers responsible for a specific file. And he named himself as the minister of intergovernmental affairs, the first time in the last 25 years that role has been filled by a prime minister.

In doing away with regional ministers, Trudeau was clearly trying to dispense with some of the regional rivalries that sometimes complicate relationships around the cabinet table. It’s a great theory that has not, however, produced a workable relationship with Pallister.

It is definitely the case that many of the biggest deals between Ottawa and an individual province involve direct negotiation between the prime minister and a premier. But regional ministers have proven essential in the past, particularly for smaller provinces that are, quite frankly, easy to ignore or forget in a national political landscape.

Manitoba’s senior Liberal MP, Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr, reportedly has a hand in all matters involving the provincial and federal governments. Sources claim he often plays the role of interested observer rather than active participant, as is the wish of the prime minister.

That has to be a concern to Pallister, a former federal politicians from the right-wing of the spectrum with a deep-seated dislike of all things ‘big-L’ Liberal. That, and the feeling the federal bureaucracy is often tone deaf to the interests of smaller provinces.

The premiers of smaller provinces have a bred-in-the-bone fear of being dealt a bad hand by an arbitrary and all-powerful federal bureaucracy. And there is a ton of evidence supporting the notion that without strong regional voices at the cabinet table, smaller provinces get steamrolled.

Manitoba’s battles over the CF-18 maintenance contract, the establishment of the federal virology lab, the mostly unsuccessful effort to make Winnipeg headquarters for the federal chief medical officer of health and the construction of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights all serve as reminders that if “officials” in Ottawa were allowed to make all the decisions, smaller provinces would get trampled.

For now, the image of Pallister and Trudeau sharing a stage following a brief but important face-to-face meeting is something to celebrate. Albeit in a modest, sober fashion.

It seemed that for just a moment, these two political leaders remembered voters don’t really care about why politicians disagree. They only care about what they get done working in concert.

And it’s clearly time for Pallister and Trudeau to find some harmony.

dan.lett@freepress.mb.ca