Premiers quite happy to bash Harper in absentia

Canada’s annual premiers conference is traditionally something of a fog machine, pumping out impenetrable memorandums and hazy agreements.

But this year, the fog has become all too literal.

Ground- hugging clouds enveloped St. John’s Airport Wednesday, forcing flights to detour to Gander, where hundred of passengers — including a gaggle of journalists on their way to the conference — were trundled onto buses for the 3- 1/ 2- hour drive.

Making the misery a little more tolerable was news that even the premiers — travelling together after a meeting with aboriginal leaders in Goose Bay, Labrador — would be forced to divert to Gander.

It was as if Mother Nature — in cahoots with Prime Minister Stephen Harper — didn’t want the premiers conference to go ahead.

Never a fan of them to begin with, Harper would rather this one in particular got fogged in.

With a federal election just three months away, Harper is fully expecting to be targeted by the premiers on a wide range of issues, including climate change, infrastructure funding, the Canadian Pension Plan and murdered and missing aboriginal women.

There is only one Conservative premier in the country these days — Newfoundland’s Paul Davis — but even he isn’t sounding like much of a Harper ally.

After the premiers’ meeting with aboriginal leaders, Davis announced the provincial and territorial leaders support all 94 recommendations from last month’s report from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

“They’re important commitments that we need to follow up on,” said Davis of the recommendations aimed at improving both living conditions for First Nations peoples and relations between aboriginals and non- aboriginals.

Then Davis took a shot at Harper: “We all believe that the federal government should be providing that leadership.”

In his nine years in office, Harper has neither accepted an invitation to come to a premiers conference nor has he invited them to meet with him at a first ministers conference.

It didn’t matter that premiers had morphed their meeting more than a decade ago from a “conference” into what they called the annual meeting of the Council of the Federation.

The premiers back then hoped the “council” designation — along with an office staff and regular working groups — would formalize their relationship, elevate the level of discussions and put the provinces on a footing with the federal government.

But it would only work if the federal government played ball. It didn’t. Harper hasn’t even taken to the field for a little catch with his premierial colleagues.

Harper’s tactic effectively stymied and frustrated the premiers for years. But something interesting is happening.

The premiers — “in the absence of the federal government” — are taking the initiative on their own on all kinds of issues.

One of the biggest this week will be a Canadian Energy Strategy — a way to help build more pipelines to get more of Alberta’s oilsands bitumen to international markets while also reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

The two issues might sound mutually exclusive, but the premiers seem willing to try to find a balance — something Harper has not.

One of the tightrope walkers in the spotlight this week will be Alberta’s new NDP premier, Rachel Notley, who will have to find a balance between the province’s desperate need for pipelines and her own personal commitment to environmental protection.

Premiers will be discussing the strategy Thursday afternoon. Also on the agenda for the two- day meeting are federal spending on infrastructure and ways to boost the national pension plan.

The premiers would dearly love to have Harper in the room. That’s not going to happen, of course. Instead, the premiers will happily bash Harper in absentia.

They’ll do it because they’re rightly frustrated at his dismissive attitude toward premiers over the years. They’ll do it because Harper deserves to be held to account for his lack of leadership on issues facing the country.

And they’ll do it because most are not fans of Harper and we’re only three months from a federal election.

On Wednesday, after the two charter planes carrying the premiers were being diverted to Gander, the fog suddenly lifted and the planes were cleared to land in St. John’s.

Even Mother Nature seems to be joining the gang- up on Harper.