Premiers simpatico, to a point

• Combined, the pair oversee almost 55 per cent of Canada’s total GDP. They’re both divisive figures in their respective provinces.

Perhaps that’s why Alberta Premier Rachel Notley and Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne appeared so in sync when they met in Toronto on Thursday, even if they were far apart on some big issues.

Before the cameras were rolling, with their mikes live, the two joked about who would go first, followed by what can only be described as a giggle.

“You were going to start, and I’m just going to kind of wing it after the fact,” Notley joked.

“After I wing quipped back, laugh.

The ceremony of the prepared remarks that followed belied the intense planning it,” Wynne with that that goes into such appearances. But what wasn’t scripted was the apparent commonality the women found, despite managing very different provinces and respectively challenging constituencies.

Notley nodded along as Wynne repeated the “crying need” for a missing, mur- dered aboriginal women’s inquiry. They both spoke of the urgency of addressing climate change, but did not necessarily have the same solution. Notley has decried the federal NDP’s call for a national capand-trade program, while Wynne is in the midst of enacting one in Ontario. Carbon pricing goes hand in hand with pipeline politics, and Notley stressed Energy East’s economic importance to her province, which is suffering from the high cost of getting its costly oil to market.

“I made the point that for Alberta, we need to diversify our energy markets in order to have a sustainably growing energy industry. So, obviously, increasing access is important for Alberta, and it’s important to Canada,” Notley said.

Each woman has a vested interest in the Trans-Pacific Partnership talks, but they balanced their very different provinces’ very different needs against their mutual congeniality.

“Most industries in Alberta see the TPP, as we see it unfolding, to be of net benefit to most business,” Notley said.

Contrast that to Wynne, who faces the intense automanufacturing and farming lobbies in Ontario but must consider the economic opportunity of the largest free-trade deal ever to be negotiated.

“We’ve been very clear that protecting the supply- managed sectors is very critical to us,” Wynne said, referring to the dairy and egg farmers who strongly oppose the deal, which could erode their monopolies in Ontario.

“We want the TPP to go forward, but as I said this morning, the challenge of the agri-food sector is there is volatility. There is risk that has to be managed across the sector and it gets managed one way or another. … Supply management provides … a stability that wouldn’t be there otherwise.”

Increasing access is important for Alberta, and it’s important to Canada