Premiers urge Harper to improve disaster relief
Transportation safety, the Senate on agenda as conference wraps up
Canada’s premiers on Friday urged the federal government to step up efforts to prevent and respond to disasters, as they wrapped up their annual summer retreat.
“It’s very clear that there’s a real appetite for making changes across the country,” said Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne, mentioning the recent runaway-train disaster in Lac-Mégantic, Que.
The premiers also jointly expressed concerns about decisions by Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government that they alleged are unilaterally reducing transfer payments and their capacity to deliver health care, education and social services, while promoting new efforts to fight bullying in schoolyards and on the Internet.
Regarding disasters, the premiers agreed that the federal government should improve regulations to protect Canadian waters from shipwrecks as well as tighten regulations surrounding the transportation of dangerous products by rail in the wake of the train crash that claimed the lives of about 50 people and caused an explosion that spilled 5.7 million litres of oil into the environment.
“We talked specifically about what the changes in regulation would need to be specific to some of the rail issues that have arisen because of the Lac-Mégantic tragedy,” Wynne said. “It really was a call on the federal government and also on the relief funding and making sure that we have adequate resources in a timely way, including information — timely information.”
The premiers said the information could be provided with a new system that offers real-time data on the location and content of trains to be shared among governments for public-safety purposes.
Quebec Premier Pauline Marois said she was proud of the consensus among her colleagues, explaining that additional information could also help their governments make new demands for improving regulations related to railway safety.
The premiers also said the federal government needs to do more to ensure that companies transporting dangerous products have sufficient safety and liability insurance to cover potential disasters.
“If you have to bear the costs of the risks of transporting your goods in an unsafe fashion, you have an incentive to do it safely, and if you don’t do it safely, you’re going to be broke,” said Manitoba Premier Greg Selinger. “So the insurance provisions are very key to taking responsibility. And the insurance companies will go out to the rail companies and demand that they have safe practices or they won’t cover them with insurance. So that is a very key prevention measure right there.”
Selinger and other premiers, including Alberta’s Alison Redford, also stressed that the federal government should pay half the costs of preparing infrastructure for changing weather patterns, on top of paying most of the costs responding to major disasters as well as the existing federal funding programs for infrastructure.
“These (mitigation projects) are separate projects and they need to be treated separately,” Redford said. “You can’t use the existing pot of money for this.”
Selinger noted that it was important to get started right away, since unusual weather events are becoming more severe and frequent.
“There’s a clear pattern out there and it’s necessary to move on these matters as climate change matters continue to gather steam and storm,” Selinger said.
Wynne said the premiers also agreed that the government’s existing infrastructure plan, currently worth about $50 billion over 10 years, does not correspond to the scale of what’s needed to fix existing infrastructure or provide a coherent strategy to meet future demands.
In Ontario alone, she said her government is investing $35 billion over the next three years on infrastructure.
Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall also attempted to convince his colleagues during a breakfast meeting to consider supporting constitutional change to abolish the Senate.
Wynne said that despite some recent concerns about specific senators, she doesn’t believe it is a top priority of a public that is more focused on jobs and the economy.
“There may very well be consternation and concern, and there is about particular individuals’ behaviour,” said Wynne. “That’s very different than a discussion about an institution and a constitutional debate about an institution and the shape of the Confederation.”
Wall, who was co-chairing a health-care working group with P.E.I. Premier Robert Ghiz, also said Senate reform was not the top issue, but noted that he’d rather see the government using the $100 million in annual spending on the Senate toward healthcare needs. Ghiz added that although he agreed Senate reforms were not among his top priorities, he supports the principle of having an elected Senate with equal and effective representation from all the provinces, more commonly referred to as a TripleE senate.
“I agree with the fact that the status quo is probably not the best way to go,” said Ghiz, who joked he thought Mike Duffy, one of the senators at the heart of recent spending controversies, was an Ontario senator and not representing P.E.I.
“If we can get some national leadership that is truly interested in dealing with these issues and wants to (get) premiers together then I’m still willing to try for a Triple-E senate.”