Quebec has a knack for getting its fair share
There’s always bonhomie when Dalton Mcguinty meets his Quebec counterpart, Jean Charest.
The perennial common front between the premiers of Canada’s “two founding provinces,” on display again Monday, provided a welcome contrast to the recent sniping between Ontario and Alberta’s Alison Redford.
Mcguinty now knows not to rise to the bait when Alberta’s premier carps over the oilsands. But he can let his hair down around Charest, an old warrior who calls him “Dalton” in public and clearly enjoys his company.
But for all the sweetness and light, Mcguinty must feel bittersweet watching Charest glide with such effortless élan into the role of Ottawa-bashing, while Ontario is left sputtering in the dust.
Charest has mastered the script so well in both official languages that he didn’t need a prepared text as he rattled off the ways Quebec is shortchanged. Not so Mcguinty, who stuck doggedly to his notes as he listed slights from Ottawa on immigration, health care and added prison costs.
Unlike Charest, whose Quebec audience laps up complaints about federalism, Mcguinty faces a tougher home crowd: Ontario taxpayers remain largely oblivious to the highway robbery that sends their money down the 401to Quebec through equalization payments and other federal-provincial distortions.
Mcguinty complained that he still can’t persuade Ottawa to negotiate the modest immigration agreements that Manitoba and B.C. signed years ago, and which are giving them a rising share of coveted skilled workers. Recent curbs on settlement spending for new arrivals are costing Ontario $250 million in forgone revenue, but cause barely a ripple in public opinion here.
Almost rubbing it in, Charest jumped in to say that his province benefits from a long-standing immigration accord that gives Quebec de facto control over selection of new arrivals. It also gets a fixed proportion of funding (that comes at the expense of other provinces, notably Ontario). And Quebec has clear agreements giving it control over job training, he boasted. The contrast between Quebec and Ontario is no accident. Perennial national unity wars prompted Ottawa to acquiesce to Quebec’s demands. Ontario’s self-satisfied indifference on key policy issues (notably immigration) is also to blame. And political contradictions haven’t helped: for example, Mcguinty likes to complain that the federal Conservatives are stiffing Ontario with new tough-oncrime laws that will cost the province $1 billion to build more spaces for inmates; yet the premier likes to have it both ways, indulging in foolish anti-crime rhetoric that plays into Ottawa’s hands. Charest and other Quebec politicians are far more consistent in criticizing the Tory penal crusade on both policy and pecuniary grounds. Charest and Mcguinty mounted a united front Monday, warning that Ottawa might unilaterally download programs or cap transfers in the upcoming federal budget (as happened late last year with health care). They’re good at wag- ging their fingers in unison because they’ve been doing it since 2003, when both premiers first won power.
All these years later, the bloom has gone off their respective roses. Mcguinty was reduced to a minority last year, just as Charest was in 2007 (he regained his majority the next year but is once again shaky).
Joint Quebec-ontario cabinet meetings, convened with much fanfare, have been quietly dropped over the past two years — there’s not much synergy when everyone’s polling numbers are sagging. And the fast talk about a high-speed interprovincial rail link has also come to a grinding halt.
Now, most of our cooperation comes down to confrontation with Ottawa.
“Lower Canada, Upper Canada, we go way back,” Mcguinty said gamely Monday.
But when it comes to getting its fair share, Quebec leaves Ontario way behind. Martin Regg Cohn’s provincial affairs column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday. mcohn@thestar.ca, twitter.com/reggcohn.