Trudeau is angering Canada’s premiers
OTTAWA Prime Minister Justin Trudeau came to power promising a new era of federal-provincial cooperation, but now the Liberal leader finds himself locked in battles with friends and foes alike.
It’s not just with “Conservative premiers” who Trudeau says are unserious about tackling climate change because they oppose the federal Liberal consumer carbonlevy-and-rebate scheme.
And it’s not just about the carbon price.
Trudeau’s battles are across the country and on a range of files, where the prime minister claims the federal Liberals are more “ambitious.”
They show just how much pandemic-era goodwill between him and the premiers has eroded, reveal a federal government urgently trying to win some political credit at a time when the Liberals are vulnerable and lay bare contradictions in Trudeau’s arguments.
Trudeau is right that Conservative premiers have opposed his climate action plan alongside federal Conservatives who long ago won the shorthand contest, branding it a “carbon tax” even if it’s technically a levy.
However, the Conservative premiers are now joined by people who should be Trudeau’s political allies: Newfoundland and Labrador Liberal Premier Andrew Furey, Manitoba’s newly elected Premier Wab Kinew and Ontario Liberal party Leader Bonnie Crombie.
All have distanced themselves from Trudeau’s consumer carbon price-and-rebate program.
Seven premiers, including Furey, asked Trudeau to pause the rate increase that just took effect — the April carbon price went up by $15 a tonne or about 3.3 cents on a litre of gasoline — at the very least. Some want to ditch the carbon price altogether and look at other ways to incentivize change.
Only two — B.C.’s David Eby and Yukon’s Ranj Pillai — are still standing behind the federal program, which neither B.C. nor Quebec are subject to because they have their own carbon cap-and-trade pricing system aimed at emissions reductions.
Furey penned an open letter to Trudeau calling for a first ministers’ meeting. He said Ottawa should look at the U.S. where there is no carbon tax, and the Biden administration has gone all out in using the power of the federal treasury to offer public subsidies to leverage a “green economy” transition and prime its electric vehicle industry.
On top of carbon pricing concerns, the premiers are fuming over Trudeau’s latest moves to stomp all over provincial jurisdiction, announcing about $25 billion in prebudget measures in the past week to expand housing, child care and school lunch and breakfast programs — all provincial areas.
Those are on top of Ottawa’s forays into health care, with the Liberal government’s offer of free diabetes meds and birth control as first steps toward a universal drug coverage plan, and with the rollout of a dental care plan.
They are all complex programs to put in place and administer. They all require a measure of provincial buy-in, or at least co-ordination. And on none, according to two senior government sources in different provinces, did Trudeau consult with the provinces in advance.
There was obviously some co-ordination with NDP premiers in B.C. and Manitoba, who were persuaded to join Trudeau for a pair of housing photo-ops in the past week for the Liberal pre-budget tour that’s underway.
Yet on one particularly provocative measure — Tuesday’s promise of $5 billion in new infrastructure spending to boost new housing construction that came with strings attached — it was Canada’s biggest city mayor, Toronto’s Olivia Chow, who stood by and applauded, not Premier Doug Ford.
Several premiers talked about it privately that night on a phone call. The next day, several went public, calling it an overreach.
One provincial source privy to discussions among the provinces said they had never seen this level of frustration among premiers, calling it a risk for national unity.
Trudeau shrugged off questions about intruding on provincial jurisdiction Thursday. He said Canadians want to see action.
Ford, too, publicly downplayed jurisdictional squabbles, saying that everyone just wants to get housing built. But the Ontario premier made clear he doesn’t think Ottawa should be dictating to other levels of government, including municipalities, whether they must allow fourplexes to be built without municipal permits (or “as of right”).
Ford has long opposed Trudeau on carbon pricing, but the reality is on many other files he has been an ally of the Trudeau government.
So it seems curious Trudeau saw the need to pick the fourplex battle with him.
Yet there’s irony in the fact that Trudeau — who said in August “housing isn’t a primary federal responsibility” — is now prepared to dictate conditions for housing funds to the provinces or bypass them altogether.
Trudeau says he will give the money directly to municipalities willing to accept those conditions and match the federal “ambition” to move faster on housing.
Last week, it was “Conservative premiers” who weren’t ambitious enough on child care. They were deliberately “slow-walking” the rollout of the Liberals’ $10-a-day daycare plan because, Trudeau said, they were taking their cue from federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre.
On Thursday, standing next to Premier Kinew, the prime minister insisted he remains “open” to working with provinces, and to hearing Manitoba’s carbon tax exemption plan right after their housing photo-op.
“Provinces that want to price pollution in their own way can do so as long as it is equivalent in impact to what’s going on elsewhere in the country, for matters of fairness and for matters of shared ambition,” he said.
So, when he asserts federal jurisdiction, Trudeau insists the provinces have to follow his lead. And, when he flexes federal spending power in areas of provincial jurisdiction, they still have to follow his lead. If it’s a matter of winning political credit, it may also come at a price of losing political allies.