Infrastructure, fuel taxes are high on the to-do list as premiers gather in Winnipeg

As Canada's premiers gather in Winnipeg this week, the priorities they're articulating seem to be less about their collective action and more — much more — about what they want the federal government to do next.

Is the Council of the Federation basically a lobbying shop now, with premiers meeting to line up their top targets and talking points and to disseminate their demands?

When this suggestion was put to Manitoba Premier Heather Stefanson on Monday, the chair of this week's talks disagreed with this premise and told reporters they needed to wait and see how the premiers might work together and share best practices.

"To the extent that there [is] common ground … we have no problem, no problem going to Ottawa as united provinces and territories," she said. "I look forward to having the discussions in the next couple of days to see what those will look like."

From climate change mitigation to child-care delivery, there's no shortage of ways provinces and territories could be sharing and co-operating on more than their wish lists for Ottawa. 

But the news conveyed to reporters covering the last premiers meeting in Victoria consisted mostly of demand after demand for the federal government.

The to-do list premiers are drafting this year for the federal government includes billions in infrastructure money and compensation for unaffordable federal fuel taxes. 

Last February, their big demand for long-term health-care funding was granted — not to the complete satisfaction of all, but only Quebec has yet to conclude negotiations. (Even without signing on to the federal conditions, its money is already flowing.)

Does that mean this year's meeting won't feature health-care demands? 

Of course not, particularly while there aren't enough health-care workers to improve service levels, something nurses unions will take up with the premiers first thing Tuesday morning. 

Things didn't start this way

When the Council of the Federation was founded in 2003, premiers intended to find ways to exercise their jurisdictions and act on their own toward national goals, not just demand that Ottawa fix what's broken.

In 2010 they formed an alliance to work together on the bulk purchase of pharmaceutical drugs, for example, and this co-operation lowered the price of several hundred brand name and generic drugs within a decade. 

A national drug formulary as part of universal pharmacare coverage may eventually supersede this work — assuming this condition for the NDP's supply and confidence agreement with the Liberals leads to more price reductions than Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos has enabled to date. But the long march to lower drug costs started with the premiers.

By 2016's gathering, more collaboration among the premiers had landed an interprovincial trade agreement. 

Some but not all premiers took incremental steps toward liberalizing alcohol sales. The signatories celebrated the trade pact's fifth anniversary late last year by touting more progress liberalizing cannabis trade and drafting a financial services chapter.

The implementation of this deal remains imperfect. Interprovincial red tape continues to frustrate and bind Canadian businesses. Cutting it could add tens of billions to the economy, but stubborn jurisdictional protectionism persists.

Hot this year: infrastructure

Business groups have come to Winnipeg to deliver a specific message to the premiers on infrastructure spending: Yes, Canada needs more housing, but transportation infrastructure is in deficit too, and significantly constricts the economy.

Focusing minds this week is the re-emergence of serious supply chain headaches — if they were even truly healed post-COVID — thanks to the B.C. port workers strike.

Last spring's budget didn't include a replacement for the Investing in Canada Infrastructure program, which is set to expire at the end of this fiscal year. 

In a speech to the Federation of Canadian Municipalities in late May, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told Canada's mayors and councillors that a new, long-term infrastructure plan was coming this fall that would have "very direct links" to the housing crisis and the federal government needed them to "help push" provinces and territories to get more built, because no single level of government can solve this alone.

Last month, premiers wrote to Trudeau asking for the next round of federal infrastructure funding to be allocated through their jurisdictions rather than straight to municipalities.

While acknowledging that the needs in some jurisidictions, particularly the territories of the North, are greater, premiers nevertheless want funds to flow "fairly" on a per-capita basis.

Arriving in Winnipeg, Ontario Premier Doug Ford called infrastructure his top priority.

"I love Dom Leblanc — he's a great guy," Ford said of the federal intergovernmental affairs minister. "We're great pals. Hopefully he can come to the table for the rest of the country."

Clean energy tensions

Canada's diverse geography and energy sources have made agreement on climate change strategies difficult for premiers. But they do have a common enemy at this year's meeting: federal climate policy.

Last week, Atlantic Canadians started paying more for fossil fuels, thanks to both new federal fuel taxes and oil and gas companies passing on their cost of complying with new clean fuel regulations.

In another letter to Trudeau, Atlantic premiers said not only does this add to inflationary pressures on consumers, it has a disproportionate impact on their region where other alternatives are less common and more expensive.

Northern premiers make a similar point about their people having few alternatives to using propane, or a dirtier fuel like diesel.

Arriving in Winnipeg, Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Andrew Furey suggested premiers agree the federal government can do more to offset these new costs.

Meanwhile, Ford's ability to work with the federal government has landed his province billions in clean energy subsidies for the automotive industry, as the federal government attempts to prevent clean energy investments from fleeing south, lured by valuable subsidies from the Biden administration.

"We would also like to have our share in Quebec," Premier François Legault told reporters as he arrived.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has also called out the federal billions flowing to Ontario's battery plants as well as the Atlantic Loop electricity project, saying her province needs "equivalent investments" in carbon capture utilization and storage, hydrogen and small module nuclear reactors.

"We are not transitioning away from oil and natural gas, we are transitioning away from emissions," she told reporters at the Western premiers conference last month in Whistler.