Premiers to gather for a meeting in Toronto Dec. 2
Provincial and territorial leaders spoke on the phone last week for the first time since the federal election
Canada's provincial and territorial premiers will meet face-to-face on Dec. 2 in Toronto, CBC News has learned.
Last week, the leaders held a conference call chaired by Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe to discuss the Council of the Federation's (COF) approach to engaging with the new minority Liberal government in Ottawa.
It was their first conversation since the federal election and the first chance for Caroline Cochrane, the new premier of the Northwest Territories, to address her colleagues.
In a release that followed that call, Moe said that the premiers "agreed to a future meeting of the COF table before the end of the 2019 calendar year to focus on further addressing these issues."
Sources with knowledge of the meeting also told CBC News that Ontario Premier Doug Ford offered to host the gathering, so Toronto was picked for the location.
It is not yet known whether the premiers will gather for an informal dinner on the Sunday evening before the meeting — a fixture of these types of gatherings.
The premiers last met in July in Saskatoon, amid heightened interprovincial and federal tensions that have continued since the federal election.
The narrow outcome of the vote has been driving talk of regional fractures within Canada, stoked by the return of the separatist Bloc Québécois and growing signs of western alienation.
B.C. Premier John Horgan said he agreed with Premier Ford when he expressed his support during the call for increasing immigration to their provinces — an issue on which Quebec Premier François Legault is moving in the opposite direction.
And the issue of pipelines pits Quebec and B.C. against Alberta and Saskatchewan.
An official media release with more details on December's meeting is expected by Friday.
With files from Ryan Patrick Jones