Prime Minister Mark Carney will meet with the premiers on Thursday next week.Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press
Prime Minister Mark Carney stressed Canadian sovereignty and unity in the face of global disruption this past week, but a coming meeting with the premiers could test how well that message is landing.
Mr. Carney will meet with first ministers in Ottawa next week, fresh off his international trip that included a stop in China. There, he agreed to allow a small number of Chinese-made electric vehicles into Canada in exchange for lowering tariffs on Canadian canola and other products.
The deal won accolades from Saskatchewan but anger from Ontario, the latest example of the Prime Minister balancing competing provincial interests as he signs trade agreements abroad and implements economic and industrial policies at home.
The same tension is at play in the simmering feud between British Columbia and Alberta over Ottawa’s support of a potential new pipeline. Alberta heralded its new deal with Mr. Carney as a win, but for B.C., it was seen as a loss.
Those issues will be up for discussion Wednesday when the premiers hold a Council of the Federation meeting, before all meeting with Mr. Carney on Thursday.
He has made stronger cross-provincial relationships a central plank of his efforts to fend off the damage from global trade disorder.
“At this time of great consequence, we are choosing to work together to build one Canadian economy,” he said in a speech ahead of a cabinet meeting in Quebec City this week.
“We have made great progress over the past year. Now we must redouble efforts with the provinces and territories.”
That Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe joined Mr. Carney in China was unusual; premiers aren’t often at the table for high-stakes international trips.
But Mr. Moe has been engaging with China for years, he told The Globe and Mail in an interview, and had also been in constant communication with Ottawa’s leading negotiators in Beijing as they worked toward an agreement to reduce Chinese tariffs on canola seed.
The end result was a commitment from China to drop the tariffs to approximately 15 per cent from current combined tariff levels of 84 per cent, starting March 1.
Canada will in turn allow 49,000 Chinese-made EVs into the Canadian market annually, a number that will rise over time, and lower the tariff rate to 6.1 per cent – a reduction from the 100-per-cent tariff imposed on all Chinese EVs.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford said he was left in the dark on the scope of the China deal.Blair Gable/Reuters
Mr. Moe was invited to join Mr. Carney in Beijing when he let Ottawa know he’d be in a nearby country, and joined the meeting even though a deal was not guaranteed.
But Ontario Premier Doug Ford said he was left in the dark on the scope of the pending deal, despite warning for weeks that a tariff break on Chinese cars would hurt the auto sector in his province.
Mr. Ford has often spoken of his seemingly close relationship with Mr. Carney – even hosting the Prime Minister for a sleepover at his Muskoka cottage this past summer.
He spoke candidly about the lack of communication from Mr. Carney in this instance.
“The Prime Minister knows my number, and I thought we had a good enough relationship that he’d give me quick text or a little bit of communication,” Mr. Ford told reporters on Monday at the Ontario legislature.
“That never happened. That’s fine. Like I said, I know where I stand with him.”
The two leaders spoke on Thursday, Mr. Ford’s spokesperson, Hannah Jensen, told The Globe.
A senior government official described the call as amicable. The Globe is not naming the official as they are not authorized to speak publicly about internal deliberations.
Though Mr. Carney does have direct contact with premiers, the day-to-day management of the relationship falls to varying groups.
For example, Alberta and Quebec maintain offices in Ottawa tasked with promoting provincial interests at the federal level.
Pascal Mailhot, who heads the Quebec office, said communication has improved since Mr. Carney replaced former prime minister Justin Trudeau.
Mr. Mailhot said it’s helpful to have Marc-André Blanchard, a Quebecker, as the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, because he understands issues of importance to the province. “It’s easier,” he said.
Though, Mr. Carney’s speech on Canadian history and unity ahead of the cabinet meeting Thursday inflamed Quebec officials this week. Both the government and Parti Québécois are accusing him of rewriting history to cast British colonialism in a favourable light.
Mr. Blanchard also speaks regularly with Mr. Ford’s chief of staff, Patrick Sackville.
Mr. Carney signs a pipeline memorandum of understanding with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith in Calgary, Nov. 27.Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press
In British Columbia, the day-to-day politics of the relationship are fronted by senior B.C. MP, Housing and Infrastructure Minister Gregor Robertson, and Mr. Carney’s deputy chief of staff Braeden Caley, a native of Richmond, B.C.
Both Mr. Robertson and Mr. Caley would have been on the receiving end of B.C. Premier David Eby’s anger when he learned mostly through media reports about the memorandum of understanding that Alberta had negotiated with Ottawa to pursue a potential oil pipeline across northern B.C.
The deal does commit both Alberta and Ottawa to engagement with B.C. over the project.
Alberta’s Danielle Smith will attend the provincial and federal meetings in Ottawa this week in person, her office confirmed, but they couldn’t yet say if she will be discussing the MOU on the sidelines with Mr. Eby.
Mr. Eby told reporters on Wednesday that communications between his province and the Prime Minister’s Office are positive.
“We have a very good, open relationship with the Prime Minister’s Office. He is keeping quite a blistering global schedule, and we’re trying to keep up,” he said.
The B.C. government was happy that Mr. Carney’s China trip resulted in an MOU on modern wood construction, reaffirming China’s willingness to look at B.C. softwood lumber for housing. The forestry industry has been hammered by U.S. tariffs and duties.
Mr. Eby in the past has been critical of Mr. Carney doing more for other sectors affected by tariffs – such as Ontario’s auto industry – than for B.C.’s lumber producers.
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The China deal was Mr. Ford’s moment to complain about imbalance.
He held two press conferences last week expressing concerns that the agreement will hurt his province’s auto sector.
Mr. Ford found out about the agreement late on Jan. 15, only a few hours before the Prime Minister made the announcement in Beijing, according to the senior government official.
Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic LeBlanc and Privy Council Clerk Michael Sabia briefed him for about an hour, and also held another briefing with premiers after the deal was announced.
Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew said Mr. Carney’s communications weren’t as frequent as usual when the deal was coming together in China. The Premier attributed that to complicated travel dynamics.
He told The Globe on Friday he mostly handles his province’s behind-the-scenes communications with Ottawa by himself.
“I have an open line of communication with the Prime Minister,” Mr. Kinew told The Globe.
The China deal was well-received in Atlantic Canada, with New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland saying it spells relief for the seafood industry, which was also affected by Chinese tariffs.
Saskatchewan’s Mr. Moe said he has a lot of respect for Mr. Ford, and that the provinces – and Ottawa – are broadly united in a common goal: finding a way through the global turmoil that benefits the country as a whole.
“But it doesn’t mean in any way, shape or form, that we agree on each and every thing that happens,” he said.
And while Mr. Ford has expressed his frustration with the Prime Minister this week, he also said he believes the relationship can be repaired.
“I’m a little ticked off at the PM,” he said during a speech earlier this week. “But he’s coming over, hopefully, for a sandwich, maybe a pizza or something. We’ll always have the bumps in the road, but at the end of the day, we’re going to do what’s right. For not just Ontario, but for Canada.”