XPost: can.politics, tor.general   
   From: Raisa@nyet.ca   
      
   By Stephen Maher, Postmedia News November 21, 2014   
      
      
   Harper’s on thin ice snubbing the premier of Ontario   
      
      
   In December 2013, Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne had a meeting with Prime   
   Minister Stephen Harper on Parliament Hill to discuss plans to build   
   infrastructure to allow miners to exploit the Ring of Fire mineral fields north   
   of Thunder Bay.   
      
   Both sides said that the meeting went well, but the next day, Wynne complained   
   to reporters that Harper wouldn’t agree to her plan to expand the Canada   
   Pension Plan.   
      
   In May, during a provincial election campaign in which Harper was pulling for   
   Wynne’s opponent, Tim Hudak, she told the Toronto Star more about that   
   meeting.   
      
   Wynne said Harper told her that people need to save for their own retirements.   
   “He kind of smirked at one point and sort of said: ‘Well, they have   
   mortgages   
   and things to pay.’ ”   
      
   Harper’s office cried foul, pointed out that Wynne was complaining many   
   months   
   after the meeting, in the middle of an election campaign. “Presumably she   
   made   
   the comments she made today to distract from her mismanagement of the Ontario   
   economy and the fact that she can’t run on her party’s record,” said   
   Jason   
   MacDonald, the prime minister’s director of communications.   
      
   But she won the election. Since then, she hasn’t been able to get a meeting   
   with Harper.   
      
   On Wednesday, she complained in the legislature that Harper has refused to sit   
   down with her.   
      
   “The issues at hand are of vital interest and importance to the more than 13   
   million residents of our province, and they have a right to expect a close and   
   positive collaboration between their federal and provincial heads of   
   government,” she said.   
      
   Harper returned fire in the House of Commons.   
      
   “We understand the province of Ontario has pretty significant challenges,”   
   he   
   said. “In the approach we are taking at our level, we have been able to   
   balance   
   the budget by lowering taxes and providing benefits to families. That is what   
   the people of Ontario need.”   
      
   Harper has a point, in a way. Wynne’s government has a $12.5 billion deficit,   
   thanks in part to her open hand with public sector unions. If she took a   
   tougher line with unions, reduced program spending and cut services, that   
   deficit would be significantly smaller.   
      
   But she didn’t campaign to do any of those things. She campaigned on a   
   free-spending budget, and voters gave her a majority. Hudak, who promised to   
   cut spending, is now a former party leader. If he had been elected premier, you   
   can be sure that Harper would have met with him, as he met with new Alberta   
   Premier Jim Prentice in Calgary last month.   
      
   And not all of Wynne’s financial problems are of her own making.   
      
   For the most part, Harper has taken a businesslike approach to   
   federal-provincial transfers, providing fixed, predictable increases in health   
   funding and avoiding first ministers’ meetings where the premiers can   
   complain   
   about how they’re getting shafted.   
      
   It is as predictable and tedious as cold November winds. The premiers go before   
   the cameras, and either complain in a single voice that Ottawa hasn’t put   
   enough money on the table, or, if that’s not believable, complain that their   
   province has been shortchanged relative to the others.   
      
   But just because they always complain doesn’t mean that it’s always   
   nonsense.   
      
   In his last budget, Jim Flaherty made a change to the equalization formula that   
   took $641 million away from Ontario with the stroke of a pen. The Ontario   
   government is getting $1.2 billion less in equalization payments this year than   
   last.   
      
   The cut comes because the feds tinkered with the secret formula used to cut up   
   the money, removing a floor that protects provinces from a dramatic drop in any   
   given year. The feds say that was always intended to be a short-term measure,   
   but that’s not what they said when they introduced it, and it sure looks like   
   they made the change to take money away from Wynne, something they did to Danny   
   Williams when he was Tory Enemy Number 1.   
      
   Flaherty often took potshots at Dalton McGuinty, but behind the scenes the two   
   governments found ways to divide up infrastructure money and get roads paved   
   and ribbons cut.   
      
   In contrast, Flaherty’s successor, Joe Oliver, hasn’t managed to get   
   Wynne’s   
   government to co-operate on infrastructure spending as they struggle over who   
   should pay for Ring of Fire developments.   
      
   Harper is on thin ice here, and had best be careful.   
      
   Ontarians, unlike Newfoundlanders, Quebecers or Albertans, are not ready to   
   rally against Ottawa at the drop of a hat, but Wynne is starting to build a   
   credible argument.   
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   This week’s Conservative byelection victory in Flaherty’s old riding shows   
   that   
   reports of the Tories’ demise in suburban Toronto may be exaggerated, but   
   they   
   know they’re in for a fight to keep the Ontario seats that will decide the   
   next   
   federal election.   
      
   It’s hard to see how feuding with Wynne will help them keep those seats.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)