Can’t they ever just get along, Justin Trudeau and Danielle Smith? Sometimes, yes!

March 14, 2024 Canuck

In among all the pokey words Premier Danielle Smith flung at the prime minister (and his environment minister) after meeting with Justin Trudeau, one gentler term nudged its way into her rhetoric.

Gratitude.

That’s right. From a premier from this western province to a PM with that surname.

“I also expressed gratitude for the progress on the Trans Mountain pipeline,” Smith told reporters in Edmonton, fresh off the road after her one-on-one with Trudeau down south in Calgary.

Trans Mountain is the project Trudeau has loved talking about as a symbol of his support for the petro-province, ever since the Liberal government purchased the beleaguered venture in 2018. Conservative Alberta premiers have been less quick to acknowledge the costly gesture amid their frustrations with Liberals on fossil fuel issues.

But in a matter of weeks, Alberta’s westward pipeline capacity will triple, thanks to the $30 billion Trans Mountain expansion, and top Alberta and federal politicians will jointly appear at any ceremonial ribbon-cutting once the diluted bitumen starts flowing.

Thanks, but also no thanks

This grateful note from Smith was in a post-meeting press briefing far more heavily dominated by discussion of conflict points, most notably the carbon tax and Trudeau’s refusal to heed a premier’s wishes that he dump Steven Guilbeault as environment minister.

Those were the headline-grabbing tensions during the pair’s photo op before their Calgary sit-down — she cited that seven premiers now want a pause on the planned carbon tax hike to $80 per tonne in April, while he boasted of the increase to $1,800 for typical Alberta families from the newly rebranded Canada Carbon Rebate.

But those flashpoints only came after Smith mentioned a string of emissions-reducing industrial plants Ottawa and Alberta have collaborated on, to develop net-zero plastics and cement, as well as hydrogen.

Plus, that more likely emissions-increasing project:

“I’d also like to thank the prime minister for getting the Trans Mountain pipeline nearly to the finish line,” Smith said as the cameras snapped. “It’s going to be a major boost, not only for Alberta.”

Trudeau gently smiled and nodded at the kudos.

three women standing in a row, wearing winter jackets. the two at each end are looking at each other. — Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, left, Fort Saskatchewan Mayor Gale Katchur and Smith were happy together last November at Dow Chemical’s announcement of plans for the world’s first net-zero carbon emissions plastics complex. (Jason Franson/The Canadian Press)

In their separate news conferences after they met — 300 kilometres away from each other — they described their conversations as “constructive.” It might be the most common term politicians employ to describe meetings, most notably when public perception points to other terms like “fraught.”

The fraught stuff is all highly public, from dire warnings and lawsuits against assorted climate policies to the Sovereignty Act and accusing Guilbeault of “treachery.”

But behind the political quips and press-release statements, there are a series of federal-provincial working tables that senior officials from both levels have quietly been meeting at to hammer out the finer points of regulation and policy. Smith praised those again today.

Do they agree on the Clean Electricity Regulations and Ottawa’s net-zero grid by 2035 target? Nope.

Are they closer together after last month’s changes by Guilbeault and his department that offered more flexibility for natural gas plants? Alberta ministers won’t say yep, but the power generators they’re defending are more likely to.

At the Smith-Trudeau meeting — the first since July — Alberta’s premier also pressed him on another low-carbon industrial file. She said Alberta and its hydrogen-producing sector have a “massive opportunity” to export ammonia to Japan and South Korea as they try to decarbonize their electricity systems.

“It would be nice to have the federal government weigh in and offer some support for that,” Smith told reporters. The prime minister gave her pitch a “warm reception,” a senior provincial source told CBC News.

Federal Energy Minister Jonathan Wilkinson, meanwhile, has discussed ammonia on a mission to Japan, so the economic prospects are on his radar.

On drugs

Even on pharmacare, the provincial tone seems to have taken a shift since Health Minister Adriana LaGrange said Alberta would opt out and demand cash instead, nearly as soon as Trudeau and the federal NDP struck a deal to launch the beginnings of a federal pharmaceuticals program.

LaGrange had argued the province already had “robust” coverage of medications through a blend of worker insurance, Alberta Blue Cross and provincial coverage for seniors and low-income people.

However, Smith emerged from Wednesday’s meeting by noting that 26 per cent of Albertans still lack drug coverage, and she’d like to improve that — just not necessarily the way Ottawa wants it, starting with contraception and diabetes medication.

Trudeau, for his part, signalled his government will strive to be flexible with provinces, given their own unique pharmaceutical programs. “What I said to her is, look, we want to work with you in a way that makes sense for you that will be different from B.C., different from Quebec…” he explained.

“The federal government isn’t defining the program. We’re going to sit down and work with the provinces to deliver ways that cover the gaps.”

Those gaps, based on Smith’s numbers, mean more than one million Albertans pay out-of-pocket for prescriptions.

Could this be headed in the same direction as the child-care deal? At the outset, then-premier Jason Kenney cast doubt on Alberta’s interest in a federal “cookie-cutter” program.

But provinces tend not to like turning down truckloads of federal money to improve their residents’ lives. Within months, federal and provincial officials designed a subsidy program that works for the provinces’ many private daycare providers, to the ultimate benefit of its mothers and fathers.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, right, looks on as as Alberta Premier Jason Kenney makes a child-care announcement in Edmonton on Nov. 15, 2021. — In late 2021, then-Alberta premier Jason Kenney, left, and Trudeau jointly announced $10-a-day child care was coming to the province, months after Kenney cast skepticism on Alberta’s interest in a ‘cookie-cutter’ program. (Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press)

Heated rhetoric and tensions are good for political point-scoring and headlines, especially now with every premier in a carbon-tax-paying province except Manitoba criticizing next month’s increase, and its growing unpopularity.

Trudeau punched back, defending his increasingly unpopular measure, which he said isn’t the sort of thing he did to be popular.

“That’s an easy thing for short-term-thinker politicians to say, ‘Oh, we’ll get rid of the price,'” he said. “They don’t also talk about the fact that they’re also going to get rid of that cheque, the Canada Carbon Rebate.”

That will remain an intractable disagreement until one side bends, and that doesn’t currently seem likely.

And to the premier’s insistence Trudeau fire Guilbeault, he replies: “If people are having trouble getting along with him, maybe they need to look at their own approach to these big issues.”

But behind Smith’s demands, and declaration she cannot work with him, what happened in Ottawa early last month? Guilbeault and Environment Minister Rebecca Schulz had their own meeting. Their senior officials converse and collaborate.

It happens out of necessity and pragmatism. And federalism, and shared jurisdiction.

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Can’t they ever just get along, Justin Trudeau and Danielle Smith? Sometimes, yes!

Thanks, but also no thanks

On drugs

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