{"id":192858,"date":"2018-12-07T02:38:23","date_gmt":"2018-12-07T07:38:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=192858"},"modified":"2018-12-07T02:38:23","modified_gmt":"2018-12-07T07:38:23","slug":"premiers-head-to-montreal-for-tough-meeting-with-trudeau","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2018\/12\/07\/premiers-head-to-montreal-for-tough-meeting-with-trudeau\/","title":{"rendered":"Premiers head to Montreal for tough meeting with Trudeau"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
FILE: Had the pleasure of speaking with Premiers Scott Moe and Blaine Higgs ahead of the First Ministers meeting to discuss some of the issues facing our provinces. The job-killing carbon tax is top of mind. (Photo<\/a>: FordNation\/Facebook<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ontario Premier Doug Ford arrived in Montreal for a first ministers conference ready to walk away from the table, his office warned.<\/p>\n

Sources close to the premier said he’s prepared to walk away from the meeting Friday if it does not include specific discussions on the federal carbon tax. And when he met Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in person at a downtown hotel for a preliminary meeting Thursday, Ford went right at him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m pleased to be here in Montreal,\u201d Ford said in front of reporters, with Trudeau a few feet away. \u201cIt’s a great city, beautiful city, great people. I’m glad to sit down with you, Justin, and talk about things that matter to the people of Ontario. I’ll tell you what matters to the people of Ontario is the job-killing carbon tax.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ontario also wants to talk about finding new jobs for workers affected by General Motors’ plans to close a plant in Oshawa next year and \u201cthe illegal border-crossers that are costing our province over $200 million,\u201d Ford said.<\/p>\n

Trudeau was generous with Ford, at least overtly.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s a pleasure to welcome Doug here to Quebec, to Montreal, my hometown,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is an opportunity for us to talk about the issues that matter to Ontarians, to Canadians \u2014 economic growth, continuing to work hard to create good jobs for the middle class, creating opportunities for everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wrangling over the agenda for the Friday meeting has dominated the leadup.<\/p>\n

\u201cTomorrow will be a test to see if our prime minister is listening to working people across the nation,\u201d Saskatchewan’s Scott Moe told reporters in a news conference of his own. \u201cWe have had large job losses in certain industries across this nation and some of that is attributed to some of the federal government’s policies.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alberta Premier Rachel Notley, before leaving Edmonton, said she’ll have allies in the room to help push talks on Alberta’s oil-price crisis<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is really no province in the country that doesn’t owe Alberta to some degree for their schools, their hospitals, their roads. The fact of the matter is Alberta has to do well for Canada to do well,\u201d Notley said.<\/p>\n

She noted that forecasts for Canada’s economic growth are already more muted because of the low price Alberta is getting for its oil in the United States and its inability to move its product to ports for shipment overseas.<\/p>\n

Notley also said she doesn’t want to spend time listening to what the federal government says it is already doing to try to address Alberta’s concerns.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt just doesn’t make sense … talking about things that have already happened,\u201d she said. \u201cWe don’t need federal ministers to explain to us what they’ve already done. We’re all capable of reading their press releases.\u201d<\/p>\n

Federal officials have privately conceded that little headway is likely to be made on the official objective of the meeting: reducing interprovincial trade barriers.<\/p>\n

\u2014 With files from Dean Bennett in Edmonton, Giuseppe Valiante in Montreal and Shawn Jeffords in Toronto<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ontario Premier Doug Ford arrived in Montreal for a first ministers conference ready to walk away from the table, his …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":192862,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-192858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news-ca","category-news","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192858","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=192858"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192858\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/192862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}