VICTORIA, B.C. – Is Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s United Conservative Party Government now planning to introduce a new, tougher Sovereignty Act to fight Ottawa’s proposed emissions regulations? Alberta Environment Minister Rebecca Schulz (Photo: Alberta Newsroom/Flickr). As is well known, the plainly unconstitutional Alberta Sovereignty Within a United Canada Act has
Continue readingTag: federal-provincial relations
Alberta Politics: With freeze on renewables and vow to ignore federal net-zero rules, Alberta’s on its way to being a three-alarm international dumpster fire!
Whether or not Premier Danielle Smith and her enabler and office manager Rob Anderson carefully planned their freeze on renewable electricity generation last week or just came up with it on a whim, it’s now turning into a three-alarm international dumpster fire. Deputy Premier Nathan Neudorf (Photo: Linked-In). On Wednesday
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Premier’s meeting with PM sparks petulantly hyperbolic ‘readout,’ Postmedia hysteria
Danielle Smith’s petulant afternoon “readout” from Friday’s Calgary Stampede meeting with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau suggests Alberta’s premier didn’t get very far trying to bully the feds into abandoning their energy emissions targets. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, looking steely eyed (Photo: Liberal Party of Canada). In other words, my assessment
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Bank of Canada ends provincial short-term debt backstop #nlpoli
The Bank of Canada will stop picking up provincial government debt effective 16 November, 2020, the Bank announced Monday. The move reflects “the continued improvement in the functioning of short-term funding markets and financial markets more generally,” according to the announcement. The last operation for the Provincial Money Market Purchase program will
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: A bail out, a bail out … #nlpoli
Conversation about the province’s financial state in the past couple of weeks have turned to talk of bailouts and threats to the province’s sovereignty. A Carlton University economist told CBC in early January that the provincial government would need a bailout to keep the province from collapsing under the weight of
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: The Tibb’s Eve Accord #nlpoli
Health minister John Haggie said that the health deal signed with Ottawa on Tibb’s Eve was the best deal that could be got. Haggie’s probably right. At least, the deal contains a clause that if another province gets a better deal, we can opt for that one instead. It’s been so
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Equalization… again #nlpoli
Equalization is a really simple idea.In order to ensure that Canadians across the country have access to comparable services regardless of where they live, the federal government sends money to provinces that don’t make enough on their own.The …
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: The Bridge to Ottawa #nlpoli
Premier Dwight Ball said everything is on the table to deal with the massive financial problem facing his administration.And then, in a string of year-end interviews, Ball immediately took everything off the table. No cuts to spending as that wou…
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Blackmail and the Conservative dysfunction #nlpoli
Paul Davis and his cabinet were all smiles and chuckles last week at the election of a new administration in Ottawa. Optimistic for the future. Looking forward to a new relationship and all that. Then came the issue if the tariff on ships of a certain size built outside Canada.
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Lions or jellyfish: a review
Historian Ray Blake’s new book Lions or jellyfish: Newfoundland – Ottawa relations since 1957 is likely to be be on many reading lists. It should be. Blake examines: the Term 29 dispute, hydro-electric development in Labrador between 1960 and 1970, resettlement, offshore oil and gas ownership, Meech Lake, the ‘Williams’
Continue readingNorthern Reflections: From The Bottom Up
http://thehealthcareblog.com/ It’s no secret that Stephen Harper hates government. For almost a decade, he has worked maniacally to reduce the size and the scope of the federal government. At the same time, he has steadfastly refused to meet with the premiers. Somewhere along the line, he forgot that Canada
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Federal Presents, the 2015 edition #nlpoli
November 2005. The Harris Centre at Memorial University issued a report on the number of federal public servants working in Newfoundland and Labrador. With a Liberal administration in Ottawa and with a provincial Conservative government that enjoyed shooting at foreign enemies, the whole argument about federal presence was a big
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: The Federal Boogeyman #nlpoli
The Liberals kept poking at Premier Paul Davis in the House of Assembly on Tuesday about the European free trade deal announced last year. Specifically, Liberal leader Dwight Ball asked Davis for the second day in a row about a joint federal-provincial fund under the deal that would see the
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: The Long Reach Of Partisan Politics
h/t Montreal Simon In Ontario, we noticed the long federal reach of divisive partisan politics during our recent election. Joe Oliver, our alleged finance minister, interposed his views, lamenting the fiscal state of Ontario that, according to him, is bringing down the rest of Canada. Of course, the disingenuous Uncle
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Converting principles to other people’s money #nlpoli
When Premier Kathy Dunderdale spoke to a St. John’s Board of Trade last May, she claimed the federal government had tried to tie the federal loan guarantee on Muskrat Falls to the European free trade talks. There’s no evidence that her claim is true, at least based on the selected
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: The Conservatives and federal-provincial relations #nlpoli
Two news stories last week reminded us once again of the nature of federal-provincial relations for Newfoundland and Labrador over the past decade. A story in the Chronicle Herald reported on recent comments by Danny Williams about a sharp personal exchange he supposed had with Stephen Harper before the later
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Familiar tunes amid the Shifting Balance of Power #nlpoli
All the talk the past week or so about negotiations between the crowd in Confederation Building and the crowd in Ottawa brought out the conventional wisdom about premiers using fights with the feds for political purposes. The coincidence of a talk on nationalism the week before linked the two ideas
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Maybe it’s just you, Kathy #nlpoli
Prime Minister Stephen Harper met with Alberta Premier Alison Redford when the Pm dropped in for the Calgary Stampede. As the Globe reported: Carl Vallée, a PMO spokesman who was travelling with Mr. Harper during his Stampede stopover, wouldn’t talk about what was discussed during the Prime Minister’s meeting with
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: All’s Not Fairity in Love and War #nlpoli
Premier Kathy Dunderdale should appoint municipal affairs minister Kevin “Fairity” O’Brien to handle intergovernmental affairs. While Dunderdale is busily lobbing hand grenades at the federal government, Fairity is taking a very different attitude: It’s fine enough for me to blame everything on municipalities, and it’s fine enough for you to
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: The Federal-Provincial Puzzle #nlpoli
Premier Kathy Dunderdale is frustrated. “Extremely frustrated” “What is it that we have to do down here to get your attention?” she asked, rhetorically, on Thursday. She expressed that frustration in the House of Assembly in response to questions from Liberal leader Dwight Ball and in a scrum with reporters.
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