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The late unpleasantness between Kathleen Wynne and Stephen Harper may appear to have been resolved by their meeting last Monday in Toronto.
But, behind the scenes, all is not well and hostilities may be resumed when the Ontario Premier travels to Ottawa to speak on the state of the federation at a Canada 2020 conference on Jan. 20.
The suspicion at Queen’s Park is that the Prime Minister met Ms. Wynne simply to buy some peace and shut down a source of relentless criticism. The Premier had previously bemoaned the fact that Mr. Harper had refused to meet with her in 2014.
In her media availability following the pre-hockey game summit, she called the meeting a “positive step forward” and refrained from the kind of megaphone diplomacy that has characterized their relationship to this point.
But it is understood that the Premier expects to see some concrete results emerging from the conversation and that if those don’t materialize, she will go back on the offensive. The catalyst for a new cold war is likely to be the Ring of Fire in Northern Ontario.
Ms. Wynne said that she and Mr. Harper had a “good discussion” over the mineral deposit project and the provincial request for $1-billion in federal funding to match the provincial government’s planned investment. “Federal support will help move forward this important project, which will create jobs, provide opportunities for First Nations communities and provide economic benefits well beyond our province,” she said.
The federal government seems markedly less thrilled about handing over $1-billion to a development corporation run by Ontario bureaucrats.
Ottawa says it needs detailed plans from Ontario, including tangible, fully costed proposals for infrastructure. Senior Conservatives say there has been no formal invitation to participate in the development corporation.
Ontario Liberals say the feds have been invited to the table, and the devco is not designed to be a solely provincial initiative and Ottawa needs to get involved to pull the project together, alongside business, First Nations and interested communities. “It’s disingenuous for them to say they expect a ‘proposal’,” said one provincial official.
For the rest of this column, click here: http://news.nationalpost.com/2015/01/08/john-ivison-harper-wynne-meeting-a-good-discussion-but-not-end-of-cold-war-between-ontario-and-the-feds/