LILLEY: Premiers hopeful after Carney meets Trump at White House

A day after he went to the White House to meet with Donald Trump, newly elected Prime Minister Mark Carney faced a tougher crowd — Canada’s premiers. Yet, Carney seemed to escape that meeting unscathed and even agreed to meet with the premiers in person three weeks from now.

In a tip of the hat to Western Canada, Carney will meet with provincial and territorial premiers in Saskatoon during the first week of June.

Carney comes to office facing a real problem of Western alienation as residents of Saskatchewan and Alberta, in particular, feel they aren’t wanted in Conferderation. The Trudeau Liberal government seemed to revel in picking fights with these provinces which often didn’t vote Liberal. Trudeau also gave them very little reason to back his party with policies that attacked not only the oil and gas industry but also agriculture.

While Ontario Premier Dog Ford came out of the virtual meeting on Wednesday saying Carney had done a good job in Washington, he said the new Liberal government needed to start respecting the Prairie provinces.

“I said it’s time that your government starts showing some love to Saskatchewan and Alberta, because the last prime minister showed no love, in fact, to the contrary,” Ford said.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, often seen as an opponent of Ottawa, said that dealing with Mark Carney is a welcome departure from engaging with Justin Trudeau.

“I can tell you that he certainly has set a different tone with the premiers,” Smith said.

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“The fact that he’s already had several meetings with us, we have an in-person meeting planned. He’s made sure to be in touch with us every time he comes back to give us bit of an update.”

Smith said she had some sympathy for the press conference that Carney had to sit through on Tuesday, noting that the PM had very few chances to speak.

“As you know, I met the president and I, too, had to spend more time listening than talking,” Smith said.

She went on to say that she felt Prime Minister Carney did a good job of trying to get his points across while keeping the meeting cordial.

“I don’t think I’d have had the restraint that he had,” Ontario Premier Doug Ford said, while speaking to reporters.

There has been an attempt to drive a wedge between Ford and Smith, especially given her government’s decision to allow a referendum on separation to happen at a lower threshold. In her interview with The Toronto Sun, Smith explained that the legislation on direct initiatives was more than a year in the making and while the threshold was lower than what was previously in place, it was still higher than recall or direct initiative legislation in places like California.

She dismissed the idea that Ford was criticizing her by calling for a united Canada, something she said this week that she supports.

“Doug’s a friend and he and I find a lot of common ground when we’re talking about the issues that matter to our respective provinces,” Smith told me.

Ford also downplayed the idea of a rift.

“We get along. I think there is this big misnomer that we don’t get along,” Ford said. “There isn’t this big rift that everyone is playing out.”

Ford said that he wants to support Alberta and Saskatchewan in getting their projects built. He submitted his projects earlier this week as did Alberta.

Carney asked each province to submit a list of nation building projects they want the federal government to support, and Smith said she’s hopeful the new government will change course and support these projects.

“Every single premier has a priority project that has been stymied in some way because of onerous federal regulations. And I think that now we’re beginning to see how important it is for us to support each other so we can develop our economy, become that economic powerhouse,” Smith said.

At this point, while Carney is making the right noises, by the meeting in Saskatoon in June, we will find out if he is serious.