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“I am a Canadian, free to speak without fear, free to worship in my own way, free to stand for what I think right, free to oppose what I believe wrong, or free to choose those who shall govern my country. This heritage of freedom I pledge to uphold for myself and all mankind.” ~~ John G. Diefenbaker

Energy and resources, and equalization payments, will be high on the agenda I’m sure, for at least Alberta and Saskatchewan


Over the past two weeks, I’ve noticed that media announcements from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s office, about meetings with provincial leaders, have been lengthy.  Several paragraphs long, they’ve been filled with talk of about collaboration, working together, and discussing the need for co-operation at all levels of government,

Compared to the normal, or regular, announcements from the PM I've seen over the past two weeks, I find this media announcement from Prime Ministers Office a short time ago (10:12am Pacific time), to be of interest for its brevity:

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spoke on November 29 with Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe. The Prime Minister and the Premier affirmed their shared commitment to ongoing collaboration on efforts to support youth mental health and wellness.

That was the entire message .... 

Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe
On the other hand, according to a CTV news story today, they stated that … Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe … all but stormed out of his sit-down with Trudeau more than two weeks ago, insisting he’d heard nothing that gave him any confidence the Liberals were serious about addressing concerns of the west

Hmmmm … I think it will now be interesting to see what comes out of Monday’s meeting, of premiers and territory leaders, as they gather in Toronto.

Energy and resources, and equalization payments, will be high on the agenda I’m sure, for at least Alberta and Jason Kenney, along with Moe’s province of Saskatchewan. 


Quebec on the other hand? 

They’ll likely be happy to chastise both of those provinces for alleged contributions to climate change, all the while greedily accepting billions in federal equalization payment, paid for in large part by monies from those two provinces.


We have some divisions, deep divisions across this country and those were very evident with the results on election night and the differentiation we have in provinces and territories across this nation”.

He then continued, “This meeting is to discuss points that we can agree on, to discuss can we come to a consensus on -- a few items, to provide, as I said, not only guidance for this minority administration that we have governing this nation now, but also to provide the assurance to all Canadians that although we have … a number of things that we do not agree on, there are a number of things that we do agree on, and we’re going to move forward on those”.

Stay tuned … we’ll be hearing just how tomorrows Premiers meeting in Toronto goes, in due time.

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