Canada’s premiers on on July 16 lamented what they said was the federal government’s lack of teamwork on important files from housing to school lunch programs, with British Columbia’s premier saying working with Ottawa can feel like “beating our head against a wall.”
Premiers of the ten provinces and three territories are in Halifax for three days this week for the summer meeting of the Council of the Federation, hosted by Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston.
“As provinces and territories, we have some things that are in our wheelhouse, that are our jurisdiction. We know a lot about them, we know what we need. And we have ideas about how to approach them,” he said.
“So what we’ve asked for from Ottawa is to partner with us on those things and work with us, and not try to go around us—as may be the case sometimes, as we see on some of the housing stuff that’s happening now.”
One federal program that gets heat from provinces is Ottawa’s Housing Accelerator Fund, which distributes money for housing directly to cities and municipalities, bypassing provincial governments.
Doubling up on these services means “you’re paying for twice as many civil servants to deliver the program, which means you’re not getting the dollars down to the people who need them,” she said.
“What we’ve advocated is—work with us. If you want to get involved in assisting us in cost-sharing, then use our architecture and provide funding so that we can expand the programs.”
Mr. Eby said he thinks progress could be made if the prime minister were to meet with premiers and make a plan for working together.
“It’s not about money. It’s not about additional funding, it’s about, can we co-ordinate nationally on these areas of shared interest?
“And that is where it sometimes feels like we’re just beating our head against a wall,” Mr. Eby said.
The Office of the Prime Minister was not immediately available for comment.