Question: Why would a Prime Minister of Canada not want to meet with the Provincial Premiers of Canada to discuss issue of mutual and national interest?

Answer: Because he is not a true leader of a country that seeks to establish unity and harmony across inter-provincial and national jurisdictions. His approach is to meet individually with each premier, a type of divide and conquer approach to leading Canada.

Imagine that a leader of Canada possessing and demonstrating no ability to lead, but we will vote him, and his party, in the next election because we all just fell off a turnip truck.

Probably chickened out, again!

While I am not a fan or supporter of Stephen Harper, I understand and support his lack of interest in meeting with the Premiers primarily as a group. Each Premier has their own individual agenda that reflects their perceived need within their region. It would be impossible for the Prime Minister to listen to each individual Premier when there are 10 + 3 individual voices that would be grandstanding for attention.

Much better the Premiers meet and take care of the regional differences and develop a common position that is then coordinated with the feds.

Besides, we already know what they want. More. Of everything. Which ultimately comes out of your and my pockets.

“It would be impossible for the Prime Minister to listen to each individual Premier when there are 10 = 3 individual voices that would be grandstanding for attention.”

Really anotherside? You do realize that the Provincial Premiers usually meet before the First Minister’s conferences to coordinate and agree on common issues and to present a common front!

Perhaps this is why Stephan Harper has only met with them once in 2008 and not since? United the provinces and Canada stand, divided they and Canada fall? All the better to setup a big business and corporate agenda, forget about listening to a collective province and territory agenda.

Consensus building skills and a shared vision use to be National leadership qualities… however we can all plainly see Harper lacks these critical leadership skills and qualities. I prefer to support institutions and procedures that are more democratic in nature as opposed to autocratic and dictatorial! Sorry Harper, no vote from me.

When Harper won the leadership of the Canadian Alliance he talked of provincial firewalls… then when he was Prime Minister at the G20 in Toronto he talked of ‘enlightened sovereignty’ for Canada as sovereignty in a globalized world is a thing of history and Canada must sacrifice sovereignty to become more integrated in a globalized free trade economy.

So we see Harper has evolved… as he has on many issues… from a so called free enterprise nationalist to that of a monopoly corpocracy with autocratic authority from the top down.

Now that he is in the big chair the idea of provincial confederation is just not on the table.

Harper shows his disdain for provincial sovereignty when he presumes to legislate the China FIPA deal that relegates provincial sovereignty below that of international third party tribunals (a sovereignty he is not entitled to give away).

In Lac Magnatic we see the operator of the railway ‘subsidiary’ now talking of bankruptcy and walking away from all responsibility including the cost of cleanup. The parent company that realized the profits could step up, but they won’t. That is what limited liability subsidiaries are all about (ie Northern Gateway pipelines). So this is what we can expect in Canada especially when they don’t carry full cost insurance (to expensive they say).

So with Harpers world of China FIPA we could have a Northern Gateway subsidiary owned by the Chinese communists that is under insured and subsidized with all the risk by the province of BC that itself is held hostage by not being able to turn down the risky project without being sued by the Chinese government for the full cost of the project and all expected looses that would have been realized over the life of the project… thereby bankrupting the province for turning down a project like that… or risk being bankrupted by the underfunded liability if they opt not to risk the ruling of a foreign tribunal and a powerful adversary.

Thanks Harper… thanks for the lose of provincial sovereignty and the black mail trade deal so you can push more oil. No wonder he doesn’t want to show his face at a meeting with the premiers, one of them might actually take him to task.