Scheer attacks Trudeau in latest policy speech, claims provincial relations are ‘coldest in generations’

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In the last election, Justin Trudeau’s Liberals blamed Stephen Harper for giving nothing but a cold shoulder to the provinces. Now, Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer is blaming Mr. Trudeau for a fractious federation.

More than that: Mr. Scheer charges that the Prime Minister is threatening national unity with his energy-and-environment policies, especially a carbon tax that the Conservative leader called “a betrayal of Confederation’s early promise.”

This was Mr. Scheer summoning the feeling that we have a grumpy, sour federation and laying it at the feet of the Prime Minister, who had promised happier co-operation.

In a speech outlining his “vision” of how Confederation should work, Mr. Scheer promised a more decentralized approach. He said he would empower the provinces and municipalities to make their own decisions, giving the provinces stable social funding, for example, but leeway to decide on their own programs. And he’d try to broker an inter-provincial free trade deal.

But more than anything, Mr. Scheer had one big example of a contrast between when a federal government is intruding and when it should assert its jurisdiction. Imposing a federal carbon tax is my-way-or-the-highway federalism, he said, but using federal power to build a national energy corridor with an oil pipeline to the East Coast is leadership.

Obviously, that’s going to be a key debate point during the election campaign. Mr. Trudeau’s Liberals, after all, argue federal leadership is required to combat climate change.

But Mr. Scheer was trying to muster more emotional connections to make his point.

There was a whiff of Western alienation in the presentation. His fellow Reform Party alumnus, Alberta Premier Jason Kenney, introduced him in Edmonton. Mr. Scheer talked about disaffection in Alberta and Saskatchewan. He could have been talking about the hated 1980 National Energy Program when he said Mr. Trudeau’s adversarial federalism included an intrusion on the provinces’ power to regulate natural resources. “It’s clear that every time there’s a Trudeau in the Prime Minister’s Office, our union begins to crack,” Mr. Scheer said.

He sought to tie Mr. Trudeau to tensions with the provinces, just as Mr. Trudeau once did with Mr. Harper. Five premiers are fighting Ottawa over the carbon tax, Mr. Scheer said. Mr. Trudeau promised a more collaborative relationship, he said, “but in just three short years, relations … are at their coldest in generations.”

Politicians can argue about who is to blame for the souring of federal-provincial relations. Certainly, the biggest part of it is that in 2015, nine out of 10 premiers were quasi-allies in Liberal or NDP governments, and five provinces have since elected Conservatives, including Mr. Kenney and Ontario’s Doug Ford, who came gunning for Mr. Trudeau and his carbon tax. But there is no doubt things are not as sunny as Mr. Trudeau promised. Mr. Scheer hopes the unease will help him.

It is worth saying that Mr. Scheer’s examples of Mr. Trudeau’s “top-down” federalism were about energy-and-environment issues. He portrayed the federal carbon-tax backstop as a brutalist intrusion, but the courts will decide whether that’s a federal or provincial jurisdiction – and one, Saskatchewan’s Court of Appeal, has already concluded it is within federal power.

It’s also worth saying that Mr. Scheer’s formula isn’t a recipe for living happily ever after with the provinces.

B.C.’s NDP government believes in carbon taxes and tried to stop a pipeline. More important for Mr. Scheer’s political fortunes is the fact that Quebec’s right-of-centre premier, François Legault, is against a new oil pipeline across Quebec – he believes Quebeckers are dead set against it – and his government just announced a new green plan to reduce oil consumption by 40 per cent in a decade.

Mr. Scheer indicated he would definitely move ahead with a national energy corridor, including an oil pipeline. That is within federal jurisdiction. But he might find Mr. Legault has a different view about the definition of adversarial federalism.

And the Conservative Leader’s big idea, convening the provinces to negotiate an inter-provincial free-trade agreement, isn’t a magic recipe, either.

There have been several inter-provincial trade agreements, but barriers remain. That’s because provinces are loath to part with many of them, such as liquor-board monopolies, hydro-power monopolies, building codes and truck-safety regulations. One such barrier is the supply-management system for dairy that Mr. Scheer adamantly supports.

But those are policy details. Mr. Scheer was painting with a broader brush, portraying an overbearing Ottawa and tying the tensions in a grumpy Confederation to the sitting prime minister. Both he and Mr. Trudeau know that’s worked before.