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April 24, 2004

Dalton, this isn't leadership

The Ontario Premier says he's going to "assume a leadership role in Confederation." To do this, he is going to cut bilateral deals with the federal government on issues like health care, labour and immigration.

This is a fundamental shift in Ontario's traditional role in the Federation. Until now, Ontario has worked with smaller provinces that have less clout nationally to devise deals with the Feds that serve the best interest of all Canadians and prevent those smaller provinces from being held up for ransom by Ottawa.

Under McGuinty's "leadership" small, "have-not" provinces will be at the mercy of Paul Martin because he has the trump card: equalization. It is only Ontario's support for a multilateral approach to national issues that has prevented Ottawa from exercising its fiscal prowess to dictate terms to provinces like Nova Scotia and Saskatchewan.

McGuinty has played right into the hands of a federal government that is aggravated by the overwhelmingly right-of-centre governments of the so-called "have-not" provinces. It's an amateurish move from a new, inexperienced Premier.

Posted by maxthecat on April 24, 2004 at 10:46 AM | Printer-friendly version
Filed in: Politics / Ontario