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So they are eager to agree on something, even if it’s nothing substantial. Which is pretty much how they’ve always papered over the cracks in the past.

The Vancouver meeting is supposed to be all about a climate change plan. Trudeau promised the UN summit in Paris that he’d produce one. He’s in Vancouver for the express purpose of winning agreement to Ottawa’s proposal for a national minimum carbon charge. Provinces representing most of Canada’s population– 80% — already have some form of carbon pricing, or are planning it. So the last little step to a national plan wouldn’t seem that difficult.

Except, when you’re dealing with the provinces, territories and First Nations, it is. It always is.

The official meeting hadn’t even begun Wednesday when B.C. premier Christy Clark let the air out of Ottawa’s balloon.

“There’s no consensus on that,” she said of the pricing plan. Saskatchewan’s Premier Brad Wall had already stated flatly that he wouldn’t sign any such agreement. Newfoundland Premier Dwight Ball said the premiers were united in their opposition to it. They may get around to discussing carbon pricing later, but not now.

What the provinces want, just as they always have, is for Ottawa to sign on to their plans, and send money. Ball said Ottawa should get beyond pricing into “carbon management” strategies. “The main thing is that the provinces would have flexibility to reduce carbon as they see fit,” he said.

Clark said her No. 1 priority is not a carbon tax – B.C. already has one – but securing money from Ottawa to upgrade the hydro grid between B.C. and Alberta. Alberta may not agree with that priority, but Clark has been busy slamming Alberta anyway, claiming it frittered away its oil legacy. So open hostilities are nothing new on that front.