Ontario Premier Doug Ford talks with reporters as the Canadian premiers meet in St. Andrews, N.B. on Thursday, July 19, 2018. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Andrew Vaughan

Ontario Premier Doug Ford says he isn’t “going to play politics” with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s slam against conservatives made after this week’s cabinet shuffle at Rideau Hall.

At the closing council of the federation news conference, next to the rest of Canada’s premiers, Ford was asked by a reporter about what he made of Trudeau’s comment Wednesday that conservatives are “playing the fear card” when it comes to asylum seekers and immigration.

Friday, Ford declined to wade in.

“That’s his comments,” Ford said.

“I’m not going to play politics with that whatsoever.”

Ford instead talked up the premiers’ meeting as a success.

After Wednesday’s cabinet shuffle, Trudeau said conservatives “across the country are playing the fear card,” and called it a “dangerous game” that pits Canadians “against each other”

“We need strong, reassuring voices to counter that, and to demonstrate that the safety and security of Canadians and their communities is something that we will never flinch on,” he said.

In the past few weeks, immigration and the influx of asylum seekers has flared as an issue not only between the federal Liberals and the Opposition Conservatives, but also notably with Ontario’s new PC government — and it’s primed to become a key values-issue in the upcoming federal election.

Trudeau had promoted Bill Blair and Dominic LeBlanc to key cabinet roles that will interact heavily with the provinces on issues that include immigration. Both roles Conservative deputy leader Lisa Raitt said are appointments that will provoke conflict with Ontario.

She said LeBlanc’s appointment suggests the Liberal government is “ready to take on the provinces and have a fight,” while Blair’s is “fraught with difficulties.”

Blair and Ford have a very public personal history of confrontation that stretches back to their careers as Toronto police chief and city councillor, respectively, and includes a dispute over the infamous Rob Ford crack video. Blair dismissed the idea that will cause frosty relations between the two governments this week, saying it’s all “very much the past.”

LeBlanc, Raitt said, is known as a partisan brawler.

Immigration issues have simmered this summer with a House of Commons committee called back to Parliament to deal with the government’s plan to deal with the influx of irregular asylum seekers.

A federal-provincial immigration ministers meeting had also turned sour and exploded into theatrics last week.

Federal Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen had criticized the Ontario PC government for its use of language when it comes to talking about asylum seekers and said they were taking an un-Canadian approach to the issue.

Ontario’s minister responsible for immigration, Lisa MacLeod, said she took great offence to his comments and said he should apologize.

A federal-provincial fight has been brewing over a range of immigration issues, spanning from fighting over funding to the language that politicians are using — including calling them illegal border crossers or queue-jumpers.

Trudeau’s principal secretary also weighed in with barbs last weekend, saying conservatives are “fear-mongering” with their language on asylum seekers.