Article content

Canada’s provincial premiers have agreed to unanimously press Ottawa for more health care money and to prioritize economic competitiveness in decisions about natural resource development.

As the new federal Parliament meets later this week for the first time, with Western alienation as a key issue for the minority government of Justin Trudeau, this meeting near Toronto’s airport was an effort to influence its priorities, especially its plan on climate change.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Premiers agree to prioritize economic competitiveness and seek more health care money Back to video

What the premiers came up with was a final formal statement that makes no mention of climate change, but calls for immediate action on getting natural resources to market and approving new projects on “globally competitive timelines,” while also working to eliminate protectionist policies in America especially.

It calls for infrastructure development in the North and changes to the Fiscal Stabilization Program, retroactive for five years, to make it more favourable to provinces suffering economic downturns due to the price of oil.