“Ridiculous.”That’s how Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is describing Alberta’s attempts to circumvent his government’s attempts to directly fund municipalities with Bill 18.In fact, he literally sputtered the word when he said procedural moves to legislate Ottawa out of the picture with the so-called Priorities Act were in bad faith, if not strictly illegal under the constitution. “For the provinces to then say we have to legislate so the federal government never spends on municipalities again? That's ridiculous,” he stammered.And though he admitted municipal governments are under provincial authority under the Constitution, he said denying the federal government the right to support municipalities was essentially unconstitutional. Without naming Alberta Premier Danielle Smith by name, he said “certain governments” want to siphon tax dollars from Ottawa without any of the accompanying accountability for how they’re spent.He also said it was undermining his attempts to address the housing crisis.“In Alberta, the provincial government has decided that not only do they not want to to the federal government to be investing in their municipalities, it should be illegal for the federal government to invest in their municipalities. It's not like they're planning on replacing that lost revenue from the federal government. That'd be an entirely different story. That's going in the wrong direction.”Trudeau reportedly flew directly from D-Day ceremonies in Normandy, France to address the Canadian Municipalities Conference — one of the largest in the country — which he has done every year since 2015.None of the 3,000 or so delegates even knew he was coming. Neither did media, which were only notified of his itinerary less than hour before he showed. Conference organizers said it was his decision to attend, not theirs.Inside staff admitted all the hush-hush secrecy was due to concerns over protests. And indeed, there was a heavy police presence on Stephen Avenue outside the Telus convention centre before his motorcade arrived.But it was mostly friendly territory for the PM at the conference, which was hosted by Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek and sponsored by labour groups including the Canadian Labour Congress, among others.However, he was heckled and even booed at several points, when asked about the carbon tax and why he hasn’t visited the Peace River oil sands region..Undaunted, he defended the carbon tax by insisting it hands back more money to 80% of families than they pay for things like groceries and food, and even fuel..He was equally effusive — some would say disingenuous — when he was asked when ‘budgets would balance themselves’ given that debt servicing charges on Canada’s $1 trillion debt would put tens of millions back into every single one of Canada’s more than 5,000 municipalities.Instead he shrugged and said Canada has only the third AAA credit rating of any country in the world, after the US and Germany. And he held the Bank of Canada’s interest rate cut on Wednesday as an example of how his government’s economic policies were working on a macro level despite acknowledging what he described as ‘short term’ pain stemming from the pandemic.In all, it was a confident — some would say cocky — display from a PM who has been on the ropes for a variety of issues ranging from election interference to inflation.So much so, he couldn’t resist taking partisan political shots at his opponents.“I think I've demonstrated at least by showing up and engaging, which is more than can be said for the Conservative leader who is conspicuous and is absent from last year, and this year. Maybe he will show up next year,” he chortled. “But I hope you ask him the same types of questions that you're asking me because we have to have conversations about how the federal government will continue to step up to be there for municipalities and how the federal government will ensure that pressure continues to be put on provinces to step up in their responsibilities towards municipalities.”.Premier Smith — who was also unaware — was quick to fire back.In an e-mailed statement to The Western Standard: “What is ridiculous is the Liberal-NDP coalition has some sort of deranged vendetta against Alberta and our oil and gas industry,” she chortled.“Perhaps Prime Minister Justin Trudeau should focus on making life more affordable by scrapping the carbon tax. Or he could stop attacking our energy industry which employs over 900,000 Canadians and generates billions in tax revenues for the federal government.”
