PREMIERS END MUSKOKA TALKS WITHOUT FEDERAL ACCORDS. BUT STILL OPTIMISTIC EVEN AS FORD VOWS ONTARIO ‘CAN’T WAIT’ TO TO LICENSE IMMIGRANT TRADES WORKERS

Mark Clairmont | MuskokaTODAY.com

HUNTSVILLE — International anxieties aside today — if ever — premiers tackled other pressing national domestic issues on Day 3 of Council of Federation talks with immigration top of political minds.

While Doug Ford’s bail reforms fizzled beyond the provincial and territorial table .

A day after Prime Minister Mark Carney rallied his Team Canada generals in a unanimous front to fight Donald Trump, Ford as COP chair focused the leaders on an agenda touching on Canadian families in their homes and still on their streets.

While Ontario got only the promise from Carney of federal changes this fall, Ford was more concentrated this afternoon during a final communiqué and press conference on a discord with Liberal Immigration Minister Lena Metlege Diabwho who he said was not on the same page as the PM.

Ford was insistent this afternoon that he will license doctors, nurses and other trades people.

“We have authority in that area. No one understands their sectors and labour force better than the premiers. This has been going on for decades.”

Ontario Premier Doug Ford is pressed by Globe and Mail reporter Laura Stone and the Toronto Star’s Rob Ferguson to elaborate on his new immigration stance to override Ottawa and license nurses, doctors and tradeworkers to keep them from “… sucking off the system non-stop. Not their fault.” PHOTOS Mark Clairmont, MuskokaTODAY.com

He said “I’ll give you an example. I have a tremendous amount of asylum seekers who are up in hotels in Etobicoke. They’re healthy and willing to work. Are hard-working people. But they’re waiting over two years.

“And they’re just sucking off the system non-stop. Not they’re fault. The fault falls under immigration when it takes over two years to get a work permit. So as we’re paying education, health care, their rent and hotels — which are exorbitant,” he told a room full of national delegates gathered in the media centre.

“They want to get out there and they want to be like every other Canadian. They want to find a job, start off renting or buying a house.

“We’re tired of waiting around. I can’t wait. It’s costing our province an absolute fortune. Just last year in Ontario there were 100,000 asylum seekers and I’m still waiting to get paid back from the federal government. That’s one issue.

“But there’s jobs waiting in Ontario and we need to give them more permits and make sure that they’re out there working and contributing back to society.

“I’m not waiting any longer. We’re issuing work permits in Ontario for these folks.”

Provincial and territorial leaders were united on most things over the three days in Muskoka supporting Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Team Canada. But they weren’t unanimous on everything, such as a western pipeline to B.C.’s northern coast.

Domestic issues dominate final day

This as primary care, crime, jobs and income security are the burning issues dominating personal head spaces in a season meant for recharging personal batteries.

Specifically an overarching aching economy that creeps ahead slower than it could should.

Nova Brunswick Premier Susan Holt said the leaders can “walk and chew gum at the same time,” when asked if trade talks trumped domestic agendas for the provinces.

Get it together. Get a deal. Good luck. It’s not that easy given competing interests nationwide.

That’s the fireside chat most Muskokans want to hear at the end of July — if anything at all political these two of 12 months.

Not “solving the world’s problems,” but making life more affordable and liveable.

Carney glamping at Ford’s “shack” may seem a quintessentially opportune Muskoka moment for two multi-millionaires to decide the fate of locals in Huntsville, Port Sydney and Muskoka Lakers.

But here in Canada’s backwoods it’s crystal clear water is potable, profitable and sustaining for Muskokans.

It’s not always that way just downstream from Tom Thomson’s Algonquin Park landscapes.

Conferring with conference delegates last night at a gala where Ford was the hoarse hah, rah cheerleader of everything Ontario and Canadian, for 500 countrywide invitees who dined on Lake Ontario salmon is was let the good times roll.

After Parry Sound-Muskoka MPP opened the evening with a land acknowledgement and introduced Ontario Lt.-Gov. Edith Dumont and a proud video extolled Ontario, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith handed up to Ford a drink can to quench his cough.

Ford thanked her and asked if there was “any booze in it.”

Indeed at Muskoka’s richest resort life was not all bad at the end of Day 2 for the likes of hospital philanthropist Peter Gilgan. Only for a few protesters left outside the security perimeter marching through Huntsville.

It’s all a problem to be solved for a leading G7 country brimming with wealth and the where-with-all to be a belated powerhouse. An emerging middleweight in the ring flailing at heavyweights. Will the 21st century now belong to us?

New York Times reporter Ian Austen interviews Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew after this afternoon’s conference communique and press Q&A. Kinew also talked about difficult firefighting in his provincce an thanked the other premiers for their help with firefighters and equipment. He also spoke about First Nations support for Canada’s planned big projects to jumpstart the economy in the coming year including some in favour of pipelines crossing traditional Indigenous lands.

Cutting inter-provincial red tape is a fair start and “step in the right direction” premiers all agreed.

B.C. wine on LCBO shelves is enticing, but having Amazon ship a Fraser Valley VQA anywhere east shouldn’t be cost prohibitive nor add a new tax.

Holt said her province has passed laws allowing free access into out of her province. Quebec’s Francois Legault said he’s giving his party’s opposition a chance to vote on it. But said as he has a majority expect it to happen soon.

Long overdo fixes, thanks to Trump.

But back bail reform, a topic du jour that flopped.

Still warehousing repeat offenders isn’t the answer. Building more jails and prisons and shooting up costs for industrial military complex by 5 per cent may re realistic. However is it practical and necessary where talk is cheaper and ultimately more rewarding when those funds are best spent propping up people of need. Rather than weaponizing government taxes against troubled citizens’ ill wills.

Economic reforms are better prescription for an ailing world.

With an ever growing prosperity gulf, Ford and Carney are trying to solve two problems at once.

Will an elusive trade deal at least a week away solve this world’s problems with a more powerful and power-generating country?

It’s debatable at this point depending on where Trump goes Aug. 1. Today the U.S. imposed a 15 per cent tariff on all Japanese imports.

Carney has a premier team at his end of the rope pulling for him in a tough trade tug of war.

Canadians premiers had his back here with their constituent’s elbows still up supporting both for now.

Their feet fully dug in a give and take game of chicken, beef, oil, gas, dairy, electricity and all things poutine to the point.

Ford said he “loves all Americans. Just not Trump.”

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