The Toronto Star says it was right there on the ground floor of the current chilliness between Premier Wynne (Don Valley West) and the prime minister. It has been nearly a year since the PM met with the Premier and in the interim she has made two or three requests to see him. The last one, in November, had not been answered until today. That’s when a reporter asked Mr. Harper why he had not met with Ms. Wynne. The Star’s story suggests that it was that paper’s perceptive reporting of “an indiscretion” on the part of the Premier following her last meeting with Harper that has brought things to such a low state.
In a front-page interview May 8 — at the height of what then appeared to be a tight election campaign — Wynne revealed Harper had “kind of smirked” and said people needed to save for their own retirement instead of banking on a public pension. Her apparent indiscretion about a private conversation in order to promote the Liberals’ campaign pledge of an Ontario pension plan enraged the Conservative prime minister’s office. Harper’s aides accused her last spring of “misrepresenting the meeting” in order “to distract from her mismanagement of the Ontario economy.” Her strategy did not hurt her electorally, as she won a majority government on June 12.
Today the PM said he meets with premiers from time to time and will no doubt have a meeting with Ms. Wynne “at some point in time.” He then said he Premier should pay attention to Ontario’s “pretty significant challenges” rather presumably than demanding a meeting with him. Toronto Star
She will be around after next year’s federal election. Will he?