Premier Wynne goes to Ottawa, looking for the PM: Cohn

Last summer, Prime Minister Stephen Harper made time for Rob Ford on short notice. At a photo-op, he promised the mayor a big fat federal cheque bankrolling an unneeded subway through Scarborough’s low-density corridor.

Federal finance minister (and Ford family friend) Jim Flaherty followed up with $660 million in taxpayers’ money that same week — money down the drain for their gravy train. It’s never a problem getting federal funding or face time for Ford because, as our mayor still boasts, he heads Canada’s sixth-largest government.

But what of Canada’s second-largest government at Queen’s Park? Does Ontario’s premier merit a meeting with the prime minister — or a reply from his correspondence unit?

We shall soon see Harper’s political calculus.

On Dec. 5th, Ms. Wynne goes to Ottawa. And tries to see the prime minister.

Will Harper, who huddles on demand with Ford, find time to fit her in?

It’s hard to fathom the PM refusing to receive the premier. After all, he saw her earlier this year (the PM insisted on secrecy), and she is complying with his standard condition — that there be a substantive agenda. Ontario’s premier has already laid one out, with two main points:

First, long term pension reforms. Second, long term funding for the Ring of Fire in the province’s Far North.

Fresh from hosting a meeting of her fellow premiers in Toronto this month, Wynne wants to sell Harper on a badly-needed upgrade to the Canada Pension Plan. The issue has remained below the radar for the last few years as Flaherty shot down one proposal after another.

Meeting amongst themselves in Toronto this month, provincial finance ministers agreed in principle to modest reforms. But they must now get Flaherty onside at a scheduled federal-provincial conference at Meech Lake next month, and Wynne wants to set the table first.

Meech Lake holds potential for a historic breakthrough — if only Flaherty displays the same kind of pan-Canadian leadership he has shown in trying to achieve a common securities regulator. Or we could once again lose the chance for CPP reforms — more slithering amid dithering.

On the Ring of Fire, Wynne is seeking federal help after firing off a letter to the PM two weeks ago. The enormous mineral find, more than 500 kilometres northeast of Thunder Bay, is worth an estimated $60 billion to the economy. And it is in a stall.

Ontario’s Liberals have long tried to sell the development as a panacea for the north and a tonic for the rest of the province, placing it front and centre in a throne speech a few years ago.

But it was pie in the far northern sky, built on a shaky premise: If you pitch it, they will build it. And they will all come together.

All these years later, the hard work of bringing the Ring of Fire to fruition is harder to deliver than a throne speech or a press line. Cliffs Natural Resources Inc. was the heavyweight in the ring, spending $500 million to date in preparatory work. Last week, it announced a pullout.

The Wynne government tried to patch things up by setting up a new development corporation earlier this month, which now looks like an act of desperation in anticipation of the Cliffs pullout. Without roads and infrastructure to make it accessible to mining companies, the Ring of Fire risks flaming out.

In her letter to Harper, Wynne estimates it will take about $2 billion to provide needed infrastructure and connect local communities to all-season roads — and asks for matching funds. She argues that the province has been shortchanged while Ottawa has bankrolled the energy sector out west and backstopped massive hydro projects in B.C. and Newfoundland. Hibernia and the oilsands would never have reached the commercialization stage without heavy investments from the federal government, Ontario argues.

It’s hard to imagine the prime minister washing his hands of the issue. His federal Conservatives elected 72 MPs in Ontario in the last election, without which he would never have won his majority government.

The Ring of Fire is a financial challenge but also a political opportunity that he knows cannot be discounted. Like the pension challenge facing all Canadians, the Ring of Fire requires a prime ministerial reply — and merits a meeting.

Even if Rob Ford’s fingerprints aren’t all over it.

Martin Regg Cohn’s provincial affairs column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday. mcohn@thestar.ca , Twitter: @reggcohn