Making adversaries

Plenty of coverage from the last week has suggested that Harper's current strategy is to isolate Dalton McGuinty as a holdout in equalization talks. But the Leader-Post notes that McGuinty isn't the only premier holding Harper's feet to the fire on his campaign promises, as Lorne Calvert is pushing Harper to get something done for Saskatchewan. First, on equalization and other issues:

Premier Lorne Calvert still has big concerns about Prime Minister Stephen Harper's stance on equalization changes even as another point of contention arose Wednesday between the provincial NDP and the new Conservative federal government.

The province said there was no money in last week's federal budget for the labour market agreement signed by the former Liberal federal government last fall to bring $109-million in federal funding to Saskatchewan over six years...

The provincial NDP isn't happy about the Conservative intent to scrap the child-care agreements signed by the previous government with the province, the cutting of federal funding to the Saskatchewan Forest Centre, the softwood lumber deal with the United States, the scrapping of the deal to sell grain hopper rail cars to a farmer's coalition and ongoing uncertainty over whether future agricultural programs will continue to be split 60:40 per cent between the federal and provincial governments.

It also appears to be losing out on the $109 million from the labour market agreement, money which was to be used primarily for basic education and skills training for aboriginals, immigrants and people who are underemployed.

Harper evidently has some work to do just to make up for the damage on all the above issues. And then if Harper can be pushed to reverse the effects of the Cons' actions so far, there's also the minor matter of the promise of a billion or so dollars per year through the removal of non-renewable resources from the equalization formula.

And if that list of problem areas wasn't enough, Saskatchewan's provincial government is also having to push the Cons to get anything done on biofuels:

(Deputy Premier Clay) Serby and an industry delegation have been lobbying the new Conservative government to establish a national mandate on the use of biofuels made from grains such as wheat and canola in gasoline and diesel blends.

Serby warned that producers are growing desperate and can't wait much longer.

Now, it's possible that Harper will manage to get enough done over the next year to win Calvert as an ally. But for now, Calvert and his party are rightly demanding results from a federal government which was supposed to be better equipped to understand Saskatchewan's needs. And unless Harper can start checking off his positive promises toward Saskatchewan in a hurry, he may find two of Canada's three "have"-province premiers lined up against him in the court of public opinion.