Open-wound federalism

The Globe and Mail reports that Deceivin' Stephen has started off his summer by making it clear once again that any provincial premier who dares to call one of his bluffs won't be invited back to the table. And the Cons' pettiness seems to have resulted in an even more dangerous step than we'd known about to date:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper will appeal directly today to the people in two of the three provinces that have been at loggerheads with his government over the control of resource revenues...

Neither Nova Scotia Premier Rodney MacDonald nor Saskatchewan Premier Lorne Calvert, who publicly condemned the federal budget for including resource revenues in the equalization formula, have been given formal notice of the visits...

Mr. Calvert caught a plane to Iqaluit yesterday to attend a conference of western premiers and will be out of his province when the biofuels announcement is made at a grain terminal near the Gardiner Dam.

There has been little or no communication between his officials and the Prime Minister since Saskatchewan decided to ask the courts whether the budget violates the constitutional right of a province to own its non-renewable natural resources and whether it contravenes principles of fairness.

Mr. Calvert says the fact that resource revenue has not been removed from the equalization formula, as Mr. Harper promised during the last election campaign, will cost an estimated $800-million annually to Saskatchewan...

Mr. Calvert accused the federal Conservatives of using this type of funding as a dodge on the equalization issue. And "one would have liked a certain sense of prior knowledge of the Prime Minister's visit," he said. "It doesn't help relationships when we're surprised."

What's most striking about the above is that the Cons' strategy appears to have progressed well past the point of merely snubbing premiers for individual events. Indeed, with Calvert out of the province attending a well-publicized conference, the Cons could plainly have informed Saskatchewan's government of today's announcement without any risk that Calvert himself would attend.

But apparently, based on Saskatchewan's acceptance of Harper's own invitation to sue, the Cons are simply refusing to communicate with Saskatchewan as a matter of course. Which can only confirm just how disinterested the Cons are in listening to Saskatchewan - as well as hinting at how far the Cons might go in dealing with all but the most friendly of groups if they ever managed to win a majority.

Update: Greg has more on Harper's shunning tactic.