Please Advise! What’s Happening in That Big Premiers Meeting?

[Editor’s note: Steve Burgess is an accredited spin doctor with a PhD in Centrifugal Rhetoric from the University of SASE, situated on the lovely campus of PO Box 7650, Cayman Islands. In this space he dispenses PR advice to politicians, the rich and famous, the troubled and well-heeled, the wealthy and gullible.]

Dear Dr. Steve,

The provincial premiers are meeting in Victoria this week. What would it be like to be a fly on the wall at that conference?

Signed,

Provincial

Dear Prov,

Well, your typical fly does not have a thrilling schedule at the best of times but this would still probably be a step down for the unfortunate insect. Then again, a housefly might enjoy this event. The premiers' agenda can usually be summed up as: “Same shit, different day.” Flies tend to like that sort of thing.

Issues to be discussed include health care, health care, pharmacare, health care, making toys and small kitchen appliances out of bitumen (thank you for that fascinating PowerPoint, Premier Kenney), health care, and the exciting possibilities for bitumen as a coffee substitute.

But on a personal level there are some interesting dynamics in play this time around. Premierships are always in flux and this year is no different. With a gap of several years since the last conference, Nova Scotia's Tim Houston is making his first visit to the Premiers' Club. Houston is riding high in the polls and ready to throw his weight around, which will no doubt draw little squeals of “So cute!” from Ontario's Doug Ford and François Legault of Quebec.

At the other end of the spectrum is Manitoba caretaker premier, Heather Stefanson, who ranked dead last in a recent poll of provincial bosses with 25-per-cent support. Even Joe Biden pities her. Her goal will be to get to the end of the conference without having her parking pass revoked. She and New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs would do well to keep their name tags visible at all times.

As for John Horgan, he recently broke with B.C. tradition by announcing he will step aside even without a single RCMP visit to his home or paper bag full of cash changing hands. Jason Kenney can only gaze with envy on a leader exiting on his own terms. Kenney resigned too, in the same sense that Julius Caesar did. Yet somehow he keeps hanging around, like Bruce Willis in The Sixth Sense. Fearful staffers passing him in the corridors will whisper: “I see dead premiers.” Awkward.

Saskatchewan's leader might have some uncomfortable moments as well. Scott Moe arrives shortly after the revelation that his predecessor Brad Wall was providing free coaching to “Freedom Convoy” leader Chris Barber before and after the Ottawa occupation staged by the anti-vax group. Wall advised Barber to maybe dial down the whole white supremacist angle. After Barber was arrested perhaps Wall offered him some advice on how to make a jailhouse cigarette lighter with a double A battery and some tin foil, but we don't know that. Anyway, Premier Moe might be well advised to play it cool and avoid handing out two-word bumper stickers where the second word is “Trudeau” and the first word contains asterisks.

But in fact Saskatchewan's premier has not been dialling down the feisty rhetoric. Last year Moe said Saskatchewan should be “a nation within a nation.”

It's within, all right. You can't get much more within. Saskatchewan is like a middle-seat passenger on an Airbus A380. Never mind independence — just going to the bathroom is a major challenge. An independent Saskatchewan would be quite the political experiment. They would need a new license plate slogan — perhaps “Wave As You Fly Over,” or “Gopher Broke!” Presumably the Roughriders would play a season's worth of inter-squad games for the Moe Cup. And once the International Olympic Committee makes snowmobile poker runs an Olympic sport, look out.

All these things are surely being discussed in Victoria this week. When the event is over the premiers will shake hands, say their goodbyes, and of course thank Premier Kenney for his unique parting gift of bitumen snow globes. Shake them up and watch Ottawa's Parliament Hill slowly disappear under a rain of sludgy black ooze.

See you next year! Oh sorry Jason, didn't see you standing there...