Little results from first ministers meeting, but at least nobody stormed out

MONTREAL — Ontario Premier Doug Ford says Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has moved the goalposts on Canada’s climate-change plans, asking Ontario to cut its greenhouse-gas emissions more than Ford had expected.

That was just about the only sour note from a premier coming out of a day-long meeting in Montreal with the prime minister Friday.

But the cheerful moods most of them showed off might have been because very little concrete appears to have been accomplished.

Manitoba’s Brian Pallister came out saying most of the premiers and Trudeau had agreed that there should be lower trade barriers between provinces, which was the official point of the meeting.

But he also said he didn’t want to let the perfect be the enemy of the good, and any progress on internal trade should be treasured. He didn’t say what actual progress the first ministers had made.

Before the meeting, many of the premiers had complained that they had other important issues they wanted to talk about besides trade barriers and didn’t want Trudeau and federal ministers to spend the time lecturing to them.

Joan Bryden and Giuseppe Valiante, The Canadian Press