Two issues topped a meeting between Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Canada's premiers on Monday: the need to quicken infrastructure spending, and how to help pensioners weather the economic storm.
Harper said spending on roads and public transit should be speeded up in the next year, as a way to ease the effects of the worldwide credit crisis.
British Columbia Premier Gordon Campbell said Canada may commit billions of dollars in infrastructure spending for 2009.
"I think the prime minister understands that the acceleration of those infrastructure projects will not just keep people at work in the short-term, but will give us a productivity platform in the long-term which will really get us out of his period with a stronger economy," Campbell told CTV's Mike Duffy Live after the three-hour meeting.
Senior government officials told 麻豆影视 that Ottawa will likely focus some of its infrastructure spending on housing, particularly for low-income Canadians, First Nations people and seniors.
On Monday, Harper also agreed with premieres that Canada must take steps to help retirees who have lost money in the plummeting stock market.
By law, Canadians who turn 71 this year must convert their retirement savings into retirement income funds, or RIFs. But some RRSPs have lost as much as 40 per cent of their value, and retirees who are forced to convert now could see huge losses.
Before the meeting, Manitoba Premier Gary Doer said the RRSP law needs to be addressed immediately.
"There's a cascading impact of laws that are well intended but might be quite irrelevant to the kind of flexibility we need right now to keep people working in the Canadian economy," he told 麻豆影视net.
Some premiers have called for the mandatory age for RRSP conversion to be raised to 75 to provide more flexibility for pensioners.
Harper said Monday's meeting produced positive results, and most of the premiers were on the same page on how to keep Canada's economy healthy.
"The premiers came with many ideas, strong ideas and opinions of their own . . . there were many common positions," he said.
The premiers also came out of the meeting with glowing remarks. Even Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Danny Williams, who had waged an "Anyone But Conservative" campaign in his province during the last federal election, said it was a "very good meeting."
He also stressed the importance of showing unity with the prime minister.
"My message was that it's very, very important that we show the Canadian people that they should have confidence in their leaders, that they should see the solidarity and the union that comes out of that room," he told reporters.
Auto sector
Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty had hoped Ottawa would agree to a rescue package for the province's struggling automotive sector, which has been battered by plant closings as the Detroit Three companies -- Chrysler LLC, General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co. -- try to cut their losses.
Harper suggested the federal government may offer help, but was cautious about what that would exactly entail.
"None of us want a sector that would fail and that would cause tremendous dislocation in the Canadian economy," he said. "But neither do any of us want to see a sector that would be permanently supported by the government, and that would not otherwise be financially viable.
"I know the Americans are looking at certain approaches and we're going to be watching those very carefully, and obviously developing our own responses here in Canada."
The auto sector has said in needs at least $1 billion in loan guarantees to weather the current crisis -- providing that consumer demand eventually returns to previous levels.
Government officials told 麻豆影视 that Ottawa will help the auto industry, but not in the form of a blank cheque. The government is also expected to put pressure on the Detroit Three to build more fuel-efficient and affordable cars like Honda and Toyota, if the companies want help.
Although Monday's meeting did not seem to result in any concrete promises from Ottawa for the auto sector, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty called the talks a success.
"I'd say this is one of the best meetings I've had in five years with a prime minister," McGuinty told CTV's Mike Duffy Live.
This upcoming weekend, Harper will journey to Washington for another meeting on the economy, this time with the G20 leaders.
With a report by CTV's Robert Fife in Ottawa
