Canada’s Premiers hold annual conference

Canada’s Premiers are calling for changes in the way hazardous materials are carried by train following the disaster in Quebec’s Lac-Megantic.

The Premiers spoke on dangerous train travel and a number of other issues in Niagara-on-the-Lake today at the end of their annual conference. They also said it was a good thing to have more women than ever before at the meeting of provincial and territorial leaders.

The leaders from the ten provinces and three territories ended their talks with declarations on a series of issues. On the disaster in Lac Megantic, they called for a federal system of monitoring trains carrying hazardous materials. Quebec’s Pauline Marois says, “the goal that we pursued, that is to reduce the risk of accident.”

The premiers also called on the federal government to change Canada’s bullying law to take into account cyber bullying, following high-profile teen suicides in Nova Scotia and other provinces. Nova Scotia premier, Darrell Dexter, says “to recognize that there are modern forms of assault that did not exist in the past be part of a more rigorous criminal code. It also recommends the creation of a new offence which is the transmission of intimate images without consent.”

There were also other issues they didn’t deal with, like calls for reform or abolition of the Senate.B.C. Premier Christy Clark says, “I consider discussion about the senate a huge distraction from the central preoccupation of every government in British Columbia and Canada and that’s growing our economy.”

As the premiers spent their two days in meetings, the office of Ontario’s Kathleen Wynne sent out pictures focusing on the fact that there were more women leaders at one of these meetings than ever before .

Newfoundland Premier Kathy Dunderdale says it’s an improvement from a time when only two leaders were women, “life impacts differently on women than it does on men. It impacts differently on aboriginal peoples, persons with disabilities, so if your governance should always reflect the people you represent.”

Al Sweeney was in Niagara for the conference and has the story.