Billion-dollar friendship: Federal Liberal gifts have created a cozy friendship with B.C. Grits, but basic grievances remain unresolved.

Report, The, March, 2003 by Terry O'Neill

Never a politician known to be sensitive to his western roots, Progressive Conservative leader Joe Clark wielded unusually blunt language when he told journalists in Vancouver four years ago he could not think of a place where debates over federal-provincial relations "are more predictable or sterile" than British Columbia. Mr. Clark was speaking at a time when B.C. was led by a combative premier, NDPer Glen Clark, whose record included a major skirmish with Ottawa over fisheries policy. Moreover, the Opposition leader of the day, B.C. Liberal Gordon Campbell, had been so forthright in criticizing the Chretien government's treatment of his province that federal Liberal caucus members said they found him insulting.

Today, in contrast, relations between the...

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