Richard Gleeson
Northern News Services

Ontario Premier Mike Harris said he supports the territorial governments' call to develop a new formula that will provide more significant benefits to jurisdictions, such as the NWT, with smaller populations.

Premier Stephen Kakfwi hosted visiting Ontario Premier Mike Harris to breakfast and tours of the assembly chamber and the Deton'Cho diamond plant. - Richard Gleeson/NNSL photo

"We think it's very important that Canadians across the country have access to comparable health care, to education, to social programs," said Harris following a breakfast meeting with Premier Stephen Kakfwi and Finance Minister Joe Handley.

"It's really part of what it means to be Canadian. We believe that whether there's a benefit to Ontario or not."

The territorial government has been lobbying hard with little success to get the federal government to recognize the costs of infrastructure and health care are higher in the North.

With a population of a medium-sized Ontario town, the territorial government has been highly critical of the federal formula of distributing money for infrastructure and health among the provinces and territories based on need.

When $600 million in federal infrastructure money was distributed in 2000, Kakfwi scoffed that the NWT share was not enough to build a kilometre of highway.

Harris is on a swing through western and northern Canada on his way to the 42nd annual premiers conference, to be held Aug. 1 to 3 in Victoria.

"The amount of dollars that are involved (in giving smaller jurisdictions a fairer share), when you're looking at the populations involved, are not substantial to Ontario or Quebec or the other provinces, but they are very substantial to the territories," he said.

Without being questioned about it, the Ontario premier also said he supports the North's drive to take control of its resources and resource royalties. A self-sufficient North would benefit all of Canada, he said.

Following a tour of the legislative assembly and press conference, Harris toured the Deton'Cho diamond plant. Diamond exploration is heating up in Ontario and Harris said he hoped to learn from the experiences of the North.