Prairie premiers call on prime minister to retract justice minister’s comments on NRTA

The premiers of Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Alberta are outraged after federal Justice Minister David Lametti said he would look into rescinding the Natural Resource Transfer Agreements (NRTA) between Ottawa and the prairie provinces when he spoke with Indigenous leaders last week.

These agreements date back to 1930 and gave prairie provinces the same resource rights all the other provinces already had.

In a joint statement posted on Twitter on Tuesday, the premiers called on the prime minister to immediately retract Lametti’s “dangerous and divisive comments.”

They highlighted the federal government cannot change the constitution on its own, adding it should not even consider taking resource rights away from the three prairie provinces.

During a media conference Wednesday in Winnipeg, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the premiers had distorted Lametti’s comments to the Assembly of First Nations chiefs last week.

Lametti told the meeting he would commit to “looking at” the transfer agreements. He later said he only promised to listen to Indigenous partners, and did not commit to reviewing areas of provincial jurisdiction.

Trudeau said Wednesday that the federal government knows it needs to move forward on reconciliation, but premiers are elevating “fears that have no grounding in truth.”

— With files from The Canadian Press

Along with @ABDanielleSmith and @HStefansonMB we are calling on Prime Minister @JustinTrudeau to immediately retract the dangerous and divisive comments made by his Justice Minister. pic.twitter.com/SBqpubtR7Q

— Scott Moe (@PremierScottMoe) April 11, 2023