Morneau, regional finance ministers meet in bid to boost economy

OTTAWA—Provincial and territorial finance ministers gathered with their new federal counterpart in Ottawa on Sunday night to begin confronting the hard economic truths facing Canada.

Several ministers hope to leave the meetings, which wrap up Monday, with a better understanding of the government’s election promises, which touch on a broad range of issues likely to affect the provinces.

For some, their priorities for the meetings revolved around the federal Liberal commitments to work with the federation on public-pension reform, infrastructure spending as a way to generate economic growth and a new federal-provincial health-care accord.

As he arrived for Sunday’s dinner gathering, federal Finance Minister Bill Morneau said he hoped boosting the economy would be the main theme of the talks.

“My goal working with the provinces is to have a discussion about how we can grow the overall size of the pie for Canadians,” Morneau told reporters.

“We know that Canada isn’t doing well in all parts of the country, in particular.”

The economy has struggled to rebound from the negative effects of low commodity prices, especially in resource-producing provinces like Alberta.