Beware! Harper's Playing Nice
Why would Harper decide to talk to the premiers when he wouldn't give them the time of day before? Well, he has a big problem and 'no plan' so he achieves two ends, he picks everyone's brain (as he has always done - with Dion, Manley, Emerson, Charest) and then if everything goes well, he pretends it was all his own doing and if it fails, he can say it was everyone's fault. And more, now he can go out into the world, where they aren't quite as stupid as the Canadian people have been lately, and try and impress them that he is representing a truly Canadian position, not a US one. Clever like a fox, but not clever enough to actually come up with his own ideas.