TORONTO - The federal government must treat central Canada fairly when it creates its new plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the premiers of Ontario and Quebec said Thursday as they warned Ottawa not to favour one region over another.

Jean Charest and Dalton McGuinty told Prime Minister Stephen Harper they don't want to see a climate change plan that would favour Alberta's oil sands and impose heavy reductions on manufacturers in Quebec and Ontario.

"They have obviously not nailed down the final details, but our intention is to ensure that Ontario is not the subject of discrimination," said McGuinty in advance of a joint Quebec-Ontario cabinet meeting in Toronto Friday.

"We have done some things in Ontario -- as has Jean in Quebec -- long before the federal government became seized with this issue. Are we now going to be placed at a disadvantage because of efforts we have made to close coal-fired generation?"

Charest said he had some progress from the federal government on climate change -- they now support a cap and trade system for carbon for example, he said.

However, Ottawa is out of touch with the rest of the world by wanting to use 2006 levels as the starting point for greenhouse gas reductions instead of 1990, said Charest.

"When the federal government keeps insisting on 2006 it's as if they still want to operate in inches and feet when the rest of the world has gone metric," he said.

"We believe it's extremely important that we be treated fairly by implementing the regulatory regime that starts at 1990 levels and then implements a reduction scheme that will be fairly distributed across the country."

Ontario and Quebec created an inter-provincial carbon trading market at their last joint meeting in 2008.

"Cap and trade is a vital step to building a green economy where the jobs of the future are going to be," said McGuinty.

"Premier Charest and I have agreed to keep moving forward to prepare our provinces for cap and trade and specifically to prepare our businesses for this new and essential reality."

Both premiers have met recently with federal Environment Minister Jim Prentice to discuss the Conservative government's new climate change plan, which Prentice has said will be ready by December.

McGuinty said he pushed Prentice on two main points.

"The assurances that I sought were that there would be compatibility with the U.S. (on cap and trade) and that we would not be subject of disadvantage in comparison to other provinces or disproportionately burdened with reductions," he said.

The next United Nations conference on climate change will take place Dec. 7-18 in Copenhagen, and is aimed at getting a new international deal to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.

The two provinces are set to announce the creation of a so-called common market Friday that would be much broader in scope than the existing Agreement on Internal Trade.

"We are doing together through these agreements something that doesn't exist elsewhere in the country," said Charest.

"It's not only about trade, it's about co-operation and things we are going to do together."

McGuinty said the inter-provincial agreements were all about employment opportunities.

"Jobs are what we're focused on in this government and jobs are what we're focused on in this meeting," he said.

"It's why we're finalizing a trade agreement between our two provinces to make it easier for us to do business with each other."