Provincial and Territorial Update – December 13, 2024
Provincial and Territorial Update: An overview of the Provincial Legislative and Territories Legislative Updates for the week of December 13, 2024. Written by Wes McLean.
New Brunswick
- New Brunswick Premier Susan Holt says she is optimistic the federal government will be able to avoid tariffs of 25 per cent that U.S. president-elect Donald Trump has threatened to impose on goods from Canada, after the premiers met Wednesday with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. But if the tariffs go through, Holt says the federal and provincial governments are ready to hit the U.S. “where it hurts, as needed.”
- The provincial government announced eight major school projects earlier this week, and Education Minister Claire Johnson said she knows it can be disappointing when someone’s school of choice isn’t chosen. The capital budget announced Tuesday includes $193.7 million for education projects. Funds are earmarked for three new schools, a replacement for two primary schools, two midlife upgrades and two additions to existing schools. All are slated to being within the next fiscal year.
- A legal battle between the New Brunswick government and a Moncton-area school district over a gender identity policy has ended. The province and the Anglophone East district education council had three related cases working through the courts, stemming from changes the Higgs government made to Policy 713 last year. Premier Susan Holt came into office this fall pledging to end the legal dispute, which had included a push to dissolve the education council.
- New Brunswick’s Department of Health is missing its own targets for how long patients should wait to receive addiction and mental health treatment, according to the province’s auditor general. Paul Martin’s report, released Tuesday, also revealed that despite an increase in the demand for addiction and mental health services in New Brunswick, the Department of Health has not proportionately increased the amount of funding it budgets every year for those services.
Nova Scotia
- Premier Tim Houston increased the size of his cabinet on Thursday at a ceremony that saw familiar faces moved, new faces introduced and the restructuring of several government departments. Houston is part of a 21-member cabinet. His cabinet in 2021 had 19 people. Houston will be responsible for trade, priorities and planning, as well as intergovernmental affairs. As premier, he also serves as president of the executive council. The full list of ministers can be found here: New Cabinet Builds on Victory to Make it Happen for Nova Scotians | Government of Nova Scotia News Releases
- Cape Breton University has cancelled a new online bachelor of education program at the last minute, leaving students who were signed up to start classes in January with no clear plan for what happens next. Allison Lord, who lives in Windsor, N.S., said she was attracted to CBU’s condensed eight-month program, which would have allowed her to learn from home and become a certified teacher quickly. But Lord was disappointed when it was cancelled this week with less than a month to go.
- The First Nation at the centre of a highly contentious out-of-season lobster fishery in southwest Nova Scotia says mediation with the federal government is bearing fruit, with lengthy meetings between both sides leading to the first “meaningful dialogue” in 25 years. The comments from the lawyer for Sipekne’katik First Nation came in a letter this week to a Nova Scotia Supreme Court judge that asked that litigation launched by the band against the federal government in 2021 be paused for another six months as negotiations continue.
Prince Edward Island
- While shoppers and diners in P.E.I. will get some relief at the checkout starting this weekend, small businesses on the Island may bear the brunt of a two-month tax holiday. Beginning Saturday, the federal goods and services tax (GST) will be removed for two months from a range of items, including children’s toys, books, restaurant meals and takeout, as well as beer and wine. In provinces like Prince Edward Island where the GST is blended with the provincial sales taxes to form the HST or harmonized sales tax, the provincial portion will also disappear from receipts.
- Two years after post-tropical storm Fiona demolished thousands of trees on Prince Edward Island, residents on the North Shore worry that the tattered debris still sitting in the forests could be a massive fire hazard. On Thursday afternoon, about 35 people gathered at the North Rustico Lions Club to discuss wildfire prevention, preparedness and mitigation. “Wildland fire can really impact people’s lives,” said Mike Montigny, the manager of field services for the provincial Department of Environment, Energy and Climate Action.
- Victims of work-related bullying and harassment will soon be able to make claims to P.E.I.’s Workers Compensation Board, as employees receive training in how to handle them starting in the new year. Eligible injuries include the fallout from any kind of repeated inappropriate behaviour that could affect someone’s psychological health, whether online or in person. Coverage for psychological injuries suffered in the workplace has existed since the 1990s — including compensation for post-traumatic stress disorder — but people couldn’t make claims related to psychological harm from harassment.
- While Health P.E.I. says improvements are coming in the new year, the latest batch of statistics from the health authority shows that wait times for MRI scans rose to the highest levels on record in 2024. The average wait time for an Islander who received a routine magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan to help diagnose a medical issue between July and September of this year was 524 days or 75 weeks.
Newfoundland and Labrador
- A beaming Premier Andrew Furey is coming off a political high and turning his attention to selling Newfoundland and Labrador’s new draft deal for Churchill Falls to a public that has been scarred by costly megaprojects of the past. On Thursday, Furey and Quebec Premier François Legault signed a memorandum of understanding to replace a lopsided 65-year-old contract attached to the Churchill Falls hydroelectric project. Hydro-Québec’s latest figures show that it sells power for 51 times what it pays for power from the central Labrador plant. Thursday’s agreement, will greatly expand hydro production in Labrador, and is expected to yield at least $200 billion for N.L. over the next five decades.
- An external investigation has been launched into a conflict of interest allegation against St. John’s city councillor and realtor Ron Ellsworth. Danny Williams, the former Newfoundland and Labrador premier, made the allegation after he learned the city paid $640,000 for a property owned by one of Ellsworth’s real estate clients. “Look, it appears that there’s a blatant conflict of interest here,” said Williams.
- The Innu Nation grand chief says the newly announced memorandum of understanding on Churchill Falls power between Newfoundland and Labrador and Quebec will greatly benefit the Innu. On Thursday, Premier Andrew Furey and Quebec Premier François Legault signed the MOU to replace the original 65-year-old contract attached to the Churchill Falls hydroelectric project — one that is expected to pour hundreds of billions of dollars into Newfoundland and Labrador’s coffers.
- The Opposition Tories want Newfoundland and Labrador’s privacy commissioner to look at what they call a Liberal cabinet minister’s “highly inappropriate” handling of an access-to-information request, which they believe contravenes the law. But Immigration Minister Sarah Stoodley says she did not violate the legislation, and fully respects and complies with it. The dispute goes back to Dec. 4, the final day of the House of Assembly’s fall sitting. Stoodley rose when given an opportunity to answer questions for which notice had been given in the legislature.
Quebec
- Quebec Premier François Legault’s approval rating took a hit this quarter after seeing his numbers increase slightly earlier in the year. That’s according to the latest polling from the Angus Reid Institute. It shows Legault has a 36 percent approval rating – down from 39 percent in September. Only Ontario Premier Doug Ford has less support from his constituents at 34 percent.
- When Quebec Premier François Legault publicly vowed to put a stop to praying in public places, he said he could once again turn to a rare legal tool to put the measure into law. It’s called the notwithstanding clause, and it can be used to shield laws from legal challenges over violations of fundamental rights. Legal experts say the increasing tendency of provincial premiers to use it, however, is a worrying trend that disregards the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
- “Trudeau must present a quantified plan to secure the border. It would be better than starting a war and cutting off energy to the United States,” Quebec Premier François Legault said Thursday. He was at a press conference with his Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Andrew Furey, to announce the historic agreement surrounding the Churchill Falls hydroelectric complex. However, Hydro-Québec said it has no intention to break its contracts with the State of New York and Massachusetts, indicated its CEO, Michael Sabia. “Our intention is to respect these contracts (…) which are legally binding,” he said.
- Quebec’s Catholic bishops have come out against Premier François Legault’s desire to end prayer in public places, saying it would violate people’s constitutional rights. Martin Laliberté, president of the assembly of Catholic bishops of Quebec, says he was “stunned” by Legault’s recent suggestion that he would like to ban prayer in parks and on city streets. He believes a ban on public prayer would affect a wide range of activities practised by people of many faiths. Legault raised the possibility of ending public prayer during a press conference Friday, which he began by saying he wanted to send a “very clear message to Islamists.”
Ontario
- Doug Ford is standing behind his threat to stop providing the U.S. with electricity in response to president-elect Donald Trump’s promised tariffs, even as several other premiers publicly distance themselves from the stance. Ford has said that Ontario is prepared to cut off electricity that is currently powering 1.5 million homes in New York, Michigan and Minnesota but only as a “last resort.”
- A decision over whether to expand an obscure dog sport in Ontario sparked division within Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservative caucus that saw the premier agree to cancel a new licensing regime before later resurrecting it, The Canadian Press has learned. At trial and train areas, hunters can unleash dogs inside massive, fenced-in areas to hunt down prey such as coyotes, foxes and rabbits. The provincial government insists they are safe for both dogs and wildlife.
- The province is looking for volunteers to work in their communities when disaster strikes, Premier Doug Ford said Friday in launching Ontario Corps to better co-ordinate emergency preparedness and response. Ontario Corps volunteers would work alongside skilled professionals and those from non-governmental organizations and First Nations to help “deliver critical on-the-ground support” during floods, heavy snowstorms and other disasters, Ford said at an announcement Friday in North York alongside MPP Trevor Jones, a former police officer who is now the associate minister of emergency preparedness and response.
- Premier Doug Ford’s government is introducing new legislation that it says will give municipalities and police services legal tools to dismantle homeless encampments and crack down on public drug use with fines or jail time. “These encampments are taking over public spaces, with illegal drug use happening out in the open, creating huge safety risks for people and communities,” Ford said. “Enough is enough, this has to stop and it will stop.”
Manitoba
- Most Winnipeg homeowners will see their monthly property tax bills rise about 50 per cent in January due to a misalignment of city and provincial taxation efforts that has elected officials pointing fingers at each other. In 2025, a flat $1,500 rebate on provincial property taxes will be applied to properties across Manitoba instead of the 50 per cent rebate that was applied to the same properties in 2024. While this change will only result in higher annual provincial property taxes for the owners of more valuable homes, virtually all Winnipeg property owners will wind up with larger monthly Tax Instalment Payment Plan charges, beginning in January.
- The Southern Chiefs’ Organization has announced Jerry Daniels is leaving his position as grand chief for “an undetermined length of time” after he was hospitalized following an altercation in Ottawa last week. In a statement emailed to CBC News Thursday, the organization, which represents 33 First Nations in southern Manitoba, cited “health reasons” for Daniels’s departure. It confirmed Lake Manitoba First Nation Chief Cornell McLean was chosen by SCO’s executive committee to take over as acting grand chief.
- Manitoba’s NDP government has extended a $10 per day cap on child care for school-age children to apply to non-school days — making good on a 2023 campaign promise that one advocate says is long overdue. The measure came into effect on Dec. 8 — in time for the school winter break — and means the cap on daily fees will apply to roughly 73 more non-school days per calendar year, including holidays, in-service days, and the summer and winter breaks, the province said in a news release on Friday.
- Manitoba will pay overtime for RCMP officers to patrol the U.S. border, along with deploying conservation officers to help police, as part of a plan to bolster security in response to President-elect Donald Trump’s tariff threat. “We’re going to crack down on drug trafficking … [and] we are going to ensure that we have resources to help secure the border here in Manitoba,” Premier Wab Kinew said at a Thursday news conference.
Saskatchewan
- Regina General Hospital has officially opened a new parking facility aimed at addressing long-standing issues and concerns. For years, visitors to RGH have expressed frustration about limited parking options, particularly during peak hours. The long awaited project, which adds more than 1,000 parking spaces, should ease congestion around the hospital and improve access to critical health-care services.
- The Saskatchewan Marshals Service says it’s ahead of schedule and now expects to be operational by summer 2025, instead of the earlier projection of mid-2026. The Saskatchewan government announced in October 2022 that it was establishing a new provincial police force, which it said would help support the RCMP. It was originally slated to start operations in 2026, at an annual cost of $20 million.
- The latest count of homeless people in Saskatoon shows a significant increase over the last one, done two years ago. The point-in-time count, conducted by volunteers on Oct. 8, identified 1,499 people experiencing homelessness that day. That’s nearly three times higher than the 2022 count, which identified 550. “The results of this count represent the minimum number of individuals experiencing unsheltered and sheltered homelessness in Saskatoon,” Lesley Anderson, director of planning and development for the City of Saskatoon, said in a news release.
- Toby Esterby says he is constantly seeing new HIV cases diagnosed. “It’s not that we’re seeing a single case a week,” Esterby, chief operations officer at the West Side Community Clinic in Saskatoon, said. “We’re seeing several new cases every week. Week after week.” Recently released statistics show Saskatchewan had the worst rate of HIV infections in Canada in 2023. The release by the Public Health Agency of Canada says Saskatchewan’s infection rate last year was 19.4 per 100,000 population, more than three times the national rate of 6.1 per 100,000.
Alberta
- Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s latest swipe at U.S. President Donald Trump, calling opponent Kamala Harris’s loss a setback for women’s progress, was “not helpful” to ongoing negotiations over a potential 25-per-cent border tariff, said Alberta Premier Danielle Smith on Thursday. “I think the American people voted pretty decisively for the Republicans, and for President-elect Donald Trump in particular,” said Smith.
- The much-anticipated federal plan to address issues at the Canada-U.S. border will be unveiled on Monday according to Alberta Premier Danielle Smith. Smith says Prime Minister Justin Trudeau laid out the plan to premiers on a virtual call with the 13 provincial and territorial leaders Wednesday afternoon. “He wanted to make sure that he brought it by us first before making the call to the U.S. president,” Smith said in an interview Thursday on CTV’s Power Play referring to incoming president Donald Trump. “And then, of course, we’ll see more detail around it on December the 16th.”
- Premier Danielle Smith says her government will create a team of specially-trained sheriffs tasked with patrolling the Alberta-U.S. border. Called the Interdiction Patrol Team, or IPT, the unit will include 51 officers, four K-9 teams, 10 support staff and 10 “cold weather surveillance” drones in order to prevent all “illegal cross-border activity.” The provincial government has invested $29 million into the creation of the team.
- Alberta’s premier is in the United States selling her province’s economic virtues. Danielle Smith says her goal at the Western Governors’ Association winter meeting in Las Vegas is to make Alberta’s case and promote a strong Canada-U.S. trade relationship. It’s an association that’s under stress as incoming U.S. President Donald Trump says he plans to impose 25-per-cent tariffs on Canadian goods when he takes office next month. “We have been friends and allies, we have fought together in wars,” Smith said. ” I think we need to come to the table with our considerable strengths.”
British Columbia
- The ruling B.C. NDP has announced a co-operation agreement with the B.C. Green Party that Premier David Eby says will “strengthen the stability of government and help deliver on the priorities of British Columbians.” Called the 2024 Co-operation and Responsible Government Accord, the document outlines a list of priorities agreed upon by the parties, including health care, affordable housing and the economy. The term of the deal is four years, to be renewed annually.
- The British Columbia government will freeze hiring for the civil service, a month before contract talks with its unions begin and at a time when Premier David Eby’s new government is facing a record-breaking $9-billion deficit. Just weeks ago, Mr. Eby was given a rock-star welcome at the BC Federation of Labour convention, where he credited the province’s unions for his party’s razor-thin electoral victory. But the public sector consumes a little more than half the entire provincial budget and private-sector employers are unhappy with the rate of growth within the government.
- From the merry-looking set of a movie, where he was making a film-industry-related announcement, Premier David Eby came out firing with B.C.’s potential response to massive tariffs threatened by Donald Trump. “Nothing is off the table for British Columbia as part of a unified Canadian front to respond to these unjustified tariffs,” said Eby Thursday. Eby’s comments were in response to ongoing threats by the U.S. president-elect, who has suggested imposing 25-per-cent tariffs on all Canadian goods if Canada doesn’t bolster its border security. The B.C. premier followed his Ontario counterpart Doug Ford’s threat Wednesday to cut off his province’s power supply to 1.5 million U.S. homes it supplies if Trump doesn’t back down.
- B.C. Premier David Eby says the provincial government could receive $3.5 billion from a $32 billion proposed Canadian settlement with three tobacco companies. Eby said the money would be used for cancer treatment and primary care, and research into treatments, as well as to help people stop smoking.
Northwest Territories
- The former CEO of Łutsel K’e Dene First Nation’s business arm Denesoline Corporation is seeking an N.W.T. court’s approval to access frozen funds. A court injunction last year froze all of Ron Barlas’s assets and funds following allegations he funnelled millions of dollars out of the Łutsel K’e companies. In July, an N.W.T. Supreme Court Justice found that Barlas had been using company resources for personal interests and ordered a trial to determine the level of damages for Łutsel K’e Dene First Nation (LKDFN).
Yukon
- Harm-reduction strategies not delivering results, says Yukon’s outgoing top RCMP officer. Chief Supt. Scott Sheppard questions growing ‘industry around this whole idea of harm-reduction’
Nunavut
- The organization that represents Inuit in Nunavut has a new president. Jeremy Tunraluk, who was born in Arctic Bay, Nunavut, was elected president of Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. (NTI) with 34.4 per cent of the vote on Monday night. Tunraluk previously worked for the Qikiqtani Inuit Association and is a well-known Nunavut musician. Tunraluk takes over from former president Aluki Kotierk, who announced earlier this year she wouldn’t be seeking re-election.