Provincial and Territorial Update – February 22, 2025
Provincial and Territorial Update: An overview of the Provincial Legislative and Territories Legislative Updates for the week of February 22, 2025. Written by Wes McLean.
New Brunswick
- As a former premier of New Brunswick and Canadian ambassador to the United States, Frank McKenna has been through two free trade negotiations and countless tense moments. But McKenna, now a business leader, said he’s never seen this level of distrust of the United States government among Canadians. “I think Canadians feel hurt, they feel betrayed by a best friend, perhaps I could put it that way, and they feel vulnerable and worried and all of the above,” he said.
- Canada’s top court has been asked to review a lower court decision in a lawsuit alleging mothers at the Moncton Hospital were given a labour-inducing drug without their consent. The case at issue is a class action lawsuit filed against Horizon Health Network and former Moncton hospital nurse Nicole Ruest. The Supreme Court of Canada website shows Horizon and Ruest both sought leave to appeal or permission to appeal, this month.
- Federal and provincial governments announced $3.5-million in funding to Saint John in a new agreement to tackle homelessness. The funding is a part of what’s called the Unsheltered Homelessness and Encampments Initiative — an agreement between the governments of New Brunswick and Canada. The agreement will make the funding available to the city over a span of two years.
- The government company that oversees ambulance services in New Brunswick says its 90 per cent on-time target is increasingly difficult to achieve and it’s time to look at new ways to measure performance. Craig Dalton, the CEO of EM/ANB Inc., previously known as Ambulance New Brunswick, told MLAs that the service hasn’t been able to meet performance standards across the province since 2016. The system of shifting ambulances to areas with the highest demand — and often leaving rural areas without adequate coverage — is increasingly untenable, he said during a meeting of the legislature’s public accounts committee.
Nova Scotia
- Crystal Ellingsen and Jennifer Brady thought their battle with the government of Nova Scotia ended last year, but now they’re raising their voices once again to continue the fight. The women both suffer from debilitating chronic illnesses that could not be treated in Nova Scotia, and were denied coverage for out-of-province care. They ended up paying tens of thousands of dollars each for medical treatment in other provinces and around the globe. The pair filed for a judicial review against Nova Scotia’s Health Department in 2022, and in 2024 a judge ruled in their favour, saying the province violated their rights by refusing to cover their procedures.
- The Nova Scotia government tabled legislation Thursday intended to resolve disputes among neighbours over property access. The Temporary Access to Land Act creates a process where a property owner can apply to the Utility and Review Board for an order allowing temporary access to an adjacent property. It would allow for the completion of construction or maintenance work when there is no other way to do the work and it “aligns with prescribed provincial priorities.”
- Premier Tim Houston announced Thursday in Ontario that he plans to introduce legislation to make trade between Nova Scotia and other provinces and territories easier. During a surprise appearance at a campaign rally for Ontario Progressive Conservative Leader Doug Ford, Houston said he’ll table a bill called the Free Trade and Mobility Within Canada Act when he returns to Nova Scotia. “This bill will set in legislation that any goods approved in any province or territory can be sold in Nova Scotia without any further testing, red tape or foolishness,” Houston said.
- The Nova Scotia government has taken a giant step backward in accountability and transparency with the introduction this week of a contentious omnibus bill, political observers and access to information experts say. Among other things, the bill will make it possible for Premier Tim Houston’s Progressive Conservatives to fire the province’s auditor general without cause, effectively eliminating the independence of a key officer of the legislature, said David Johnson, a professor of political science at Cape Breton University.
Prince Edward Island
- Longtime Progressive Conservative politician Rob Lantz was sworn in as Prince Edward Island’s 34th premier Friday, pledging to lead the province with “honesty and integrity.” His first order of business was to meet with cabinet, which passed a resolution to prorogue the legislature until March 25, when the government will present its priorities “in the face of tariffs and uncertain economic times,” the new premier said in a late-afternoon statement. Friday’s ceremony at Fanningbank, the residence of P.E.I.’s lieutenant-governor, came less than 24 hours after Dennis King announced he was resigning as premier and stepping away from politics.
- Dennis King says he is stepping down as the premier of Prince Edward Island, calling the job he has held for nearly six years “a privilege and an honour of a lifetime.” The Progressive Conservative politician, who’s 53, made the announcement during a news conference Thursday afternoon, with members of his cabinet standing in a line behind him. He is also stepping down as leader of the PC Party and as MLA for the district of Brackley-Hunter River, with all the resignations effective at 1 p.m. on Friday. In response to a question from a reporter, King also said he did not intend to ever seek elected office again and specifically ruled out running federally.
- Some MLAs from the P.E.I. Liberal and Green parties wish Premier Dennis King well as he walks away from political office, but they say the timing of the announcement has them concerned. The resignation came just days before the spring legislative sitting was due to begin, with the threat of American tariffs looming and ready to ram the Island’s resource-based economy. “Islanders expected [King] to bring forward a budget with a clear plan to address this serious economic threat that Islanders may face,” interim Liberal Leader Hal Perry told CBC News, referring to the possibility of American tariffs.
- Smart meters could help strengthen Prince Edward Island’s electrical grid, but none have been installed on the Island and it will take years after the work begins to complete the transition. Thomas Arnason McNeil, senior energy coordinator with the Ecology Action Centre in Halifax, told CBC News that as demand for electricity grows in P.E.I., smart meters could offer a solution. These devices are designed to let power utilities charge different electricity rates throughout the day — you’d pay more to use your dryer during peak hours and less when demand is low, for example.
Newfoundland and Labrador
- Ryan Kirby points out a second-storey window at a half-frozen pond. He’s standing inside an old summer camp on Salmonier Line — one that any investor might think to turn into a compound of lucrative vacation rentals, just a 40-minute drive from St. John’s. But Kirby and the former camp’s co-owner, Mark Lane, aren’t focused on turning a profit from the vast waterfront property. Instead, they’re pouring their own savings — about $1.1 million so far — into building a brand-new addiction treatment centre.
- It’s been two years since a Bonavista man died in an ambulance en route to Clarenville, but one advocate says not much has changed to prevent such tragedies from happening again. On Feb. 19, 2023, 78-year-old Charles Marsh experienced an asthma attack and went to the Bonavista Peninsula Health Centre emergency room only to find it was closed due to a staffing shortage. The following day, he called an ambulance but died during the over 100-kilometre trip to the hospital in Clarenville.
- Newfoundland and Labrador has officially implemented breast cancer screening for women in their 40s, following through on a promise made in May of last year. Jennie Dale, co-founder and executive director of breast cancer advocacy group Dense Breasts Canada, said that decision puts Newfoundland and Labrador ahead of several provinces —annual screening for women in their 40s, and either annual or bi-yearly screening for women aged 50 to 74 depending on their risk factor.
- The provincial government is defending a land sale to the Crosbie Group — owned by a prominent St. John’s business family — as the PCs accuse the governing Liberals of corruption over a deal involving 32 acres of undeveloped and “landlocked” property in the east end of the capital city. “This is simply outrageous, and the people of the province deserve answers,” PC Leader Tony Wakeham said in a news release issued Thursday afternoon. The news release headline described the deal as the “latest sign of Liberal corruption.”
Quebec
- The Minister for Higher Education, Pascale Déry, blames Ottawa for the slump in applications to Quebec universities. Last year, the federal government reduced the number of visas available to foreign students, partly because of pressure on the housing market. Quebec immediately followed suit, passing Bill 74 in December to impose a cap on the number of international students in universities. This ceiling, which will be set by decree and apply as of the 2025 academic year, is not yet known. The measure is causing concern among universities, which said this week that the mere threat of imposing caps is already having an impact.
- The federal government is increasing the number of refugees it plans to resettle as a result of Sudan’s civil war, with changes that could see 7,000 more people reach Canada through various programs. But it remains impossible for Quebecers to sponsor relatives from Sudan to resettle in that province — and Quebec’s government says it’s already doing enough to help asylum seekers.
- Quebec Labour Minister Jean Boulet has tabled a bill aimed at maintaining certain public services in the case of a labour conflict. Boulet told reporters at the National Assembly Wednesday that Bill 89 “gives more consideration to the needs of the population.” It would allow the government to maintain services that it considers important to the well-being of the population in the event of a strike or a lockout. He said the healthcare and public sectors are being excluded from the bill, but that education, municipal services and some private sectors are covered. However, the province’s unions and opposition parties have already come out strongly against the bill, saying it overreaches and is counter-productive to workers fighting for their rights and better conditions.
- Quebec Higher Education Minister Pascale Déry says she intervened at Dawson College, asking the institution to avoid speaking about sensitive topics during a French-language course about Palestinian culture. “I indeed intervened on the content of a course,” she said at a Tuesday news scrum at the National Assembly. “For a good and simple reason, that the context was truly explosive. We really had tensions on campus, as we’ve known in the past few months.” The teachers’ union disputes Déry’s view on Dawson’s ability to tackle sensitive subjects in the classroom. “I think that it’s a mischaracterization that the climate at Dawson is explosive,” said Antonia Fikkert, the secretary-treasurer of the Dawson Teachers’ Union.
Ontario
- With just five days to go until election day, Doug Ford and the Progressive Conservatives continue to lead but their advantage has shrunk as the Liberals gain ground in Toronto and the NDP rises in the Hamilton-Niagara region, a new survey by CTV News’ official pollster Nanos Research suggests. The survey of 918 adults, released Saturday, found that the PCs have the support of 42.6 per cent of decided voters across Ontario, followed by the Liberals at 30.5 per cent, the NDP at 18.6 per cent, and the Greens at 6.2 per cent. About 11 per cent of voters remain undecided.
- Expanding a provincial financing program that guarantees loans to Indigenous-owned resource projects, putting millions into training First Nations workers and a plan to designate mineral-rich regions of the province as areas of “strategic importance” were several pledges Conservative leader Doug Ford made while in Thunder Bay. Ford was in the city Saturday for a campaign stop at the Laborers’ International Union of North America local office in the city. He was joined by the Progressive Conservative candidates running in the two Thunder Bay-area ridings — Kevin Holland in Thunder Bay-Atikokan and Rick Dumas in Thunder Bay-Superior North.
- Ontario’s NDP and Liberals are both pledging tens of billions of dollars in new spending to pay for their campaign promises, but are taking different approaches to the other side of the ledger, with the NDP proposing wealth taxes and the Liberals eyeing “efficiencies.” The two parties released their full platforms Friday with less than a week to go until next Thursday’s election, and the Progressive Conservatives are set to release theirs on Monday. The Greens put out their platform on Feb. 12.
- After Doug Ford’s latest trip to Washington, D.C. to lobby American political leaders against President Donald Trump’s looming tariffs, governors appeared split on the issue. Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, told reporters that the premiers who came down — Ford and Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston — had a receptive audience. Polis is a supporter of free trade among the U.S.-Canada-Mexico bloc and said he’s not sure if the president’s tariff threats are “a master negotiating strategy” or if they amount to “just stabbing ourselves a bunch of times.” He said as much to White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller in a meeting this week.
Manitoba
- Manitoba’s CancerCare President and CEO, Dr. Sri Navaratnam, will be stepping down from the organization’s top job months before her contract was set to expire. The provincial agency, mandated to lead cancer care services in Manitoba, started its research for another president last year, engaging a third-party firm after Navaratnam announced she would leave the post after her contract expired at the end of 2025. However, in an internal memo to staff and physicians shared with CBC News, the organization’s board chair and vice chair said Dr. Sri Navaratnam will leave the post on April 17.
- A candidate for leadership of the Manitoba Progressive Conservatives says there are books describing bestiality and incest in school libraries. At a leadership debate in Brandon on Wednesday, Wally Daudrich claimed there’s “pornography in schools,” and alleged his rival in the PC leadership race, Fort Whyte MLA Obby Khan, was told about the books as a government minister but failed to remove them.
- A delay in opening the winter road has left people living in Pukatawagan unable to drive out of the isolated northern Manitoba community. As a result, residents of the Matthias Colomb First Nation have to rely on the railroad, which runs only twice a week in either direction or commercial flights. On Thursday, the First Nation, located 210 kilometres north of The Pas and about 820 kilometres northwest of Winnipeg, almost ran out of fuel because the train had been delayed by several hours. Without a road the trip to The Pas becomes a multi-day excursion instead of a day trip, Chief Gordie Bear of the Matthias Colomb Cree Nation told CBC News.
- The CEO and co-owner of Peerless Garments in Winnipeg points to dozens of finished garments around his factory and says he’s worried. Albert El Tassi says his customers will need to absorb the rising costs from U.S. President Donald Trump’s promised 25 per cent tariffs against Canadian products if they come into effect in a couple of weeks, which is something he’s not sure his customers can sustain. “The customer has to accept the increase we [are] proposing to them,” El Tassi told CBC Radio’s Information Radio on Thursday.
Saskatchewan
- The Saskatchewan Cancer Agency (SCA) says it is working to ensure women in the province have access to breast cancer screening and biopsies in a timely manner, but some patients say the system isn’t working fast enough. The province recently announced it would gradually lower the age limit for screening mammograms to 40 from 50. Anyone age 47 or above can now book a screening mammogram without a doctor’s referral and the limit will drop to 45 in June. Younger people with risks like family history can also talk to their doctor about getting a referral for a screening.
- The federal government is compensating more than a dozen Saskatchewan First Nations for agricultural benefits promised in treaties signed long ago, but never provided. It has also reached a separate agreement with Cumberland House Cree Nation on a land claim. Federal Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Gary Anandasangaree said at a news conference Friday that the 14 First Nations involved in the agricultural settlement will get a combined $1.72 billion.
- Saskatchewan’s Opposition NDP has slammed the provincial government’s plan for a shortened spring sitting. On Tuesday, the government announced the Saskatchewan Legislature would open on March 19, with the provincial budget to be presented that day. It will be one of the rare times in the province’s recent history — the other being 2021 due to the COVID pandemic — that the government will not face two weeks of questions before presenting a budget.
- Saskatchewan used to be an educational destination for international students. But the province’s two universities are seeing a significant drop in those enrolments — enough to start having a financial impact. According to the University of Regina’s winter count, the university had 4,457 international students, making for a little less than a third of the university’s total student population. International students at the University of Saskatchewan, on the other hand, made up 14 per cent of the total student population in 2023-24. Both universities have reported a drop in enrolments this winter intake.
Alberta
- The former head of the Alberta Medical Association says Premier Danielle Smith’s latest finger-pointing at the province’s front-line health agency has created a “draconian” chill among workers. Dr. Paul Parks, an emergency physician, says he’s heard from scores of health workers across Alberta who felt intimidated by the premier’s harsh critique this week of Alberta Health Services. “From front-line physicians, nurses, health-care workers, up to senior leadership – everybody heard the premier of the province saying that they suck, that they don’t do a good job and that they’re not valuable,” he said Thursday.
- Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and Health Minister Adriana LaGrange say they had no involvement in determining the details of contracts with private surgical facilities and stressed that all such decisions were made by Alberta Health Services (AHS) staff. The two politicians were responding to a lawsuit filed by Athana Mentzelopoulous, the former CEO of AHS, claiming LaGrange and staff in Smith’s office applied pressure to renew and sign contracts. In her statement of claim, Mentzelopoulous alleged she had concerns about conflicts of interest in procurement and faced pressure to renew contracts with chartered surgical facilities at prices she thought were too high.
- The premier announced two role changes within Alberta Health and AHS as an investigation into the claims by the province’s auditor general proceeds. Andre Tremblay, the deputy minister of health, will continue as the interim CEO and official administrator of AHS. Darren Hedley, the current associate deputy minister of health, will work as the acting deputy minister of health.
- Alberta egg farmers are concerned over comments made by Premier Danielle Smith this weekend, while one food expert said she might be on the right track. On her Saturday radio show, Smith said she has asked her agriculture minister to start a conversation on possible concessions for what she called U.S. President Donald Trump’s irritation with Canada’s supply management system. “I can tell you that that’s a conversation that we’re going to have,” Smith said. “What happens if that becomes a discussion point? What would it look like? How would we make sure that our farmers are compensated if we have to make more concessions there?”
British Columbia
- The New Democrats had to tone down the language about making life more affordable in their Throne Speech this week because they had just scrapped the major election promise to provide a grocery rebate to most families and individuals. “We know British Columbians need support with the costs of daily life,” Premier David Eby told reporters Tuesday before reiterating that the rebate was sacrificed to the threat of tariffs from the U.S. The premier also shelved a promised tax cut for middle-income British Columbians.
- The B.C. government has created a new task force on agriculture and food, as the province faces uncertainty over U.S. tariffs. “All British Columbians want reliable access to healthy and affordable food,” said Premier David Eby in a statement on Thursday. “We must protect our food sources and our agricultural sector in the face of the threat of unfair and damaging tariffs. The respected industry leaders in our task force will provide the government with first-hand knowledge of how to prepare and respond to these threats, as we continue to grow our agricultural sector.”
- In a throne speech invoking the struggles of the Second World War, today B.C. Premier David Eby doubled down on his promise to speed up approvals for major resource and energy projects in an effort to better insulate B.C.’s economy from tariffs threatened by U.S. President Donald Trump. “Every minister has been given marching orders to speed up permit approvals to get job-creating projects built, in partnership with First Nations, communities and businesses throughout the province,” according to the speech, which serves as a blueprint for the NDP government’s priorities over the next year.
- British Columbia’s consumer carbon tax could be headed for the scrap heap within weeks or months, but questions remain about how the government will make up for the hole it creates in the provincial budget. Ahead of the 2024 provincial election, B.C. Premier David Eby pledged to eliminate the consumer price on carbon if the federal government drops its requirement for provinces to have one. That outcome appears likely, and soon. Both frontrunners in the federal Liberal leadership race, Mark Carney and Chrystia Freeland, have vowed to drop the consumer-facing tax.
Northwest Territories
- A committee of Fort Good Hope leaders says it doesn’t trust Imperial Oil’s operations in Norman Wells, N.W.T., and it’s opposing the company’s application for a three-year water licence renewal. The K’ahsho Got’ine Committee — representing the Fort Good Hope Dene, the Fort Good Hope Métis, the Fort Good Hope Renewable Resources Council and the Yamoga Land Corporation — presented at a public hearing Wednesday on Imperial Oil’s application.
Yukon
- Brendan Hanley has been confirmed as the Liberal candidate for Yukon in the next federal election. He’ll be seeking a second term as the territory’s only MP. “I believe I’ve had something to offer to the Yukon,” Hanley said on Thursday. “There’s still a lot to do and I want to keep going and continue to offer what I think is an effective voice for Yukon.” Hanley first won his seat in the 2021 general election. The physician was relatively new to politics at the time but had developed a significant public profile as the territory’s chief public health officer through the first couple of years of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Nunavut
- Two Nunavut MLAs asked questions at the Legislative Assembly this week about infrastructure projects that – amid rising tensions between Canada and the U.S. – the territory’s premier has described recently as “nation-building.” Speaking on CBC’s The Current alongside his fellow territorial premiers on Thursday, P.J. Akeeagok said Nunavut has the potential that it could deliver not only to Canada, but to the world. “And it starts with creating these infrastructures so you untap the true potential that’s there,” he said, going on to define a nation-building project as one that “connects people and brings movement.”