Provincial and Territorial Update – March 27, 2026
An overview on Provincial and Territorial updates for the week of March 27 2026. Written by Wes McLean.
New Brunswick
- A watery-eyed Green Leader David Coon said he’ll look for other ways to toughen environmental protections in New Brunswick after Liberals and Progressive Conservatives teamed up to defeat his proposed environmental bill of rights. The bill, Coon’s second attempt at the legislation since the Liberals took office in 2024, was defeated late Thursday afternoon in a 46-2 vote. Only Coon and his fellow Green MLA, Megan Mitton, voted for it.
- Prime Minister Mark Carney announced more than $1 billion in new spending for 5th Canadian Support Base Gagetown at an announcement in Halifax on Thursday, as part of Ottawa’s plan to rebuild the Canadian military. It comes as Canada meets the NATO spending target of two per cent of gross domestic product, with more than $63 billion allocated — the largest year-over-year increase to Canada’s defence spending in generations, according to a statement by Carney.
- Some long-term care groups say the latest provincial budget doesn’t go far enough to fill the gaps in the sector that are driving problems in health care. Improving access to health care is, according to the finance minister, the province’s number one priority. But Jan Seely, CEO of the New Brunswick Special Care Home Association, said the system won’t meaningfully improve until seniors can get faster access to care outside hospital walls.
- Health Minister John Dornan said Woodstock-based eVisitNB will continue to provide virtual health-care services to New Brunswickers for another 90 days after March 31. Last month, the province announced that eVisitNB’s contract wouldn’t be renewed and instead a new company would take over the service. Foundever, a Luxembourg-based company that operates the province’s 811 Telecare service, is supposed to take over by April 1. Dornan told reporters on Tuesday that the company is not ready.
Nova Scotia
- Prime Minister Mark Carney announced more than $2 billion in defence spending for Nova Scotia on Thursday. The funding is part of more than $3 billion that will be spent on defence infrastructure and properties in the Atlantic region. “In Nova Scotia, we’re making major targeted investments to modernize critical infrastructure, to build new facilities, to support the next generation of naval and air fleets, and to expand our training and operational capacity,” said Carney at a news conference in Halifax.
- Cape Breton Regional Municipality councillors have approved a budget for the coming year that includes no increase in the tax rate, but adds a new tipping fee for residents who use the landfill site and includes a seven per cent increase in spending. The operating budget now tops out at just over $200 million, and CBRM officials say most of that increase is needed to cover collective agreement raises for unionized staff.
- The Nova Scotia government passed its budget bill on Wednesday afternoon, with the public barred from watching inside the legislature and the premier and finance minister absent for the vote. The third reading of the Appropriations Act was called shortly after the sitting opened for the day. It was essentially a do-over after a crowd in the gallery late Tuesday night prevented the vote when they broke out in song to protest, leading Speaker Danielle Barkhouse to adjourn business for the night.
- Ottawa has signed a deal with Nova Scotia to simplify federal and provincial environmental approvals on major infrastructure and resource projects. Prime Minister Mark Carney and Premier Tim Houston announced the deal Friday after Carney delivered a brief speech to about 1,100 people at the Halifax Convention Centre. The agreement has been dubbed the “one project, one review model,” but decisions on whether to use this approach will be made by the province on a project-by-project basis. The provincial government says the new single-review process aims to remove duplication, shorten review times and increase regulatory clarity.
Prince Edward Island
- Prince Edward Island’s health minister told MLAs that he has apologized to Health P.E.I.’s board members for not consulting them before making changes at the top of the organization earlier this month. The authority’s board of directors was only informed after the fact that Melanie Fraser was out as Health P.E.I.’s chief executive officer. During question period in the legislature Friday, Health Minister Cory Deagle said that the situation “could have been handled better.” He said he met last week with Health P.E.I. board chair Richard Wedge and vice-chair Mona O’Shea.
- Prince Edward Island’s largest power utility says it does not plan to export energy to the United States, despite it seeking permission to do so. Maritime Electric filed an application to the Canada Energy Regulator to renew a permit to export up to 400,000 megawatts of electricity per year to areas within the Northeast Power Coordinating Council, which includes the U.S. The utility has had the permit for decades, and said it has never actually exported power south of the border. The permit is renewed on a 10-year cycle, which is up this year, said Angus Orford, vice-president of corporate planning and energy supply with Maritime Electric.
- The P.E.I. government committed to do a review of the Island Regulatory and Appeals Commission, but the Green Party says it’s a process that likely won’t get finished before the next provincial election. The review was one of many plans the Progressive Conservative government laid out Wednesday in its speech from the throne, which kicked off the spring sitting of the legislative assembly.
- The first year of P.E.I.’s expanded RSV program has been a success, with hospitalizations for the virus dropping by nearly three-quarters, says Dr. Heather Morrison, P.E.I.’s chief public health officer. Free RSV vaccines were previously available to people aged 60 and older living in long-term or community-care homes on the Island. Starting in September last year, free vaccines became available to seniors aged 75 and older, as well as infants eligible to receive an antibody product.
Newfoundland and Labrador
- Doctors in Newfoundland and Labrador say rapid implementation of a province-wide electronic health information system threatens to harm patients and push some physicians to retire or leave the province. The province’s health authority says its electronic health information system, CorCare, based on the Epic software platform used in many parts of Canada and the U.S., is set to launch on April 25. N.L. Health Services says CorCare promises to modernize health care by replacing outdated systems like Meditech, providing a single, integrated digital record to improve patient care, efficiency and data sharing across the province.
- Communities across western Newfoundland will soon have government dollars flowing to better their water and wastewater systems, and one mayor says it could be the key that unlocks hundreds of new housing units. More than $35.6 million in infrastructure money from the federal, provincial and municipal governments was announced in Corner Brook on Monday. Ten projects across western Newfoundland are being awarded funds.
- Thousands of graduate students are at risk of losing their access to health and dental insurance because the union that represents them has incurred almost $2 million in debt. According to a statement made by Memorial University’s Graduate Students’ Union (GSU), it owes approximately $1.6 million to insurance provider GreenShield and $355,000 to the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS). And because of this debt, the Teaching Assistants’ Union of MUN (TAUMUN) president, Kieran Knoll, has submitted a petition calling for the dissolution of the GSU as an organization.
- Fuel prices are down across Newfoundland and Labrador as part of the Public Utilities Board’s weekly pricing adjustment on Friday morning, with diesel and home heating fuels taking the most significant dip. The price of diesel decreased 12.6 cents per litre across Newfoundland, and by 12.8 cents in Labrador West and Churchill Falls. The drop in price comes just a day after prices increased by more than 12 cents, driven by market fluctuations due to the war in the Middle East. The change puts prices between $2.34 and $2.48 per litre in Newfoundland, and between $1.75 and $2.48 per litre in Labrador.
Quebec
- Tensions flared Saturday in Quebec City as Christine Fréchette and Bernard Drainville faced off in the first debate to succeed Premier François Legault as leader of the Coalition Avenir Québec. The proposed “third link” bridge connecting Quebec City and Lévis quickly moved to the centre of the clash. Fréchette accused Drainville’s preferred route of serving his “ego,” while Drainville countered that she was blocking the project with too many conditions. “To sum it up: I’ll do it, and Christine is putting it on hold because she’s imposing so many conditions that it won’t happen,” he said.
- Every Quebecer will now be affiliated with a local community service centre (CLSC) in their area to receive care close to home. This was announced Friday morning by the Minister of Health when she unveiled the government’s policy on primary care and services. “To realize our vision of a frontline close to the community, we will ensure that CLSCs can once again become a physical gateway for access to frontline services for all those who need them,” said Health Minister Sonia Bélanger at a press conference, adding that “CLSCs are a source of pride for Quebecers, a founding idea of our public system.”
- There should be no new limits on the use of the notwithstanding clause, even if a “tyrant” could one day take power and use it to run roughshod on fundamental rights, the Quebec government told Canada’s top court amid a challenge to Quebec’s secularism law. “It is not the role of the court to decide a political question that is not justiciable,” lawyer Isabelle Brunet, who represents Quebec’s attorney general, told the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) in French on Tuesday.
- The National Assembly has voted in favour of a motion calling for the resignation of Air Canada CEO Michael Rousseau, saying his inability to speak French shows a lack of respect for francophones all over Canada. Dismissing a formal apology issued by Rousseau on Thursday as “too little, too late,” MNAs supported the motion pitched by the Coalition Avenir Québec government’s minister of the French language, Jean-François Roberge. The vote was 92 in favour, none against. One MNA, Youri Chassin, the independent for the riding of Saint-Jérôme, abstained.
Ontario
- Amid a worsening global economic storm, Ontario is awash in a sea of red ink. Finance Minister Peter Bethlenfalvy tabled a record $244.2-billion budget Thursday with a projected deficit that has almost doubled to $13.8 billion since November, the largest shortfall since the height of the COVID-19 pandemic six years ago. “Of course, I prefer to have a smaller deficit, I prefer to balance sooner, but we have to live in the world we have now,” Bethlenfalvy told reporters before delivering his speech in the legislature.
- What do conservation authorities, a downtown Toronto parking lot and freedom-of-information requests have in common? Provincial legislative changes are coming to all three, and they are jammed into an omnibus budget bill that Ontario Finance Minister Peter Bethlenfalvy tabled Thursday. There are also proposed changes to the ticket resale market, retail shopping on holidays and numerous taxation tweaks, in addition to the province’s plan for doling out taxpayer money in the coming year. Opposition party leaders say the approach lacks transparency and accountability because there is such a range of proposed changes.
- Ontario Premier Doug Ford and his health minister said Wednesday they will not reverse course on their decision to shutter more supervised drug consumption sites, after a letter from six former Toronto mayors urged them to do so. Two weeks ago, the province notified seven supervised consumption sites that it would be pulling its funding, with sites set to close by mid-June. This came after the province forced the closure of nine other such sites last year, which it deemed too close to schools and daycares.
- Ontario Premier Doug Ford said Tuesday he believes the information and privacy commissioner, who is speaking out about changes he is making to freedom-of-information laws, is “politically driven.” The government announced this month that records of the premier, cabinet ministers, parliamentary assistants and their offices will no longer be subject to public disclosure. Ford said the changes will bring Ontario in line with practices in other provinces and the federal government, but they are also about protecting his cellphone records.
Manitoba
- Two future national First Nations leaders, a deputy premier and a city councillor are among the prominent Manitobans who appear in declassified intelligence files from years of RCMP spying on the Indigenous rights movement in the Cold War era. Former Assembly of First Nations national chiefs Phil Fontaine and Ovide Mercredi, who are from First Nations within Manitoba, appear in the RCMP Security Service intelligence files. So does Eric Robinson, who went on to become a Manitoba cabinet minister and deputy premier.
- Manitoba’s auditor general says the province is unlikely to meet its target of new child-care spaces and has not set up proper oversight on how some child-care grants were used. The NDP government accepted the findings of Tyson Shtykalo’s report on Thursday and says it is already working on improvements. Shtykalo’s office analyzed a 2021 agreement with the federal government, aimed at creating 23,000 new child-care spaces in Manitoba by this year and improving access for children from diverse and vulnerable backgrounds.
- Manitoba’s latest budget promises millions of dollars for ankle monitors, police officers and correctional services, but lawyers say more of that money is needed for the overworked people handling criminal cases as they move through the courts. Ben Wickstrom said the Manitoba Association of Crown Attorneys is”disappointed” this year’s budget didn’t include money to hire more prosecutors. “What we really feel is missing is sort of any investment in our place in the system, which is really in what is a critical middle part of the criminal justice system,” said Wickstrom, the association’s vice-president of prosecutions and a spokesperson for the organization.
- Former Manitoba premier Brian Pallister, who won two consecutive majority governments and led the province during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, was lauded by friends and colleagues Thursday night as his official portrait was unveiled at the legislature. The painting by Canadian artist Andrew Valko shows Pallister standing by the Assiniboine River near the community of High Bluff outside Portage la Prairie, with a sunset in the distance. The painting is the first official portrait of a Manitoba premier set outdoors, Pallister said, and the river holds special significance.
Saskatchewan
- Efforts by the Speaker of the Saskatchewan Legislature to bring decorum back to the chamber continued on Thursday, with Todd Goudy ruling that the phrase “eager beaver” was unparliamentary language. It happened during question period on Thursday before a vote on the 2026-27 provincial budget. NDP Opposition Leader Carla Beck rose in the legislature and attempted to ask a question of Premier Scott Moe, while making a remark about Jeremy Harrison, the Minister for the Crown Investments Corporation (CIC).
- Premier Scott Moe has said there are no “cancellations or delays” to school projects as a result of the provincial budget introduced last week. “There are no cancellations and no delays with respect to these, school outbuild or any other piece of infrastructure outbuildings in this province,” Moe said after question period on Monday. That conflicts with information provided by Education Minister Everett Hindley, who told the media on Friday that projects were being delayed in order to advance them “sustainably.” “There are a several projects, and not just in education but in other ministries as well, where they won’t be in advancing as quickly as initially planned,” he said.
- The Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations is resisting a request from the federal government to repay $28.7 million in funding linked to COVID-19 assistance. The FSIN, which represents 74 First Nations in Saskatchewan, issued a news release Tuesday that defended its spending and blasted the findings of a forensic audit by KPMG that identified millions of dollars in “unsupported” or “ineligible” spending. In the news release, FSIN Chief Bobby Cameron defended the organization as “transparent, responsive and accountable” and said the dispute is based on a “fundamental” disagreement in interpretation.
- Dozens of people filled Regina’s Fresh and Sweet cafe on Saturday to paint, collage and craft their concerns about artificial intelligence by making zines — a type of self-published small booklet, typically created by hand. The event was organized by InspirED Saskatchewan, a student-led nonprofit created by University of Regina students. “There’s a lot of outrage over the proposed AI data centre. So our plan here today was: combat that with art,” said Amber Fink, one of the organizers with InspirED Saskatchewan. Bell Canada said last week it plans to start construction on a 300 MW facility in the rural municipality of Sherwood, just south of Regina, this spring.
Alberta
- Alberta Premier Danielle Smith pitched Canadian oil and gas as “the answer” to energy security concerns and the United States administration’s “energy dominance” ambitions, while she called for new cross-border pipelines at a major energy conference in Houston on Tuesday. “You’ve probably heard we want to build a million-barrel-a-day pipeline to the West Coast. But there are also proponents who would like to build about two and a half million barrels per day of additional egress to the United States,” Smith said at the CERAWeek conference.
- Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said the province’s health authority is now trying to recover tens of millions of dollars it paid MHCare Medical Corp. for drugs the company never delivered. Alberta Health Services, Ms. Smith told reporters, has abandoned its previous strategy of trying to recoup value for some of the money it paid MHCare by purchasing even more medication from the company, which is at the centre of the province’s procurement controversy.
- Former Alberta premier Jason Kenney is taking up the Canadian cause, set to participate in two debates on separatism against a lawyer pushing for the province to go its own way. The first debate will take place in Edmonton on May 1 at a members-only conference organized by Civitas Canada, a conservative non-profit organization. An agenda for the conference says both sides of the separatism debate want economic fairness for Alberta, and it’ll be up to Kenney and lawyer Keith Wilson to argue which path helps that goal. “What is the best way for Albertans to fulfil their destiny? Remain a Canadian province or become an independent state?” the agenda reads.
- The Alberta government plans to propose a universal code of conduct to govern the behaviour of local municipal councils. Last year, the UCP government repealed all local codes of conduct, saying they were being used by some councils as political weapons, silencing some voices. Before that, municipalities were required by the provincial government to have codes of conduct enshrined in their bylaws. At a news conference on Thursday, Municipal Affairs Minister Dan Williams said the old system created “a patchwork of different rules” that sometimes were unclear or counterproductive.
British Columbia
- Following two recent court decisions siding with First Nations under British Columbia’s Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, Premier David Eby is considering amendments that would weaken the legislation. First Nations leaders have called on Eby to leave the bill alone. The bill, known as DRIPA, requires B.C. to take “all measures” to align the rights of Indigenous Peoples with existing provincial legislation. Amendments proposed in a confidential letter sent to some First Nations leaders in B.C. on Monday say the government is looking to amend the bill to promise “ongoing processes” to align select legislation with DRIPA.
- Hon Chan, B.C. MLA for Richmond Centre has been charged with assault, assault by choking and uttering threats. Chan was charged on Wednesday and has been released from custody. He is set to make his first court appearance on April 22 in Richmond provincial court, according to the B.C. Prosecution Service. The case has been designated a “K file,” which indicates it is an alleged case of intimate partner violence or domestic violence. The victim’s identity is unknown.
- B.C. Hydro says it will relocate and repurpose most of its massive Site C work camp to support the construction of a major new power transmission line across northern B.C. The Crown utility announced Friday that about 85 per cent of the work camp will be dismantled this spring and moved to several sites across the region to support construction of the North Coast Transmission Line. “This outcome is a win-win for British Columbians,” Energy Minister Adrian Dix said in a news release. “Repurposing the Site C camp not only prevents unnecessary waste but saves money and time, while supporting a project that will generate significant economic benefits for our province.”
- The companies behind the Coastal GasLink pipeline and the massive LNG Canada facility in Kitimat, B.C., have signed agreements bringing both of their second phases closer to reality. TC Energy says the agreement to establish a “comprehensive commercial framework” is an important milestone for advancing its Coastal GasLink Phase 2, while supporting LNG Canada’s pathway to a final decision on its second stage. The LNG Canada expansion is on Prime Minister Mark Carney’s list of major projects of national significance to be considered for fast-tracking.
Northwest Territories
- A labour relations analyst says updating the legislation around union representation for N.W.T. public servants, including nurses, could be a change for the better. The territorial government is proposing changes to the Public Service Act that would introduce a process for employees to apply for the certification of a new bargaining unit, decertify an existing one, or choose different union representation. A newly-established territorial labour board would oversee any new certification or decertification.
Yukon
- Some Indigenous and business leaders say they aren’t seeing the Yukon Party’s election campaign promise of “change” delivered in the new territorial government’s first full budget. Premier and Finance Minister Currie Dixon made his budget address in the legislative assembly last Thursday. He described the budget as a way to help the territory “back on track” after nine years of Liberal rule. Dixon has previously warned of structural changes to come as the territory grapples with a nearly $82-million deficit and approaches the $1.2-billion debt ceiling imposed by Ottawa.
Nunavut
- Being pushed down the stairs, fights happening in the washroom, students jumping other students outside school — that’s how Ruben Dewar remembers high school in Iqaluit. Dewar graduated in 2022 and says he saw a major increase in violent incidents after the pandemic. “Kids have a lot of grief and some of them have no hope of doing better,” Dewar said. “What they do is take their anger out on people with fighting, which is not a healthy way.” The increase in violence Dewar remembers isn’t reflected in the data from Nunavut’s Department of Education obtained by CBC News.