Provincial and Territorial Update – May 17, 2025
Provincial and Territorial Update: An overview of the Provincial Legislative and Territories Legislative Updates for the week of May 17, 2025. Written by Wes McLean.
New Brunswick
- New Brunswick Progressive Conservatives won’t be tackling thorny changes to their party constitution next weekend after all. Several potentially contentious changes to their rules will not be put to a vote after they failed to get enough support at local PC riding meetings, according to a package sent to some PC members Friday afternoon and obtained by CBC News.
- Auditors who examined an apparent winter spike in N.B. Power bills have persuaded one opposition party that meters are working properly, but another party still has doubts. The two senior auditors from KPMG Canada spent almost three hours Thursday fielding questions from MLAs about their conclusions that the utility’s residential meters accurately measured the electricity customers were consuming.
- The Holt Liberal government adjourned the New Brunswick Legislature on Friday, still trying to avoid acknowledging that its budget decisions are leading to job cuts by district education councils. Education Minister Claire Johnson avoided responding to questions from the opposition and from reporters after the Francophone South DEC, which includes schools in her Moncton riding — confirmed details of its cuts.
- Premier Susan Holt has ended her weekly briefings on the tariff war with the U.S., saying the “situation has somewhat stabilized” with the recent federal election and resumption of bilateral talks with President Donald Trump’s administration. “We have a new and stable federal government in place,” Holt said Thursday as she delivered her last tariff briefing. “They have now named a clear team of people who will be leading the negotiations with the U.S. and the work to remove the barriers to trade.”
Nova Scotia
- After weeks of complaints, staff at Nova Scotia’s biggest hospitals will be able to park at work without facing fees of more than $72 a day. Parking has been a point of contention at the Halifax Infirmary and Victoria General sites for years, but tempers flared at the beginning of the month when the province announced parking would be free as of May 1.
- Two weeks after two young siblings vanished without a trace in rural Nova Scotia, experts are pointing to anomalies in what they say is an unprecedented case that deviates from a typical missing children investigation. Lilly Sullivan, 6, and her brother Jack Sullivan, 4, have been missing since May 2. That’s when police received a 911 call reporting that they had wandered away from their home in Lansdowne Station, a sparsely populated area about 140 kilometres northeast of Halifax.
- Cape Breton University has sent out letters of offer to 30 students and says it is ready to open a new medical school this fall. A new building at CBU is scheduled to open in October in conjunction with Dalhousie University’s medical school, and classes are expected to start in August in the old Nova Scotia Community College buildings next door until the new structure is finished.
- An ambitious new community-led housing strategy that aims to increase access to affordable housing for African Nova Scotians has been officially launched, but its long-term success will depend on financial support from all levels of government. The new plan, which was unveiled by the Nova Scotia Black Community Housing Council at the Black Cultural Centre in Cherry Brook, N.S., on Thursday, is the result of multiple years of research and ongoing consultation with the African Nova Scotian community.
Prince Edward Island
- A Prince Edward Island man wants others to be aware of a federal program that offers compensation for serious and permanent injuries from vaccines approved by Health Canada, since he missed the deadline for applying and has been left in dire straits. Kent Gillespie used to rotate among three different occupations to make a living. “I was doing construction, I’ve been cooking for a lot of years, and I had my own painting company,” he said during an interview with CBC News at his Charlottetown home.
- Lone Oak Brewing Company was fined for having minors in the restaurant during a recent trivia night. Officials with the province say people under legal drinking age are allowed in bars if they are eating and are with someone over the age of 19. Now, the owners of the brewery would like to see the province’s liquor laws updated.
- Summerside’s mayor says the city’s electricity challenges are far from resolved. P.E.I.’s second-largest city, which operates its own utility, faced a series of power disruptions this winter. Summerside Electric generates about 60 per cent of its electricity through renewable sources like solar and wind, but it still relies on Maritime Electric’s transmission grid for power that the smaller utility buys from New Brunswick.
- After eight weeks, the second session of the 67th General Assembly of Prince Edward Island wrapped up Friday. The spring sitting was Rob Lantz’s first in the role of premier after Dennis King’s shock resignation back in February, which led to the legislature being prorogued by a month past its originally scheduled start date. Safety in Island schools and the Progressive Conservative government’s multimillion-dollar tourism deal with the National Hockey League were dominant topics of debate during question period.
Newfoundland and Labrador
- The government of Newfoundland and Labrador made a legislation change four months ago meant to tackle the growing number of unclaimed bodies being held in freezer units at the Health Sciences Centre in St. John’s — but it has yet to bury a single person. According to the amended legislation, which was filed on Dec. 24 and came into effect on Jan. 1, Newfoundland and Labrador Health Services (NLHS) has the power to bury unclaimed remains after two weeks of searching for next of kin and then five days after the identity of the person is posted online on a dedicated website.
- The Newfoundland and Labrador government announced it’s expanding accessibility to the free shingles vaccine to people 50 and older by September, but will start with making it available to immunocompromised seniors on June 1. Premier John Hogan made the announcement on Thursday, following through on a promise he first made during his campaign for Liberal leadership last month.
- Last year, the number of passengers flying in and out of the St. John’s International Airport returned to pre-pandemic levels, something the head of the airport authority says is a good sign of things to come. Dennis Hogan, CEO of the St. John’s International Airport Authority, says the 2024 passenger count reached almost 1.4 million, up about 9.4 per cent from 2023.
- Days after Newfoundland and Labrador Premier John Hogan promised to scrap the sugar tax, the province’s health minister promised the program it helped fund will be safe from cuts. The Sweetened Beverage Tax, also known as the sugar tax, added 20 cents to the cost of each litre of sugar sweetened beverages and brought in approximately $12-million annually. On Wednesday in the House of Assembly, NDP MHA Jordan Brown raised concerns for the future of programs the tax helped fund, including the glucose monitoring pilot program.
Quebec
- Quebec Premier François Legault remains open to pipeline projects in response to the tariff war led by Donald Trump, arguing he senses growing openness among Quebecers. He even mentioned a potential project that would pass through the northern part of the province and end at the port of Sept-Îles. “There are projects like that which would have been unthinkable before Trump,” said the premier during a more than 90-minute interview on the podcast Contact hosted by Stéphan Bureau.
- Quebecers are set to head to the polls by Oct. 5, 2026, and according to a new survey by Léger for Québecor, 63 per cent of respondents say they want to see a new government take charge. Contrarily, 18 per cent say they would like to continue with the current government, and 19 per cent did not answer. If an election were to be held today in Quebec, 33 per cent of respondents say they would vote for the Parti Québécois (PQ), putting it up three points since the last survey on March 10, 2025.
- The Fédération des médecins spécialistes du Québec (FMSQ) appointed lawyer and former premier Lucien Bouchard to represent the organization in negotiations with the government, turning to arbitration in the hope of reaching an agreement. In a press release, the FMSQ, which brings together the members of 36 medical associations, explained it had called on Bouchard because of his “credibility and in-depth knowledge of the political system,” which made him “the ideal person” to take charge of the case. The Federation acknowledged that negotiations with the government, which it describes as “difficult,” are “not going well,” pointing to the recent introduction of Bill 106 by Health Minister Christian Dubé.
- The Parti Québécois was forced to defend its candidate on Wednesday ahead of an upcoming by-election northeast of Montreal after criticism of his decades-old, far-left activist past. Alex Boissonneault was arrested in 2001 in Quebec City for being part of a group that had plotted to penetrate the security perimeter of the Summit of the Americas, as heads of state gathered for a series of meetings on issues such as trade. He was held in pretrial detention for 41 days but was subsequently sentenced to community service and eventually pardoned in 2011.
Ontario
- The Ford government tabled its 2025 budget called “A Plan to Protect Ontario,” aimed at softening the blow from U.S. tariffs. It’s a financial blueprint big on spending, alcohol provisions and red ink. The deficit is growing by $8.6 billion, up from $6 billion last year to $14.6 billion this year, though the government lays out a path to balance the budget by 2027-28. There is $5 billion for Ontario businesses struggling with the tariffs, $20 billion to help laid-off workers, and money for two new police helicopters.
- Ontario is handing the country’s investment industry regulator significant new enforcement powers. In the budget tabled Thursday, the province announced plans to introduce new legislation granting the Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization (CIRO) statutory authority to compel evidence in its investigations and disciplinary hearings. The province also promised legislative updates that would provide CIRO staff with legal immunity for any good-faith actions.
- Premier Doug Ford is defending his housing record despite statistics showing the rate of building new homes is half what’s needed to meet his target of 1.5 million by 2031. “We’re doing everything we can,” he told reporters Friday in Wasaga Beach, a day after his government’s spring budget showed housing starts are expected to drop to 71,800 this year, down from 74,600 in 2024. The province needs an average of 150,000 housing starts a year to meet the goal, and forecasts for the next three years fall short of that, topping out at an expected 85,900 in 2028.
- Ontario’s integrity commissioner says a former top staffer to Premier Doug Ford broke lobbying rules. Amin Massoudi now runs Atlas Strategic Advisors, but previously served as Ford’s principal secretary until 2022. Integrity Commissioner Cathryn Motherwell’s office posted a notice of non-compliance on its website this week, saying Massoudi failed to comply with lobbying rules during a phone call in 2023. The notice says Massoudi failed to register after lobbying a public office holder about a client’s request during a call.
Manitoba
- Emergency response to deadly Lac du Bonnet wildfire to be reviewed, reeve says. ‘If we can do something better … we’re all for that,’ reeve says after resident didn’t get evacuation notice. When Glennda Gould fled her home in Manitoba’s wildfire-stricken Lac du Bonnet area this week, it wasn’t because she’d gotten a notification telling her to evacuate — it was because the smoke had finally gotten so bad she felt like she couldn’t stay any longer.
- Manitoba is adding a new compulsory math curriculum in the hope it will mean better grades, and factor into students be better prepared for both advanced courses and adulthood. The curriculum for Grade 9 students should equip high school students for the demands of precalculus, chemistry and physics, while giving students more time to master practical, hands-on mathematics, Education Minister Tracy Schmidt said in a news release Friday. The new course will replace the current one that includes an optional transitional math course, the province’s release said. Financial literacy elements will be incorporated throughout the curriculum.
- Pharmacists in Manitoba will soon be able to prescribe birth control, the province’s health minister revealed this week in an announcement that came as a pleasant surprise to the industry. Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara told the legislature Wednesday that granting pharmacists the means to assess and prescribe contraceptives is a “very reasonable expansion of scope for pharmacists in Manitoba.” The minister added in an interview that the government is moving “very quickly” on the changes, which will take effect “in the coming days and weeks.”
- Assiniboine College in Brandon, Man, is getting a $120-million boost from the province to expand its agricultural school and get its long-planned Prairie Innovation Centre for Sustainable Agriculture built — a project Premier Wab Kinew says is critical to filling labour gaps in one of Manitoba’s key economic sectors. Kinew announced the funding Thursday during his state of the province address to the Brandon Chamber of Commerce.
Saskatchewan
- Premier Scott Moe has published a letter he sent to Prime Minister Mark Carney outlining 10 policy changes the federal government “must make” in order to reset the relationship between Ottawa and Saskatchewan. Moe wrote in a Wednesday post on social media that Carney has the ability to quickly move to address the 10 items. “[That] would clearly signal a new, more positive relationship between Saskatchewan and the federal government than we have had for the past 10 years,” Moe wrote, referencing the strained relationship his provincial government had with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
- A legislative sitting that began in March with a focus on the threat of tariffs ended on Thursday with discussions about Saskatchewan’s future in Canada. The whiplash pace of the eight-week sitting reflects the breakneck pace of developments throughout Canada. Saskatchewan’s spring sitting opened on March 19, with Finance Minister Jim Reiter tabling the government’s annual budget that day. It was a rare move. Sittings normally open with a few weeks of business before the budget is tabled. The Official Opposition immediately criticized the decision, saying it was proof that the government was uninterested in accountability.
- There have been 37 reported measles cases in Saskatchewan from mid-March to mid-May this year, Saskatchewan’s chief medical officer said at a news conference Friday, compared to only two cases from 2015 to 2024. Dr. Saqib Shahab said cases have been confirmed in people from five months to 57 years old. “Many families are still not accepting vaccines despite public health staff reaching out to them locally,” Shahab said. He said that most new cases are in unvaccinated people in the southern rural parts of the province.
- New secretary Belanger says Carney ‘on the right path’ to unite the country. Ahead of the Liberals’ first full cabinet meeting, new Secretary of State for Rural Development Buckley Belanger said, ‘Saskatchewan has and will always be an important part of Canada.’ Belanger said holding the first ministers’ meeting in Saskatchewan in June is a good indicator Prime Minister Mark Carney wants the province to be ‘united, strong and as independent as possible.’
Alberta
- Premier Danielle Smith shuffled her cabinet on Friday, including major changes in the health portfolio with individual ministers now responsible for the four separate pillars created in the province’s continuing overhaul of the health authority. Alberta Health Services is being split into four areas covering mental health and addictions, acute care, primary care and continuing care. Each new pillar of the health service has been assigned its own minister. Adriana LaGrange, who was health minister, is now the Minister of Primary and Preventative Health Services.
- Alberta Premier Danielle Smith didn’t hide her dismay at Prime Minister Mark Carney’s choice of Toronto-area MP Julie Dabrusin as his new environment minister on Tuesday. “I am very concerned the prime minister has appointed what appears to be yet another anti-oil and gas environment minister,” said Smith in a statement on Carney’s cabinet picks. “Not only is (Dabrusin) a self-proclaimed architect of the designation of plastics as toxic, but she is a staunch advocate against oil sands expansion (and) proponent of phasing out oil and gas(.)”
- Alberta’s premier was red hot at one of her former cabinet ministers during question period at the Alberta legislature Tuesday. Peter Guthrie, an MLA who was kicked out of the UCP caucus last month, began asking questions about Premier Danielle Smith’s husband, David Moretta, and his presence at meetings about a railway megaproject. “Besides registering as a lobbyist, it is essential to reveal insider relationships,” said Guthrie, the independent MLA for Airdrie-Cochrane. “To the premier, has your husband ever been a registered lobbyist while you were premier, and if so, for what purpose?” “He has never, ever been registered as a lobbyist because he has never, ever lobbied any government, including ours, and I would ask for any innuendo and the slander to stop,” Smith replied.
- The spring sitting of Alberta’s legislature began under the cloud of a health-care contract corruption scandal and ended with a firestorm of renewed separatist angst. The sitting, which wrapped late Wednesday, saw Premier Danielle Smith’s United Conservative government pass 19 pieces of legislation. Included were bills to lower the bar for citizen-initiated referendums to take place, force those suffering from addiction into treatment without consent and to set the stage for a provincial police force. Also passed was legislation to regulate online gambling, overhaul the provincial auto insurance scheme to something similar to a no-fault system, and strip municipal councils of having codes of conduct.
British Columbia
- B.C. Premier David Eby says his housing policies are intended to result in a decline in home prices — an outcome new federal Housing Minister Gregor Robertson said he does not wish to see, sparking reaction and debate nationwide. On Wednesday, Roberston told media in Ottawa he did not wish to see home prices decline but rather build affordable housing, meaning non-market options such as co-ops, social housing and rental units pegged to local incomes. In the following days, Robertson re-asserted he did not want to reduce “the price of a family’s current home, which for most Canadians, is their most valuable asset.”
- Standing in front of 136,000 kilograms of sablefish being unloaded at the Finest at Sea market in Victoria, B.C. Premier David Eby announced an upcoming trade mission to Asia. Eby said he and Agriculture Minister Lana Popham will be travelling to Japan, South Korea and Malaysia. “Food from B.C. commands a premium in Asia,” Eby said, as the province works to find new trading partners aside from the United States. He added that countries around the world are interested in what B.C. can provide: clean energy, technology, food, agriculture, and critical metals and minerals.
- Premier David Eby is not backing down from two controversial laws that will fast-track infrastructure projects and clean energy projects across BC, despite a tense meeting with First Nations leaders Thursday, where he was urged to “kill” the bills. The Infrastructure Projects Act, also known as Bill 15, has come under fire for a lack of consultation with Indigenous leaders and the potential impact on Indigenous rights. If passed, it would allow the province to expedite approval processes to build infrastructure across the province, including schools, hospitals, and bridges. It would also extend this to private projects that are deemed “provincially significant,” which could include projects such as critical mineral mines.
- The revelation this week that Premier David Eby had hired Michael Bryant as a special adviser on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside has led to a renewed focus on the premier’s practice of bringing in outside experts to tackle thorny problems. According to Bryant’s contract, the former Ontario attorney general and past CEO of Legal Aid B.C. is to provide the government with policy advice on how to improve services and supports in B.C.’s poorest neighbourhood. Bryant will be paid $150,000 over six months with the option for the government to extend his contract for an additional six months for a total of a year. His payment for that year would be $300,000. He will also be reimbursed for up to $25,000 in expenses per year.
Northwest Territories
- Two factions of the Gwich’in Tribal Council in the N.W.T. appear to have settled part of a court action they were embroiled in. As first NWT News reported by Cabin Radio, the opposing sides filed a notice in the Northwest Territories Supreme Court that they had reached an out-of-court settlement resolving part of the court action initiated by the Nihtat Gwich’in of Inuvik and Ehdiitat Gwich’in of Aklavik. The two councils went to court to challenge decisions made by Frederick Blake Jr. and his allies in the Gwichya Gwich’in Council of Tsiigehtchic and Tetl’it Gwich’in Council of Fort McPherson at a meeting in Edmonton earlier this year.
Yukon
- The Yukon government heard a few priorities during public consultations over the territory’s new Public Lands Act: Developing more land for housing; supporting more First Nations involvement; and defending the public’s access to public lands. The Public Lands Act is still being developed to replace the territory’s outdated rules for land management and recreation. Those rules were last reviewed in the 1980s and precede the final agreements signed by many Yukon First Nations.
Nunavut
- The federal election result in Nunavut still has not been validated by Elections Canada, because one final ballot box has been delayed by a blizzard. NDP incumbent Lori Idlout won the unofficial result by 77 votes over Liberal candidate Kilikvak Kabloona. Elections Canada has a validation process to confirm the unofficial count completed on election night, but the final box from the community of Naujaat has not made it to Iqaluit to be tallied. Returning officer Jean-Claude Nguyen confirmed to The Canadian Press the box is stuck at the airline cargo facility in Rankin Inlet.