Select Provincial Legislative Update – September 1 2025
Provincial and Territorial Update: An overview of the Provincial Legislative and Territories Legislative Updates for the week of August 25-Spetember 1, 2025. Written by Wes McLean.
New Brunswick
- There are nine fires in the province, with only one burning out of control, down from two yesterday. The Beaver Lake Stream fire has grown to 456 hectares, up from 338 hectares on Tuesday, and remains out of control. It is remotely located in Northumberland County, near the Kennedy Lakes Protected Natural Area. The Rocky Brook fire, which was out of control at 175 hectares on Tuesday, is now contained. The blaze, about 40 kilometres south of Dalhousie, is now listed at 204 hectares.
- For weeks, francophone Liberal MLAs remained silent as pressure mounted on them to speak up about the first language controversy to confront the Susan Holt government. Now that one of them has spoken out, it’s clear the premier finds herself in a legal and political conundrum. The provincial government is arguing to the Supreme Court of Canada that the Constitution does not require New Brunswick’s lieutenant-governor to be bilingual. That argument — identical to the one taken by the previous Progressive Conservative government of Blaine Higgs — has angered and alarmed many francophones.
- There’s the cramped, old, worn-and-torn fire hall in Doaktown, and the Doak historical site down the road. And there’s health care and housing. And roads. And the fate of the old Anderson Bridge. All of these provincial issues are priorities in communities on the Miramichi River, but there’s been no elected representative here to raise them in the corridors of power in Fredericton for five months and counting. This riding, Miramichi West, has been without an MLA since late March, when Progressive Conservative MLA Mike Dawson resigned to run in the federal election.
- A judge has dismissed the province’s application for a stay of a labour board decision, ordering it to rescind library worker layoffs and reinstate the hours of school administrative assistants. Justice Thomas Christie said it may be inconvenient for the province, but there was a lack of evidence that there will be “irreparable harm” or “widespread disruption” by bringing back those workers. Christie also ordered the province to pay the legal costs for the Canadian Union of Public Employees in the amount of $2,500. All that is being required is compliance with their own collection agreement, Christie said.
Nova Scotia
- Dalhousie University employees that include part-time instructors and teaching assistants, have voted overwhelmingly in favour of a strike mandate ahead of conciliation talks with the school in October. It is a second contract dispute for the university with 1,000 Dalhousie Faculty Association professors, librarians, instructors and professional counsellors on the picket line due to a lockout. In a release on Friday, CUPE Local 3912 said its members at Dalhousie were 87.7 per cent in favour of the mandate.
- The province of Nova Scotia has launched a new app to make sure people with spotty cellphone coverage — or none at all — can get vital emergency alerts. Residents in rural areas of the province have reported issues with receiving alerts through the national Alert Ready system in recent years during various emergencies, including hurricanes and floods. That national system only allows emergency alerts to be sent to newer 5G or LTE networks, which are not available in some parts of the province.
- The provincial Liberals plan to introduce legislation this fall that would ban children under 16 in Nova Scotia from using social media platforms. Liberal House leader Iain Rankin said the bill would make Nova Scotia the first province to set minimum age restrictions for social media access and could set a precedent for other provinces to follow suit. Rankin, who announced the proposed bill at Province House on Wednesday morning, told reporters social media algorithms expose children to harmful content that could affect their physical and mental health.
- Medical staff in Nova Scotia’s central zone will finally get to experience a streamlined patient records system next spring. One Person One Record, or OPOR, has been talked about for more than a decade, and is a solution to Nova Scotia’s outdated tracking systems that see health-care providers rely on phones, emails and paper records to track their patients. Nova Scotia Health had planned to launch the new system in the central zone in stages starting in November, but that timeline changed. Now, the entire central zone will switch over at the same time on May 9, 2026.
Prince Edward Island
- Past and present P.E.I. premiers and current federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre were among the mourners who gathered in Tignish on Wednesday for the funeral of former Egmont MP Gail Shea. Shea died on Aug. 21 at the age of 66, leaving a large circle of relatives and friends in western Prince Edward Island and right across Canada. Her funeral took place at St. Simon and St. Jude Catholic Church, with Rev. Tim Broderick celebrating the Mass and Rev. Frank Quinn giving the homily.
- Tourism operators near the P.E.I. end of the Confederation Bridge to New Brunswick say they are seeing more customers than in other summers — and lower bridge tolls may be part of the reason. Effective Aug. 1, the cost of a round-trip on the federally supported bridge fell from $50.25 per carload to just $20. That’s on top of polling suggesting more Canadians would vacation at home this summer rather than head south to the United States, and a federal move to remove entry fees at national parks and historic sites.
- A backbench MLA is pushing for some big changes to P.E.I.’s Residential Tenancy Act that he says would better protect landlords and their investments. Progressive Conservative MLA Brad Trivers has been doing some research on landlord rights and rent increases, among other things, and has posted a 45-page document outlining the changes he would like to see. Trivers hosted a meeting on Thursday to outline these suggestions, on the property of a P.E.I. landlord who struggled earlier this year to evict her tenants.
- As Maritime Electric officials say they’re working hard to keep the lights on throughout the winters ahead, and need more combustion turbines to do that, the P.E.I. government has published the results of its long-awaited energy review. Among other things, the energy review by Doane Grant Thornton resulted in a recommendation that the province not try to set up its own power utility, which some Maritime Electric critics had been calling for, saying: “Provincial funding is better used in infrastructure and renewable resources, rather than ownership of an electrical utility.” It also supported the idea of generating more power on P.E.I. using diesel.
Newfoundland and Labrador
- Former political leaders, officials and top bureaucrats are slamming the new Churchill Falls memorandum of understanding, calling it a “giveaway” for Newfoundland and Labrador’s resources. The agreement would see the province take in more than $225 billion over the deal’s 50-year lifetime and increase power output on the Churchill River by nearly 4,000 megawatts — largely powered by the development of the Gull Island hydroelectric project.
- A provincial election in Newfoundland and Labrador must be called by Sept. 15 if Premier John Hogan wants to give candidates the shortest amount of time — 28 days — on the campaign trail. But back-to-back government announcements indicate the writ could drop before then, according to Memorial University political scientist Kelly Blidook. “They want to get as many things out there, as many things as they possibly can in advance of campaigning, which is essentially just a version of campaigning,” Blidook told CBC News.
- Newfoundland and Labrador is launching a pilot project to publicly fund some nurse practitioners as independent contractors to allow more people to access primary care. Premier John Hogan announced the project on Wednesday, calling it an incredible step to increase primary care availability. “Nurse practitioners are highly skilled health professionals, and they deliver quality care to meet the needs of patients,” he said. “What it means for the patients is that nurse practitioners who participate will no longer charge them for out-of-pocket, medically necessary services.”
- Rent control is first campaign promise for N.L. NDP. If elected, the NDP is promising to look at rent control for Newfoundland and Labrador. The party hasn’t said exactly how it would work, but leader Jim Dinn invited media to meet with a renter at his apartment Wednesday to announce the campaign promise and underscore why rent control is one of his priorities.
Quebec
- The Quebec government says it is planning to ban prayer in public places as part of a move to strengthen secularism in the province. The announcement makes good on a suggestion put forward in December by Premier François Legault, who said he didn’t want to see people praying in public parks or on streets. On Thursday, Secularism Minister Jean-François Roberge confirmed he will table legislation this fall to outlaw the practice.
- An independent committee is recommending extending Quebec’s religious symbols ban to educators and administrators in subsidized daycares, while providing an acquired right. The idea is one of 50 recommendations included in a report published on Tuesday morning, looking at ways of strengthening secularism in the province. “It’s a hefty report,” said Guillaume Rousseau, one of two lawyers heading the committee, who specified that the recommendations are aimed not only at strengthening secularism but also at addressing concerns of people on the ground.
- The federation representing Quebec’s junior colleges is calling on the provincial government to walk back budget cuts as the school year opens with record enrolment. Nearly 194,000 students are enrolled for the fall semester in the province’s 48 junior colleges — a number the federation says is unprecedented. And while the federation says high enrolment is “excellent news,” it adds that the junior college system is facing serious challenges. The government is forcing the colleges to collectively find $151 million in savings as part of the budget cuts.
- Quebec Premier François Legault has been called to testify next week at the Gallant commission, which is leading the public inquiry into the failed rollout of SAAQclic. The commission says he is expected to testify on Sept. 2. Martin Koskinen, the premier’s chief of staff, and Yves Ouellet, former secretary general and clerk of the Ministry of the Executive Council, are also expected to testify that day. In a brief statement to reporters at the National Assembly on Wednesday, Koskinen said only “truth always triumphs.”
Ontario
- Ontario Premier Doug Ford says the federal government and municipalities across Ontario should mandate their workers to return to the office full-time. Speaking to reporters in Inglewood, Ont., on Wednesday, Ford applauded the City of Ottawa’s recent decision to require its employees to work five days a week in the office starting in the new year. Ford says the federal government needs to “follow suit” and urged “all other regions across Ontario” to do the same, arguing that it’s easier to be mentored and to collaborate in person.
- Premier Doug Ford said Ontarians are “done” with spending scandals during an unrelated announcement near Caledon on Wednesday. “There’s some good, and there’s some bad ones,” said Ford, referring to Ontario school boards on the province’s proverbial naughty list. The Ministry of Education has been working to address ongoing cases of financial mismanagement. “People are done with these school trustees wasting money, and they’re done with a lot of these school boards,” Ford said. He mentioned one case in particular – a trip to Italy last year, taken by four trustees from the Brant Haldimand Norfolk Catholic District School Board.
- Ontario Premier Doug Ford says construction on the long-proposed Highway 413 is about to begin. Ford made the announcement about the highway that would link Halton, Peel and York Regions in Caledon, Ont., on Wednesday morning, saying the first two construction contracts for the project have now been awarded. The new highway will reduce travel times between the regions by 30 minutes per trip, and construction will support more than 6,000 jobs and contribute more than $1 billion to Ontario’s annual gross domestic product, Ford said.
- Premier Doug Ford is pressing the brakes on the idea of subsidizing tolls for trucks on Highway 407. Global News revealed earlier this month that Ford’s office had directed civil servants to research a signature policy pitched by the NDP in 2022. Internal emails and documents obtained using freedom of information laws showed that civil servants were told to “brainstorm and explore” policies to reduce congestion on Highway 401, including “diverting commercial truck traffic” to the 407. Highway 401 is among the most congested arterial routes in North America, while the privately operated and tolled Highway 407 — which was sold on a 99-year lease at the turn of the century — generally flows fast.
Manitoba
- The Manitoba government has shuffled some of its most senior officials. Former NDP MP Daniel Blaikie has been appointed to serve under Premier Wab Kinew as deputy minister of intergovernmental affairs with a starting salary of $169,839, according to an order in council issued earlier this week. Blaikie resigned from his seat in Elmwood-Transcona a year before the federal election to work for the Kinew government. He was appointed as special adviser on intergovernmental affairs to the premier last April. The full list of deputy minister appointments can be found here: Executive Council Public Service Act
- Manitoba PC candidate Colleen Robbins has won Tuesday’s provincial byelection in the southwestern constituency of Spruce Woods, allowing the Opposition Progressive Conservatives to keep a seat they have held since 2011. In a tight race, Robbins defeated NDP candidate Ray Berthelette by just 70 votes — 2,805 for Robbins to Berthelette’s 2,735, with all polls reporting as of about 9:30 p.m. Liberal candidate Stephen Reid came in a distant third, with 444 votes.
- A new report by Manitoba’s auditor general finds several allegations of municipalities skirting rules related to spending and conflict-of-interest rules — and suggests some of it was able to happen due to a lack of robust oversight processes by the province. The report, prompted by a cybersecurity incident involving the rural municipality of Westlake-Gladstone five years ago, found three municipalities failed to follow guidelines for purchasing, bylaws around councillors’ spending on travel, and governance norms related to conflicts of interest.
- A dire lack of resources in the north is leaving children in care increasingly susceptible to harm and trauma, as the province works to decolonize the child welfare system, Manitoba’s advocate for children and youth says. “The minister keeps talking about decolonizing the system,” Sherry Gott said Wednesday, referring to Manitoba Families Minister Nahanni Fontaine. “Children can’t wait for our system to decolonize — they need support now,” Gott said. The child welfare system in northern Manitoba is currently so underfunded and underresourced that many children in the system struggle to get the support they need.
Saskatchewan
- As Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe plans a trade mission to China to address recent tariffs the country imposed on Canadian canola exports, some of those impacted are eyeing up homegrown solutions. Fred Ghatala, president of Advanced Biofuels Canada, said biofuels are a great way to make better domestic use of Canadian canola. Those fuels include biodiesel, renewable diesel and sustainable aviation fuel.
- Saskatchewan’s NDP Opposition says the province failed to prepare hospitals for a surge of summer births. Low staffing levels at Saskatoon’s Jim Pattison Children’s Hospital (JPCH) and Regina General Hospital led to unsafe conditions on maternity wards, said Meara Conway, the NDP health critic. Conway cited anonymous comments from nurses that were released this month by the Saskatchewan Union of Nurses. The letters claimed short staffing, lack of beds, outdated equipment and improper care are putting the health of mothers and their newborns at risk.
- In central Saskatchewan, surrounded by fields of wheat, Adam Whitehead is showing off some of the newest homes in Peter Chapman First Nation — home to a development boom as it builds a new community from scratch. “This was just a canola field a year and a half ago,” he said, looking out at a new gravel road lined with 14 homes. “Our vision as the whole community was to get a solid foundation for the next generation.” Whitehead, a councillor for the Cree community, is taking part in the decades-long fight for it to get recognized as an independent band by Canada. In the eyes of the federal government, it’s still part of the James Smith Cree Nation more than a century after a forced merger.
- As producers in parts of Saskatchewan deal with an ongoing drought, the provincial government announced Wednesday that it’s extending a rent reduction program, but the Opposition NDP says the limited support doesn’t combat the severity of the conditions in some regions. The Ministry of Agriculture announced its Crown grazing lease rental reduction program will continue for a third grazing season. It allows producers who lease Crown land and who have reduced the number of animals grazing by at least 20 per cent to apply for a rent reduction.
Alberta
- Alberta Premier Danielle Smith slammed the Edmonton Public School Board on Friday morning for its banned book list, which features more than 200 titles. The internally distributed list, which CBC News obtained Thursday, was in response to a provincial government directive to identify books that are not age-appropriate and remove them from school library shelves. But the list included titles like The Handmaid’s Tale, The Colour Purple, The Godfather and Jaws. Books from authors like George R. R. Martin, Sarah J. Maas and Maya Angelou are also on the list.
- Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has raised some eyebrows among labour advocates after singing the praises of a rural Alberta slaughterhouse accused of exploiting foreign workers. “I think we need to be careful in putting forward what’s known to be a very difficult and dangerous place for foreign workers as a quote-unquote ‘immigrant success story’,” said Bronwyn Bragg, a geographer at the University of Lethbridge who researches migration and precarious work.
- Alberta is planning to ditch its long-maligned paper health cards with a new app it has dubbed the “Alberta Wallet.” Holding her own crumpled health card from behind a podium, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said Friday the app would allow people to access their health card from their phone. “We’ve been trying to get rid of these things,” Smith told a news conference in Calgary as she toyed with the small, rectangular card. She said her own card was dog-eared on both sides, and the plastic cover had broken.
- Loud cheers for mass deportations and Alberta separation were the peaks of an otherwise tame and quiet town hall for Premier Danielle Smith’s Alberta Next panel in Lloydminster. Smith’s panel, which is touring the province to hear from the public on ways to shield the province from federal overreach, drew a friendly crowd of about 350 to a public recreation centre on Wednesday night. The panel’s pre-selected topics, which range from asking Albertans if they’d support creating a provincial pension plan to supporting changes to the Canadian constitution, were easily approved by the crowd.
British Columbia
- More faculty positions are being cut at post-secondary schools across B.C., like Langara College and Kwantlen Polytechnic University, as a result of new government policies that reduce the number of international students. Faculty associations are decrying the wave of departures, saying they’re weakening post-secondary education in the province and leaving schools with few options to replace revenue. “It’s the biggest crisis in post-secondary ever,” said Frank Cosco, Vancouver Community College’s (VCC) faculty association president, on Thursday.
- The British Columbia government has granted consent for a proposed expansion at the Mount Polley copper and gold mine that could extend its operations for another two years until 2033. The project, which requires further permits to go ahead, calls for the deepening of a pit and expansion of a disposal area for “potentially acid-generating rock” at the mine in B.C.’s central Interior that suffered a catastrophic tailings dam collapse in 2014. B.C.’s Environmental Assessment Office says Environment Minister Tamara Davidson and Mining Minister Jagrup Brar issued the consent order.
- A new report has found that more young people in B.C. are turning to gambling and gaming with money in their spare time, as opportunities for online gambling have increased in Canada. The McCreary Centre Society’s report used data from the 2023 B.C. Adolescent Health Survey, which was completed by over 38,200 youth between the ages of 12 and 18, and focused on questions about gambling and gaming. It shows 34 per cent of respondents said they had engaged in at least one of eight gambling or gaming activities for money — such as buying in-game items and betting on sports — in the year preceding the survey, which is conducted in B.C. every five years.
- On Tuesday, the Government of British Columbia announced that it will again be tying the annual rent increase cap to inflation, resulting in a maximum allowable rent increase of 2.3% in 2026. “B.C. is an extraordinary place, but with economic uncertainty and rising costs, people are struggling to find a place to live that fits in their budget,” said Minister of Housing and Municipal Affairs Christine Boyle, who was appointed to the position during this summer’s cabinet shuffle. “We’re continuing to cap rent increases, linking them to inflation, to reduce housing costs for seniors, families and individuals, protecting them from unfair hikes. At the same time, this rent increase allows landlords to invest in their properties to keep rental homes on the market.”
Northwest Territories
- The government of the Northwest Territories says it will make sure students continue to receive the in-class support they need in school this year, after changes to a federal funding program jeopardized the jobs of dozens of education assistants. The territory is allocating up to $14 million for those positions — a temporary measure while it calls on Ottawa to restore its funding for the services, according to N.W.T. Education Minister Caitlin Cleveland.
Yukon
- Some Whitehorse residents say they’re worried two new power plants will be noisy and bad for the environment. Yukon Energy held an open house on Tuesday to field questions about the proposed energy project. It also held an open house earlier this month. The project is necessary to meet increasing energy demand, attendees heard. Demand is expected to increase 40 per cent between 2020 and 2030, due to a growing population and the rising popularity of electric heat in homes and electric vehicles.
Nunavut
- Hindered by a lack of ports and the impact of tariffs, Community Services Minister David Akeegok says new infrastructure and export markets are needed to bolster Nunavut’s fisheries industry. Akeeagok made the comments Friday during a news conference at the Aqsarniit hotel in Iqaluit alongside federal Fisheries Minister Joanne Thompson. The two ministers had just concluded chairing the annual meeting of the Canadian Council of Fisheries and Aquaculture Ministers, a collective representing all 13 territories and provinces.