Canada set to become strategic partner with ASEAN bloc, symbolizing trade progress

HALIFAX – Nova Scotia’s incumbent Progressive Conservatives released their election platform today, which includes a promise to cap electricity rate increases so that they don’t exceed the national average.

The Tory platform also promises to reduce the small business tax rate to 1.5 per cent from 2.5 per cent, and to increase the tax threshold to $700,000 from $500,000.

The majority of the other promises in the platform have already been announced, either during the campaign or before Tory Leader Tim Houston called the election to seek a second term in office.

Those promises include cutting the provincial portion of the harmonized sales tax by one percentage point and increasing the basic personal exemption on the provincial income tax to $11,744 from $8, 744.

Houston has also promised to boost the minimum wage to $16.50 in 2025 if re-elected Nov. 26.

The Tories are the second of the three major parties to release a platform this week after the Liberals presented a plan containing $2.3 billion in election promises over four years.

Liberal Leader Zach Churchill made an announcement today in Halifax where he highlighted several measures contained in the party platform that are aimed at improving women’s health.

Churchill said that while women make up 50 per cent of the population, only about eight per cent of medical research is focused on their bodies. To make up that gap the Liberals would require that 50 per cent of all provincial research grant funding be used to study women’s health.

Churchill said the Liberals would also create a minister of women’s health to ensure that a “gender lens” is applied to the delivery of health care.

NDP Leader Claudia Chender was in Cape Breton, where she promised to boost provincial equalization payments to the Cape Breton Regional Municipality.

Chender says the New Democrats would double the municipal finance grant to $30 million in their first year of government.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

FREDERICTON – New Brunswick says a parasite threatening the country’s oyster industry may have spread to the province’s east coast.

A news release says officials have detected the “possible” presence of the parasite called multinucleate sphere X — or MSX — in Spence Cove, in the waters along New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island.

It says the Canadian Food Inspection Agency is waiting for results from the samples it collected.

The province says it has placed the area under quarantine, prohibiting the movement of oysters to and from the cove.

The parasite was detected in July for the first time in Prince Edward Island, threatening the province’s world-renowned oyster industry.

Statistics Canada says New Brunswick’s oyster industry is worth about $24 million a year.

New Brunswick Fisheries Minister Pat Finnigan says the government will work with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and stakeholders as the investigation proceeds.

“We recognize the uncertainty surrounding the full economic impact of this situation and we are prepared to work with affected producers as more information becomes available,” he says.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

OTTAWA – A group of federal cabinet ministers are huddling in a closed-door meeting this morning to work on Canada’s strategy for dealing with the incoming Donald Trump administration.

A recently revived cabinet committee on Canada-U.S. relations made up of senior ministers is meeting for the first time since Trump left office in early 2021.

Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, who chairs the committee, is set to take questions from media later today on Parliament Hill.

Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly told reporters heading into the meeting that Ottawa has a plan already and now the government will look to put it in motion.

The mercurial president-elect had campaigned on imposing across-the-board tariffs on U.S. imports and deporting millions of illegal immigrants.

That’s stoked fears that his term in the White House could deal a blow to the Canadian economy and cause a sudden influx of migrants at the border.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.