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WINNIPEG – The Manitoba government will look at proactively releasing more information about its out-of-province travel expenses, Premier Wab Kinew said Friday.

It’s a move that would bring Manitoba in line with the federal government and some other provinces.

Currently, the government posts travel expenses of the premier and other cabinet ministers on its website. But unlike the federal government and provinces such as Saskatchewan and Alberta, Manitoba does not post the expenses of senior staff or bureaucrats that accompany a minister.

The government recently posted a total of $6,649 dollars for a trip to a United Nations conference in March by Families Minister Nahanni Fontaine.

Documents obtained by The Canadian Press under the province’s freedom of information law show three other people accompanied the minister — Fontaine’s director of ministerial affairs and two members of Gender Equity Manitoba, a branch of the Families department — for a total of $23,105.

Getting information through freedom of information can be cumbersome when ministers or staff from different departments travel, as requests must be filed with each department. Getting a response to a request can take months.

Kinew, who became premier a year ago, said he was surprised by what he called an “ad hoc” system of disclosing expenses. He said he will look at including staff and bureaucrat travel expenses.

“We are standardizing things and we are going to ensure that there is a regular, systematic approach to delivering on these disclosures,” Kinew said.

“And so I think that … (we’ll) have a discussion about what that would mean potentially and what’s the art of the possible there.”

Kinew’s office recently posted $1,684 in expenses for a March trip to Toronto, which included a speech to the Economic Club of Canada and attendance at an international mining conference. The listing doesn’t include expenses of senior political staff who accompanied the premier.

In Saskatchewan, recent online travel disclosures include a trip to India for Premier Scott Moe over six days in February. It lists the names of an adviser and a deputy minister who went along, for a total of $37,397. It also includes, unlike Manitoba, a detailed list of the trip’s objectives and people the premier met with.

The federal government lists ministerial travel expenses and has a separate searchable database for senior officials including minister’s press secretaries.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 18, 2024.

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Ontario Big City Mayors are asking the province to review mental-health laws and whether to expand the scope of involuntary treatment for people who are addicted to drugs and live on the streets.

The organization that represents 29 mayors of cities with more than 100,000 people say they are taking no position on treatment given without consent — a practice British Columbia’s government recently committed to expanding.

But they say they want to spark a discussion with the provincial government, noting homelessness has risen across Ontario since the COVID-19 pandemic, in communities big and small.

Encampments have popped up in recent years throughout the province, while the cost of both purchasing and renting housing has increased significantly.

Toxic overdose deaths are also up, and the mayors are demanding immediate action from both the province and the federal government.

Last year, nearly 2,600 Ontarians died due to opioids, a 50 per cent increase from 2019, with fentanyl and its derivatives especially affecting users in the homeless population.

“For those suffering from mental health and addictions in this province, there are not proper facilities that have capacity to give everyone who requires the care they need to get that care in a timely fashion,” said Josh Morgan, the mayor of London, Ont.

“That is an absolute crisis across this province and something that we know we need the government to move on.”

The mayors said Friday they would like the province to “urgently review” two laws, the Mental Health Act and the Health Care Consent Act, which allow for short periods of involuntary hospital admissions.

“The scope of the mental-health crisis that we’ve seen and how widespread it is was never necessarily contemplated when those acts were written,” Morgan said.

“So our ask to immediately review and update those acts in consultation with proper medical and health-care professionals, as well as municipalities and those impacted by the challenges faced on our streets, is a reasonable ask — to say, ‘Is that sort of treatment, or compulsory, or however you want to call it, mandatory treatment, the right thing to do?'”

Neither Health Minister Sylvia Jones nor Associate Minister of Mental Health Michael Tibollo has ruled out expanding involuntary treatment, but both say they prefer treatment to be voluntary.

They have also both said they are working on increasing the number of treatment beds.

In its upcoming legislative sitting, Premier Doug Ford’s government promised to legislate new rules to eliminate 10 existing supervised consumption sites that are within 200 metres of schools and daycares, and do away with needle exchange programs.

Instead, the province has said it will shift to an abstinence-based model, with plans to launch new “homelessness and addiction recovery treatment hubs” next year, plus create 375 highly supportive housing units at a cost of $378 million.

The province’s fundamental shift has sparked outrage among homeless people, advocates and health-care workers.

Alex Nuttall, the mayor of Barrie, Ont., was among several city leaders who were calling on mayors to take a collective position and outright ask for mandatory involuntary treatment laws from the province.

He said he’s happy with their softened position.

“When I sit there and make calls for the city of Barrie asking for more mandatory treatment and rehabilitation, I don’t know what those lines look like in terms of where those lines need to be created, what the pathways are into it, what the pathways are out of it,” he said Friday.

“And what you’re seeing here in this motion is a call for the provincial government to determine whether they need to strengthen what already exists in terms of mandatory care in this province.”

Encampments and open drug use have become a huge issue for the mayors, who launched a “solve the crisis” campaign earlier this year to spur the province to do more to help homeless people and beleaguered businesses.

There are 1,400 encampments across Ontario, the mayors say.

Among other asks, the mayors would like to see both provincial and federal governments join any court cases that may end up restricting the ability of municipalities to regulate and prohibit encampments.

They are calling for a vast expansion of residential and community-based treatment programs. The mayors also want reforms to the justice system to allow for referrals to rehabilitation centres for some offences rather than punitive measures such as incarceration.

They also want the federal government to spend the $250 million for municipalities it announced in the spring, as part of a promised national encampment strategy.

Cam Guthrie, the mayor of Guelph, Ont., said he is exasperated and fed up.

“We have an encampment and opioid addictions and mental-health crisis in our province and we should not be at another podium again asking for help,” he said.

“So we need the help of the province and we need it urgently, we need it now.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 18, 2024.

EDMONTON – Alberta has announced new regulations that will once again allow corporate and union donations in local elections.

The move by the United Conservative Party government reverses a ban brought in under the NDP.

Municipal Affairs Minister Ric McIver said Friday the changes will boost transparency, accountability and trust in local elections.

“(They) are good for municipalities, good for voters, good for Albertans,” he said.

McIver has long contended that corporate and union donations are already influencing municipal elections and the new rules enforce needed boundaries.

They come under a bill that makes sweeping changes, including allowing Premier Danielle Smith’s cabinet to initiate ousting locally elected officials by ordering a recall vote and to overturn bylaws that go against provincial policy.

The bill passed debate in the legislature earlier this year and largely comes into effect at the end of this month, just over a year before the next municipal elections.

Alberta Municipalities, which represents municipalities in which more than 85 per cent of Albertans live, has criticized the changes.President Tyler Gandam has said opening the door to big donors puts local governments “up for sale to the highest bidder.”

The legislation allows local political parties and slates on the ballot beginning in 2025, but only in the province’s two largest cities, Edmonton and Calgary.

Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek called the new rules “the kiss of death to local representation and local democracy.”

“Getting a candidate who’s doing this for the right reasons is no longer the priority,” she said. “Running candidates who have more money — that seems to be the priority of this province.”

Edmonton Mayor Amarjeet Sohi also raised concerns.

“We know that political parties in local elections are deeply unpopular, but the province is tilting the playing field against anyone who doesn’t want to participate in their system.”

Local parties would be limited to spending $1 per person in a municipality’s population, based on the number of wards in which they have endorsed candidates, during an election year. Third-party advertisers would be able to spend at half that rate.

Likewise, candidates would be limited to spending $100,000 on a municipal campaign where the population is 100,000 people.

“Because you’re able to fundraise for the party as well as the candidate, I think it just gives it an unfair advantage for those who align or have joined a political party versus an independent,” said Gandam.

McIver said the aim is to mirror existing provincial election laws.

“There’s a certain element of what’s good for the goose is good for the gander,” he said.

Individuals, corporations and unions are capped at contributing $5,000 to all local parties per jurisdiction per year.

Kyle Kasawski, NDP municipal affairs critic, said in a statement Friday the bill is another attempt by the United Conservatives to keep their thumb on the scale of municipal matters.

“With Bill 20, the UCP are trying to bully local elected officials and ensure that they install people friendlier to their agenda,” said Kasawski.

Another contentious change is a provincial ban on electronic tabulators.

On Friday, McIver dismissed concerns municipalities have aired about having to shoulder the added costs.

He said it’s worth it to increase confidence in election results, pointing to a survey that suggests 36 per cent of Albertans support banning tabulators.

“Municipalities are responsible to pay for the cost of municipal elections. That’s always been the case, and that has not changed,” he said.

Sohi reiterated in a statement that tabulators are safer, more secure and more reliable, and switching to hand-counted ballots would cost Edmonton taxpayers over $2.5 million in 2025.

Calgary has estimated it would cost $1.3 million to implement the new rules in the next election, including hand counting ballots.

“It’s probably our job to dispel the myths around tabulators, more so than try to appease people who have a conspiracy theory,” said Gondek.

Paul McLauchlin, Rural Municipalities of Alberta president and Ponoka County Reeve, said the UCP isn’t listening to the concerns of rural leaders either, and it’s letting a small number of party members drive policy.

He said that includes a tabulator ban that will push election results by three to five days in some areas.

“We didn’t ask for this,” he said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 18, 2024.