The feds are providing $2 billion in funding with very few strings attached — the provinces just have to show they spent the money on education and not on already-announced plans.
“We’ve made this funding flexible, so provinces, and ultimately schools, can use it for what they need most — from hand sanitizer to remote learning,” Trudeau said.
Publicly, provincial governments are saying thank you for the funding even if it does irk them.
“We’re grateful for that and I want to thank the prime minister for that,” Ford said of the federal funding.
Privately, representatives of several provincial governments have told me they aren’t happy with how this all came about.
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As Trudeau himself noted, he has had 17 conference calls with premiers on the national response to COVID-19 but never raised this issue in any serious way until Tuesday.
Several provinces griped privately that if the feds wanted to help they should have mentioned it on one of those calls that helped develop the $19 billion safe restart announcement.
Last Friday, when they met for a joint announcement, Trudeau mentioned to Ontario Premier Doug Ford that the feds would like to help in some way but offered no details or dollar figure.
One provincial source said some provinces got vague mentions in calls from Trudeau’s newly-appointed Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Domenic Leblanc, but that not all provinces were given a heads up before Tuesday’s call.
OTTAWA – Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet and MPs from several other parties were on Parliament Hill Thursday to call for the Senate to pass a Bloc bill on supply management.
The private member’s bill seeks to protect Canada’s supply management system during international trade negotiations.
The dairy, egg and poultry sectors are all supply managed, a system that regulates production levels, wholesale prices and trade.
Flanked by a large group of people representing supply-managed sectors, Blanchet commended the cross-party support at a time when he said federal institutions are at their most divided.
The Bloc has given the Liberals until Oct. 29 to pass two of its bills — the supply management bill and one that would boost old age security — or it will begin talks with other opposition parties to bring down the minority government.
The Liberals have already signalled they don’t plan to support the Bloc pension legislation, but Liberal ministers have spoken in support of supply management.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 10, 2024.
OTTAWA – Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre says he’s in favour of mandatory, involuntary drug and psychiatric treatment for kids and prisoners who are found to be incapable of making decisions for themselves.
He said earlier this summer he was open to the idea, but needed to study the issue more closely.
His new position on the issue comes after the parents of a 13-year-old girl from B.C. testified at a parliamentary committee about her mental health struggles before her overdose death in an encampment of homeless people in Abbotsford, B.C.
They said their daughter was discharged from care despite their repeated attempts to keep her in treatment.
Poilievre says he’s still researching how mandatory treatment would work in the case of adults.
Compulsory mental health and addictions care is being contemplated or expanded in several provinces as communities struggle to cope with a countrywide overdose crisis.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 10, 2024.
