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MONTREAL – A battle is heating up between Pierre Poilievre and Jagmeet Singh ahead of the return of the House of Commons next week, as the Conservatives challenge the NDP to help them bring down the government.

Singh said Wednesday he won’t be taking advice from Poilievre, while sidestepping questions about whether the NDP would vote in favour of a non-confidence motion, as Poilievre challenged him to do.

“I say directly to Pierre Poilievre: I’m not going to listen to you,” said Singh, accusing Poilievre of wanting to take away dental-care coverage from Canadians, among other things.

“I’m not going to listen to your advice. You want to destroy people’s lives, I want to build up a brighter future.”

Earlier in the day, Poilievre pledged to bring forward a non-confidence motion in the Liberal government “at the earliest possible opportunity” in the House of Commons — and he directly challenged Singh to vote with him.

“I’m asking Jagmeet Singh and the NDP to commit unequivocally before Monday’s byelections: will they vote non-confidence to bring down the costly coalition and trigger a carbon tax election, or will Jagmeet Singh sell out Canadians again?” Poilievre said.

“It’s put up or shut up time for the NDP.”

A non-confidence motion would likely trigger an early election, if the majority of MPs vote in favour of it. Parliament’s fall sitting begins Sept. 16, which will be the first opportunity for the Conservatives to introduce such a motion.

While Singh rejected the idea he would ever listen to Poilievre, he did not say for certain how the NDP would vote.

“I’ve said on any vote, we’re going to look at the vote and we’ll make our decision. I’m not going to say our decision ahead of time,” he said.

Singh’s top adviser said on Tuesday the NDP leader is not particularly eager to trigger an election.

Anne McGrath, Singh’s principal secretary, said there will be more volatility in Parliament and the odds of an early election have risen.

“I don’t think he is anxious to launch one, or chomping at the bit to have one, but it can happen,” she said in an interview.

New Democrat MPs are in a second day of meetings in Montreal as they nail down a plan for how to navigate the minority Parliament. The caucus retreat comes one week after Singh announced the party has left the supply-and-confidence agreement with the governing Liberals.

It’s also taking place in the very city where New Democrats are hoping to pick up a seat on Monday, when voters go to the polls in Montreal’s LaSalle—Émard—Verdun. A second byelection is being held that day in the Winnipeg riding of Elmwood—Transcona, where the NDP is hoping to hold onto a seat against a stiff challenge from the Conservatives.

Now that the NDP has left the deal with the Liberals, Singh is hoping to convince Canadians that his party can defeat the federal Conservatives at the next federal election.

Singh has attacked Poilievre as someone who would bring back Harper-style cuts to programs that Canadians rely on, including the national dental-care program that was part of the supply-and-confidence agreement.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made similar arguments at his own Liberal caucus retreat in British Columbia on Wednesday, indicating that he sees the next election as a choice between his government, which is investing in Canadians, and the Conservatives, who he says will cut programs.

The Canadian Press asked Poilievre’s office whether the Conservative leader intends to keep the dental-care program in place if he forms government after the next election. They did not answer the question.

Instead, Conservative health critic Stephen Ellis said in a statement that the government had “botched” the program.

“While the vast majority of Canadians don’t even qualify for this program, those who do may still have to pay out of pocket despite Trudeau’s claims,” Ellis said, adding that a Conservative government would rein in “inflationary waste” so that families can afford to go to the dentist.

Health Minister Mark Holland announced on Monday that nearly 650,000 people have taken advantage of the dental-care program so far and four-fifths of dental providers are participating.

On Wednesday, Singh announced that the NDP will bring forward a private member’s bill that will seek to ban corporations from buying up affordable housing, where rent is no more than 30 per cent of a household’s pre-tax income.

The NDP is also keeping in mind how other parties will look to capitalize on the new makeup of the House of Commons.

The Bloc Québécois has already indicated that it has written up a list of demands for the Liberals in exchange for support on votes.

The next federal election must take place by October 2025 at the latest.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.

HALIFAX – The Nova Scotia government says it could be months before it reveals how many people are on the wait-list for a family doctor.

The head of the province’s health authority told reporters Wednesday that the government won’t release updated data until the 160,000 people who were on the wait-list in June are contacted to verify whether they still need primary care.

Karen Oldfield said Nova Scotia Health is working on validating the primary care wait-list data before posting new numbers, and that work may take a matter of months. The most recent public wait-list figures are from June 1, when 160,234 people, or about 16 per cent of the population, were on it.

“It’s going to take time to make 160,000 calls,” Oldfield said. “We are not talking weeks, we are talking months.”

The interim CEO and president of Nova Scotia Health said people on the list are being asked where they live, whether they still need a family doctor, and to give an update on their health.

A spokesperson with the province’s Health Department says the government and its health authority are “working hard” to turn the wait-list registry into a useful tool, adding that the data will be shared once it is validated.

Nova Scotia’s NDP are calling on Premier Tim Houston to immediately release statistics on how many people are looking for a family doctor. On Tuesday, the NDP introduced a bill that would require the health minister to make the number public every month.

“It is unacceptable for the list to be more than three months out of date,” NDP Leader Claudia Chender said Tuesday.

Chender said releasing this data regularly is vital so Nova Scotians can track the government’s progress on its main 2021 campaign promise: fixing health care.

The number of people in need of a family doctor has more than doubled between the 2021 summer election campaign and June 2024. Since September 2021 about 300 doctors have been added to the provincial health system, the Health Department said.

“We’ll know if Tim Houston is keeping his 2021 election promise to fix health care when Nova Scotians are attached to primary care,” Chender said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

LYTTON, B.C. – Mounties in British Columbia have concluded there’s no evidence that the devastating fire that swept through the community of Lytton more than three years ago was arson.

Police have now ended their investigation into the June 2021 wildfire, saying they could not pinpoint the cause of the blaze that killed two people and wiped out much of the village and part of the First Nation, a day after a Canadian temperature record of 49.6 C was set in Lytton.

A statement from the RCMP on Wednesday said there was “no evidence to suggest the fire was intentionally set by the actions, or inactions, of any individual(s)” and the criminal investigation “has not determined the cause of the fire.”

Police said they reviewed the weather conditions around the time, exhaustively searched two “areas of interest” where the fire may have started and interviewed 168 witnesses.

They said investigators collected evidence including 400 videos and photos and reviewed parallel investigations by the BC Coroners Service, BC Wildfire Service, and the Transportation Safety Board of Canada.

RCMP Chief Supt. Brad Haugli said in the statement that the focus of the investigation was on how and why the fire started.

“While we have no single source or cause that can account for the devastating fire, it was not due to a lack of effort. Significant work was done to not only look at establishing and confirming what did happen, but to eliminate what didn’t happen,” he said.

“We remain committed to the community and the important need to support all those impacted, while we also join in the collective efforts to rebuild.”

When Lytton First Nation elder George Brown and his wife fled their home during the fire, they didn’t have time to pack, losing almost everything to the flames.

He said he was disappointed by the result of the investigation.

“I’m certainly not happy with it. But what can I do?” asked 80-year-old Brown, who now lives with his wife in a trailer in Lytton.

He said the “shock is over” and now the couple is trying to put the past behind them.

“We can all (be) hollering, bitching and complaining and that’s not going to go anywhere. Like everybody said, it’s good that we made it out alive and we’re still going on and once you talk to people over and over about the loss, you kind of get used to it.”

Brown said he and his wife hoped to rebuild their home and return to it in the next few years.

Police said their findings have been shared with the Village of Lytton, the Lytton First Nation and the families of those who died.

They said the work investigating the Lytton fire will help the RCMP should it be required to investigate similar events in the future.

— By Ashley Joannou and Nono Shen in Vancouver

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.