It’s a busy Friday for the cabinet, with the PM and some ministers working in far-flung corners of the globe, and the defence minister teeing up what’s being billed as a big announcement in Halifax.
Back in Ottawa, officials at the National Capital Commission are closing the prime minister’s official residence on 24 Sussex Drive, and setting in motion a plan to start significant work on the property.
Wait, wasn’t it already closed?
No, it wasn’t, but it’s in such a state of disrepair that it has become a dilapidated fire hazard, and so Prime Minister JUSTIN TRUDEAU has chosen to live with his family in another residence on the grounds of Rideau Hall. Staff have apparently still been working at 24 Sussex, however, and now they won’t be anymore.
Wait, does this mean they’re finally rennovating 24 Sussex?
Somehow, also no. Successive prime ministers have declined to pay the cost of repairing and renovating the aging building, which is filled with asbestos and decrepit in so many other ways PTM hasn’t the space to list them all. Bad politics, and so forth. The NCC appears to have run out of patience, and is ordering what it calls an “abatement” of the property.
Definitions of the word abatement include, “to reduce in amount, degree, or intensity.” What’s being reduced here is the risk that the building will burst into flames or poison a staff member. Asbestos and faulty heating and electrical systems will be removed—must be, said the NCC press release, “regardless of any future decision on the residence.”
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“With continuously aging and worsening materials and systems, more significant actions must be taken to mitigate matters of great concern such as potential fire hazards, water damage and air quality issues,” read the release.
The building is destined, it seems, to a future as a cold and empty husk sitting on prime Ottawa real estate—at least until a government and opposition can both agree to make its restoration or replacement a non-partisan issue.
Drug shortage briefing
At 11 a.m., as-yet-unnamed federal officials will brief the media on the government’s efforts to resolve the shortage of children’s acetaminophen and ibuprofen.
What’s the cabinet up to?
Prime Minister JUSTIN TRUDEAU is in Bangkok, Thailand, for the APEC summit today.
Environment Minister STEVEN GUILBEAULT is wrapping up his time at the UN climate summit in Egypt. He’ll hold a virtual press conference from Sharm El Sheikh at 9:30 a.m. Ottawa time.
Foreign Minister MÉLANIE JOLY is in Tunisia to meet with international counterparts at a summit of the Francophonie.
Defence Minister ANITA ANAND is in Halifax. She’ll start her day at the Navy’s dockyard, where she will make what her office is billing as an “important defence announcement” at 10 a.m.local time. Immigration Minister (and Nova Scotia MP) SEAN FRASER will be there, as will Chief of Defence Staff WAYNE EYRE.
After the presser, Anand, Eyre, and the deputy minister for Defence, BILL MATTHEWS, will head to a Westin hotel for the Halifax International Security Forum, where Anand will hold an opening news conference at 2 p.m. Atlantic, deliver a keynote speech on “Canada’s national defence priorities” at 3 p.m. Atlantic, and participate in a panel talk shortly after 4 p.m.
Defence Minister Anita Anand has a busy day in Halifax, where she will make an announcement this morning alongside Chief of Defence Staff Wayne Eyre. The Hill Times photograph by Andrew Meade
The three-day security conference is the flagship event for the organization that also goes by the name of Halifax International Security Forum. It is, somewhat confusingly, based in Washington, a non-profit NGO founded in 2009 by a U.S. think tank with support from the Canadian government.
Later in the day, Fraser will testify virtually before the House Immigration Committee as part of its study of “conditions faced by asylum seekers.”
Meanwhile, a trio of ministers are in Vancouver today to announce something to do with “strengthening marine preparedness, response, and partnerships during the next phase of the Oceans Protection Plan.”
They are Transport Minister OMAR ALGHABRA, Natural Resources Minister JONATHAN WILKINSON, and Fisheries and Oceans Minister JOYCE MURRAY, the latter two also being Vancouver MPs.
In Parliament
Today MPs are scheduled to continue debating the fall economic statement implementation bill, C-32.
In committee
Eight House and joint committees are meeting today.
Those include the joint committee on medical assistance in dying, which is hearing from disability advocates and associations of Quebec doctors and lawyers beginning at 8:45 a.m.
As mentioned above, Fraser will testify before the House Immigration Committee at 2 p.m., following an appearance by his deputy minister, CHRISTIANE FOX, at 1 p.m.
Also at 1 p.m., fisheries ministers from all four Atlantic provinces will be testifying—three virtually—before the House Fisheries and Oceans Committee, as part of its study of climate change.
At the same time, Auditor General KAREN HOGAN and officials from the Finance Department and Treasury Board Secretariat will appear before the House Public Accounts Committee as it studies last year’s government spending.
What else is happening today?
The Public Order Emergency Commission’s hearings continue today. The government’s top public servant, clerk of the Privy Council JANICE CHARETTE, is scheduled to testify, as are deputy clerk NATHALIE DROUIN; JACQUIE BOGDEN, the deputy secretary to the cabinet responsible for emergencies; and JEFF HUTCHINSON, an advisor at the PCO.
Bloc Québécois Leader YVES-FRANÇOIS BLANCHET is beginning a lengthy visit to France today.
Blanchet plans to meet with French MPs, journalists, and politicos, build diplomatic ties, and talk about “la cause de l’indépendance du Québec,” according to a release from the party. He’ll be in France until Nov. 26.
Last but not least, Parliamentary Budget Officer YVES GIROUX is issuing a report at 9 a.m. that will present an analysis of the government’s latest package of supplementary estimates, which outlined almost $26-billion of new spending.
Legislation corner
New bill aims to ease trade, punish railway interference
Speaking of Alghabra, he tabled a new bill into the House of Commons yesterday.
Bill C-33, the Strengthening the Port System and Railway Safety in Canada Act, will be added to the pile of now 13 government bills stacked up at second reading stage.
The bill amends a half-dozen federal laws for a variety of purposes, the common theme of them being a desire to improve the functioning of Canadian ports and railways.
In a press scrum yesterday, Alghabra talked up some of the ways in which the bill aims to ease trade through Canada’s ports. For example, it will give ports the authority to regulate marine traffic in their vicinity, including anchored cargo ships waiting for their turn to offload. It will also require that ports share information about traffic and scheduling with the transport companies that pick up or drop off goods at the port.
Alghabra and the government’s press materials did not draw the same kind of attention to other clauses in the bill that have to do with public safety. For example, it proposes to create new offences for interfering with a railway, a tactic that has been employed to great effect in the past by protesters, including members of the Tyendinaga Mohawk nation in 2020.
Transport Minister Omar Alghabra has sponsored a bill that aims to change numerous laws related to the operation of Canada’s ports and railways. The Hill Times photograph by Andrew Meade
At the moment, the Federal Railway Safety Act simply says that no person can access the land on which a railway line is located without permission—a violation that, in the most severe case, could land you in jail for a year. The new language would more specifically outlaw anything that interferes with or damages railway “operation,” “work,” or “equipment” in a manner that threatens safe rail operations. It also bans “unruly or dangerous behaviour” toward railway employees, riders, or that endangers the railways themselves. The same penalties would apply to those violations as do now to accessing railway land without permission.
The bill also proposes to give the transport minister powers to order ports and railways to improve security or change their operations if the minister deems it necessary for avoiding injury to Canada’s national security.
In case you missed it
Feds reviewing Competition Act
Yesterday, Industry Minister FRANÇOIS-PHILIPPE CHAMPAGNE announced the launch of a formal review of Canada’s Competition Act.
The act, enforced by the Competition Bureau, aims to prevent big businesses from forming monopolies, or otherwise using their heft to distort what should be relatively free markets.
Lack of competition ultimately means higher prices for consumers, a timely issue for Champagne to address. His review will include gathering public feedback and talking to unspecified stakeholders.
So what’s this all about? PTM spoke to LAWSON HUNTER, a lawyer at Stikeman Elliott who previously served as the commissioner of the Competition Bureau, and led the drafting of the existing Competition Act.
While Canadians often complain about a lack of competition in the grocery, banking, and telecommunications industries—Hunter also worked in the latter—this review likely has more to do with the tech sector, he said.
Companies like Facebook, Google, and Amazon dominate in their respective fields.
“You need to sort of evolve your approach to the law as technology changes and make sure that you are as up to date as you can be with those technological changes,” he said.
There are also enforcement problems that this review could address, he said.
At the moment, the Competition Bureau can intervene in cases where it sees a merger or other practice as unduly restricting competition. However, the last call on whether those mergers or practices fall within the boundaries of the law must be settled by a tribunal.
As things stand, said Hunter, it takes too long for final decisions on those matters to be made, which is bad for business. Hunter also said the current law may make it too difficult for the Competition Bureau to actually win some of those cases.
Other things to consider, he said, include:
Whether the current competition law does enough to prevent digital giants from squashing up-and-coming businesses that might one day compete with them;
Whether the system used to evaluate the impact of mergers on competition relies too much on predicting changes in price;
And, whether tribunals should continue to include “lay people” as well as judges.
Hunter also drew attention to the fact that the government seems to be conducting the review in-house, rather than striking an external panel of experts to offer suggestions on how to reform a very technical piece of legislation. He said he was worried that would lead to errors that would have to be fixed down the road.
You can find details on the government’s consultation here.
The New Brunswick Liberal Party has won a majority government, and Susan Holt will become the first woman to lead the province.
Here’s the latest from election night. All times are ADT.
10:15 p.m.
The results of the New Brunswick election are in, and with virtually all of the ballots counted, the Liberals won 31 seats out of 49.
The Progressive Conservatives won 16 seats.
The Green Party won two.
Voter turnout was about 66 per cent.
—
10 p.m.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has congratulated New Brunswick Liberal Leader Susan Holt for her party’s victory in the provincial election.
Trudeau says on the X platform he’s looking forward to working with Holt to build more homes, protect the country’s two official languages, and improve health care.
—
9:48 p.m.
During her victory speech tonight in Fredericton, New Brunswick premier-designate Susan Holt thanked all the women who came before her.
Holt will become the first woman to lead the province after her party won a majority government in the New Brunswick election.
The Liberals are elected or leading in 31 of 49 ridings.
—
9:30 p.m.
Blaine Higgs says he will begin a transition to replace him as leader of the Progressive Conservatives.
After being in power for six years, the Tories lost the election to the Liberals.
Higgs, who lost his seat of Quispamsis, says, “My leadership days are over.”
—
9:17 p.m.
The Canadian Press is projecting that Blaine Higgs, leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of New Brunswick since 2016, has lost in the riding of Quispamsis.
Higgs, 70, has been premier of New Brunswick since 2018, and was first elected to the legislature in 2010.
—
8:45 p.m.
When asked about the election results, Progressive Conservative chief of staff Paul D’Astous says that over the last 18 months the party has had to contend with a number of caucus members who disagreed with its policy.
D’Astous says the Tories have also had to own what happened over the last six years, since they came to power in 2018, adding that the voters have spoken.
—
8:39 p.m.
The Canadian Press is projecting that David Coon, leader of the New Brunswick Green Party, has won the riding of Fredericton Lincoln.
Coon, 67, has been leader of the party since 2014, the year he was first elected to the legislature.
—
8:36 p.m.
The Canadian Press is projecting that the New Brunswick Liberal Party has won a majority government in the provincial election.
Party leader Susan Holt will become the first woman premier in the province’s history.
—
8:20 p.m.
Early returns show a number of close races across the province, with the Liberals off to an early lead.
Liberal campaign manager Katie Davey says the results will show whether party leader Susan Holt, a relative newcomer, was able to capture the attention and trust of the people of New Brunswick.
Davey says she believes voters have welcomed Holt and her message, which focused on pocketbook issues, especially health care.
—
8 p.m.
Polls have closed.
Eyes will be on a number of key ridings including Fredericton South-Silverwood, where Liberal Leader Susan Holt is vying for a seat; Saint John Harbour, which has been competitive between the Tories and Liberals in recent elections; and Moncton East, a redrawn Tory-held riding that the Liberals have targeted.
At dissolution, the Conservatives held 25 seats in the 49-seat legislature. The Liberals held 16 seats, the Greens had three, there was one Independent and there were four vacancies.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 21, 2024.
FREDERICTON – A look at Susan Holt, premier-designate and leader of the New Brunswick Liberal party.
Born: April 22, 1977.
Early years: Raised in Fredericton, she attended Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont., and then spent a year in Toronto before moving abroad for three years, spending time in Australia and India.
Education: Earned a bachelor of arts in economics and a bachelor of science in chemistry from Queen’s University.
Family: Lives in Fredericton with her husband, Jon Holt, and three young daughters.
Hobbies: Running, visiting the farmers market in Fredericton with her family every Saturday.
Before politics: CEO of the Fredericton Chamber of Commerce, CEO of the New Brunswick Business Council, civil servant, business lobbyist, advocate, consultant and executive with an IT service company that trains and employs Indigenous people.
Politics: Worked as an adviser to former Liberal premier Brian Gallant. Won the leadership of the provincial Liberal party in August 2022 and was elected to the legislature in an April 2023 byelection.
Quote: “We don’t take it lightly that you have put your trust in myself and my team, and you have hope for a brighter future. But that hope I know is short-lived and it will be on us to deliver authentically, on the ground, and openly and transparently.” — Susan Holt, in her speech to supporters in Fredericton after the Liberals won a majority government on Oct. 21, 2024.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 21, 2024.
FREDERICTON – New Brunswick voters have elected a Liberal majority government, tossing out the incumbent Progressive Conservatives after six years in power and handing the reins to the first woman ever to lead the province.
Liberal Leader Susan Holt is a relative newcomer to the province’s political scene, having won a byelection last year, eight months after she became the first woman to win the leadership of the party.
The Liberals appeared poised to take 31 of 49 seats to the Conservatives’ 16 and the Greens two.
Holt, 47, led the Liberals to victory after a 33-day campaign, thwarting Blaine Higgs’s bid to secure a third term as Tory premier.
The Liberal win marks a strong repudiation of Higgs’s pronounced shift to more socially conservative policies.
Higgs, meanwhile, lost in his riding of Quispamsis. In a speech to supporters in the riding, he confirmed that he would begin a leadership transition process.
As the Liberals secured their majority, Green Party Leader David Coon thanked his supporters and pledged to continue building the party, but he then turned his sights on the premier. “One thing is for sure,” he told a crowd gathered at Dolan’s Pub in Fredericton, “we know that Blaine Higgs is no longer the premier of this province.”
The election race was largely focused on health care and affordability but was notable for the remarkably dissimilar campaign styles of Holt and Higgs. Holt repeatedly promised to bring a balanced approach to governing, pledging a sharp contrast to Higgs’s “one-man show taking New Brunswick to the far right.”
“We need a government that acts as a partner and not as a dictator from one office in Fredericton,” she said in a recent interview with The Canadian Press.
Higgs focused on the high cost of living, promising to lower the provincial harmonized sales tax by two percentage points to 13 per cent — a pledge that will cost the province about $450 million annually.
Holt spent much of the campaign rolling out proposed fixes for a health-care system racked by a doctor shortage, overcrowded emergency rooms and long wait-times. A former business advocate and public servant, she promised to open 30 community health clinics across the province by 2028; remove the provincial sales tax from electricity bills; overhaul mental health services; and impose a three per cent cap on rent increases by 2025.
The 70-year-old Tory leader, a mechanical engineer and former Irving Oil executive, led a low-key campaign, during which he didn’t have any scheduled public events on at least 10 days — and was absent from the second leaders debate on Oct. 9.
Holt missed only two days of campaigning and submitted a 30-page platform with 100 promises, a far heftier document than the Tories’ two-page platform that includes 11 pledges.
When the election was called on Sept. 19, the Conservatives held 25 seats in the 49-seat legislature. The Liberals held 16 seats, the Green Party had three, there was one Independent and four vacancies. At least 25 seats are needed for a majority.
Higgs was hoping to become the first New Brunswick premier to win three consecutive elections since Liberal Frank McKenna won his third straight majority in 1995. But it was clear from the start that Higgs would have to overcome some big obstacles.
On the first day of the campaign, a national survey showed he had the lowest approval rating of any premier in the country. That same morning, Higgs openly mused about how he was perceived by the public, suggesting people had the wrong idea about who he really is.
“I really wish that people could know me outside of politics,” he said, adding that a sunnier disposition might increase his popularity. “I don’t know whether I’ve got to do comedy hour or I’ve got to smile more.”
Still, Higgs had plenty to boast about, including six consecutive balanced budgets, a significant reduction in the province’s debt, income tax cuts and a booming population.
Higgs’s party was elected to govern in 2018, when the Tories formed the province’s first minority government in almost 100 years. In 2020, he called a snap election — marking the first province to go to the polls during the COVID-19 pandemic — and won a slim majority.
Since then, 14 Tory caucus members have stepped down after clashing with the premier, some of them citing what they described as an authoritarian leadership style and a focus on conservative policies that represented a hard shift to the right.
A caucus revolt erupted last year after Higgs announced changes to the gender identity policy in schools. When several Tory lawmakers voted for an external review of the change, Higgs dropped dissenters from cabinet. A bid by some party members to trigger a leadership review went nowhere.
Higgs has also said a Tory government would reject all new applications for supervised drug-consumption sites, renew a legal challenge against the federal carbon pricing scheme and force people into drug treatment if authorities deem they “pose a threat to themselves or others.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 21, 2024.
