Manitoba’s premier is set to shuffle cabinet after her finance minister said Friday that he’s stepping down, following a list of Progressive Conservative caucus members who have announced their intentions to leave provincial politics.
Heather Stefanson will unveil her new cabinet at a swearing-in at 11 a.m. Monday at the legislative building in Winnipeg.
CBC Manitoba is livestreaming the news conference here, on Facebook and on CBC Gem.
Finance Minister Cameron Friesen announced Friday that he is stepping down to run for a seat in the House of Commons.
Friesen’s decision was the latest in a series of recent similar announcements.
Four other cabinet ministers — deputy premier Cliff Cullen, Municipal Relations Minister Eileen Clarke, Government Services Minister Reg Helwer and Alan Lagimodiere, minister of Indigenous reconciliation and northern relations — have said they will serve out their terms but not run again.
Roughly one-third of the 36 Tory caucus members elected in 2019 have either quit in the last two years or have said they will not run again in the provincial election scheduled for Oct. 3.
A number of those announcements came earlier this month.
The governing Tories have been trailing the Opposition New Democrats in opinion polls for two years, especially in Winnipeg, where most legislature seats are.
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.
