Every Friday, TVO.org provides a summary of the most notable developments in Ontario politics over the past week.
Here’s what caught our attention:
Queen’s Park keywords
The end of masks: The biggest news in Ontario politics this week was arguably the announcement that the province will effectively end nearly all its broad public-health measures by the end of March. Chief Medical Officer of Health Kieran Moore said Wednesday that provincial rules requiring vaccination policies in long-term-care homes will end on March 14, and provincewide mask mandates for most indoor spaces will end on March 21. “We are now learning to live with and manage COVID-19 for the long term,” Moore said. Read the government’s full briefing here.
You can count on TVO to cover the stories others don’t—to fill the gaps in the ever-changing media landscape. But we can’t do this without you.
Masking optional: While Kieran Moore is championing the end of mask mandates, he said that COVID-19 remains a threat and that some people may still choose to wear masks even when they are no longer required. Premier Doug Ford said he will still mask up in certain situations. “If I’m going into long-term care to see my mother-in-law, I’m wearing a mask. If I’m visiting someone in the hospital, I’m wearing a mask,” he said Thursday. “But people are going to have a choice. We’re at that point that people are going to have to determine if they want to wear masks or they don’t want to wear a mask.”
Roads and transit:Ford unveiled his government’s “Connecting the GGH” plan Thursday, promising to spend $61 billion on transit and $21 billion on highways in the Greater Golden Horseshoe over the next decade. The funding includes the cost of the proposed Highway 413 and the Bradford Bypass. “A province that is growing as fast as ours needs a transportation network to support it,” Ford said.
Buy Ontario: The province announced this week that it will require public-sector entities, such as schools and hospitals, to give preference to Ontario companies when purchasing goods or services. Dubbed the “building Ontario business initiative,” the new policy “will level the playing field for Ontario businesses vying to support our province’s procurement needs and will ensure they are able to compete with overseas businesses,” Minister of Government and Consumer Services Ross Romano said.
$5,000:The province announced Monday it would pay nurses a bonus of up to $5,000 as a way to encourage more of them to stay in the field. “As we continue our efforts to build up our nursing workforce, this investment will help us to retain the nurses that we already have,” Health Minister Christine Elliott said. Exactly how much each nurse will receive will depend on factors such as whether they work full-time or part-time and when they were employed. The province estimates the incentive payments will cost $763 million.
COVID-19 relief: Thousands of small businesses in Ontario are still waiting for COVID-19 relief grants, the Globe and Mail reports. Ontario’s associate minister of small business and red tape reduction says that about 8,800 applications are still being processed but that about $98 million has already been sent to more than 9,800 businesses.
“Regrets”: This week, in a settlement to a defamation lawsuit launched by former Progressive Conservative leader Patrick Brown, CTV National News acknowledged that key details included in a story alleging sexual improprieties “were factually incorrect and required correction.” The broadcaster also said it “regrets including those details in the story and any harm this may have caused to Mr. Brown.” Brown resigned as leader of the Ontario PCs following the allegations. Currently mayor of Brampton, he has said he is now thinking of running for the leadership of the federal Conservatives.
Lewis joins the race: Another Ontario politician making a run for federal Conservative leader is Haldimand–Norfolk MP Leslyn Lewis, who came in third overall in the last leadership race. Lewis has incorrectly said vaccination does not prevent COVID-19 infection and transmission. She has been criticized for seeming to imply childhood vaccination is not safe, contrary to scientific consensus. She has also alleged Canada is undergoing a socialist coup.
Science curriculum:The province unveiled a new science curriculum for Grades 1 to 8 on Tuesday — the first update since 2007. The update is meant to give students more hands-on work in class and put more emphasis on skills, such as coding, that have become increasingly important as technology has changed. There will also be more focus on how science, technology, engineering, and math can be applied in skilled trades.
Period poverty: The province promised last fall to provide free menstrual products to elementary and high-school students. Now it needs to do the same for college and university students, advocates say. “A lack of access to these products should not impede on a student’s engagement with higher education, but the truth is that it does,” said Eunice Oladejo, president of the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance. According to advocates, “period poverty” — the financial inaccessbility of menstrual products — means some students miss classes or feel unable to take part in campus activities.
PSW tuition: The province will spend $54.7 million this year on a program that will provide tuition support for up to 4,000 personal-support-worker students enrolled at private career colleges. The province says the program will help ensure there are enough PSWs to meet a government commitment of providing an average of four hours of direct care per day to long-term-care residents.
Randy: Independent MPP Randy Hillier (Lanark–Frontenac–Kingston) was permanently suspended from Twitter Tuesday for violating the plaform’s “COVID-19 misleading information policy,” according to the company. Hillier found himself in numerous COVID-19-related controversies over the past several months. In October, family members of people who had recently died criticized Hillier for falsely stating on social media that their loved ones had passed away because they had received a COVID-19 vaccine. More recently, MPPs passed a motion giving the Speaker the authority to prevent Hillier from rising in the legislature until he had apologized for calling federal Transport Minister Omar Alghabra a “terrorist” and urging people to flood Ottawa police phone lines during the recent convoy demonstrations there.
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HALIFAX – Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston says it’s “disgraceful and demeaning” that a Halifax-area school would request that service members not wear military uniforms to its Remembrance Day ceremony.
Houston’s comments were part of a chorus of criticism levelled at the school — Sackville Heights Elementary — whose administration decided to back away from the plan after the outcry.
A November newsletter from the school in Middle Sackville, N.S., invited Armed Forces members to attend its ceremony but asked that all attendees arrive in civilian attire to “maintain a welcoming environment for all.”
Houston, who is currently running for re-election, accused the school’s leaders of “disgracing themselves while demeaning the people who protect our country” in a post on the social media platform X Thursday night.
“If the people behind this decision had a shred of the courage that our veterans have, this cowardly and insulting idea would have been rejected immediately,” Houston’s post read. There were also several calls for resignations within the school’s administration attached to Houston’s post.
In an email to families Thursday night, the school’s principal, Rachael Webster, apologized and welcomed military family members to attend “in the attire that makes them most comfortable.”
“I recognize this request has caused harm and I am deeply sorry,” Webster’s email read, adding later that the school has the “utmost respect for what the uniform represents.”
Webster said the initial request was out of concern for some students who come from countries experiencing conflict and who she said expressed discomfort with images of war, including military uniforms.
Her email said any students who have concerns about seeing Armed Forces members in uniform can be accommodated in a way that makes them feel safe, but she provided no further details in the message.
Webster did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
At a news conference Friday, Houston said he’s glad the initial request was reversed but said he is still concerned.
“I can’t actually fathom how a decision like that was made,” Houston told reporters Friday, adding that he grew up moving between military bases around the country while his father was in the Armed Forces.
“My story of growing up in a military family is not unique in our province. The tradition of service is something so many of us share,” he said.
“Saying ‘lest we forget’ is a solemn promise to the fallen. It’s our commitment to those that continue to serve and our commitment that we will pass on our respects to the next generation.”
Liberal Leader Zach Churchill also said he’s happy with the school’s decision to allow uniformed Armed Forces members to attend the ceremony, but he said he didn’t think it was fair to question the intentions of those behind the original decision.
“We need to have them (uniforms) on display at Remembrance Day,” he said. “Not only are we celebrating (veterans) … we’re also commemorating our dead who gave the greatest sacrifice for our country and for the freedoms we have.”
NDP Leader Claudia Chender said that while Remembrance Day is an important occasion to honour veterans and current service members’ sacrifices, she said she hopes Houston wasn’t taking advantage of the decision to “play politics with this solemn occasion for his own political gain.”
“I hope Tim Houston reached out to the principal of the school before making a public statement,” she said in a statement.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
REGINA – Saskatchewan Opposition NDP Leader Carla Beck says she wants to prove to residents her party is the government in waiting as she heads into the incoming legislative session.
Beck held her first caucus meeting with 27 members, nearly double than what she had before the Oct. 28 election but short of the 31 required to form a majority in the 61-seat legislature.
She says her priorities will be health care and cost-of-living issues.
Beck says people need affordability help right now and will press Premier Scott Moe’s Saskatchewan Party government to cut the gas tax and the provincial sales tax on children’s clothing and some grocery items.
Beck’s NDP is Saskatchewan’s largest Opposition in nearly two decades after sweeping Regina and winning all but one seat in Saskatoon.
The Saskatchewan Party won 34 seats, retaining its hold on all of the rural ridings and smaller cities.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
HALIFAX – Nova Scotia‘s growing population was the subject of debate on Day 12 of the provincial election campaign, with Liberal Leader Zach Churchill arguing immigration levels must be reduced until the province can provide enough housing and health-care services.
Churchill said Thursday a plan by the incumbent Progressive Conservatives to double the province’s population to two million people by the year 2060 is unrealistic and unsustainable.
“That’s a big leap and it’s making life harder for people who live here, (including ) young people looking for a place to live and seniors looking to downsize,” he told a news conference at his campaign headquarters in Halifax.
Anticipating that his call for less immigration might provoke protests from the immigrant community, Churchill was careful to note that he is among the third generation of a family that moved to Nova Scotia from Lebanon.
“I know the value of immigration, the importance of it to our province. We have been built on the backs of an immigrant population. But we just need to do it in a responsible way.”
The Liberal leader said Tim Houston’s Tories, who are seeking a second term in office, have made a mistake by exceeding immigration targets set by the province’s Department of Labour and Immigration. Churchill said a Liberal government would abide by the department’s targets.
In the most recent fiscal year, the government welcomed almost 12,000 immigrants through its nominee program, exceeding the department’s limit by more than 4,000, he said. The numbers aren’t huge, but the increase won’t help ease the province’s shortages in housing and doctors, and the increased strain on its infrastructure, including roads, schools and cellphone networks, Churchill said.
“(The Immigration Department) has done the hard work on this,” he said. “They know where the labour gaps are, and they know what growth is sustainable.”
In response, Houston said his commitment to double the population was a “stretch goal.” And he said the province had long struggled with a declining population before that trend was recently reversed.
“The only immigration that can come into this province at this time is if they are a skilled trade worker or a health-care worker,” Houston said. “The population has grown by two per cent a year, actually quite similar growth to what we experienced under the Liberal government before us.”
Still, Houston said he’s heard Nova Scotians’ concerns about population growth, and he then pivoted to criticize Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for trying to send 6,000 asylum seekers to Nova Scotia, an assertion the federal government has denied.
Churchill said Houston’s claim about asylum seekers was shameful.
“It’s smoke and mirrors,” the Liberal leader said. “He is overshooting his own department’s numbers for sustainable population growth and yet he is trying to blame this on asylum seekers … who aren’t even here.”
In September, federal Immigration Minister Marc Miller said there is no plan to send any asylum seekers to the province without compensation or the consent of the premier. He said the 6,000 number was an “aspirational” figure based on models that reflect each province’s population.
In Halifax, NDP Leader Claudia Chender said it’s clear Nova Scotia needs more doctors, nurses and skilled trades people.
“Immigration has been and always will be a part of the Nova Scotia story, but we need to build as we grow,” Chender said. “This is why we have been pushing the Houston government to build more affordable housing.”
Chender was in a Halifax cafe on Thursday when she promised her party would remove the province’s portion of the harmonized sales tax from all grocery, cellphone and internet bills if elected to govern on Nov. 26. The tax would also be removed from the sale and installation of heat pumps.
“Our focus is on helping people to afford their lives,” Chender told reporters. “We know there are certain things that you can’t live without: food, internet and a phone …. So we know this will have the single biggest impact.”
The party estimates the measure would save the average Nova Scotia family about $1,300 a year.
“That’s a lot more than a one or two per cent HST cut,” Chender said, referring to the Progressive Conservative pledge to reduce the tax by one percentage point and the Liberal promise to trim it by two percentage points.
Elsewhere on the campaign trail, Houston announced that a Progressive Conservative government would make parking free at all Nova Scotia hospitals and health-care centres. The promise was also made by the Liberals in their election platform released Monday.
“Free parking may not seem like a big deal to some, but … the parking, especially for people working at the facilities, can add up to hundreds of dollars,” the premier told a news conference at his campaign headquarters in Halifax.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
