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politics briefing newsletter

Good morning,

Two days after voters in New Brunswick elected the province’s first minority legislature in nearly a century, the leaders of both major parties are laying claim to power and it’s not clear who will ultimately govern.

The incumbent Liberals won 21 seats in the 49-seat legislature, while the Progressive Conservatives took 22. Neither has enough to command the confidence of the House on their own, which leaves the Green Party and the upstart People’s Alliance potentially holding the balance of power with three seats each.

It’s a situation that is unprecedented in New Brunswick’s modern-day politics, but voters there may want to look to British Columbia for lessons on how things may unfold. Last year, the BC Liberals were reduced to a minority in the legislature, setting off weeks of negotiations that saw the Liberals and New Democrats court the third-place Greens and their three seats. Even when the Greens decided to support the NDP, with the two party leaders signing a supply and confidence agreement, then-premier Christy Clark asked the Lieutenant-Governor to call another election given the close standings in the House. Instead, the Lieutenant-Governor did what many experts predicted she would, turning power over to NDP Leader – and now Premier – John Horgan.

In New Brunswick, pundits have suggested the Greens would be more likely to align themselves with the Liberals, while the People’s Alliance ideologically closer to the Conservatives. If that’s how negotiations unfold, the Conservatives and People’s Alliance would together hold a slim majority of the legislature.

At the same time, People’s Alliance leader Kris Austin has insisted he would be willing to work with any party that is willing to listen to his party’s ideas.

This is the daily Politics Briefing newsletter, written by Chris Hannay in Ottawa and James Keller in Vancouver. Have any feedback? Let us know what you think.

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TODAY’S HEADLINES

The United States’s top trade negotiator said time is running out for Canada to join a reworked North American free-trade agreement – but that the U.S. will keep talking to Canada, even if its deadlines are missed. “We’re not going to give up. They’re a huge trading partner," U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said.

Bill Blair, the Minister for Border Security and Organized Crime Reduction, says consultations on a possible handgun ban should wrap up by the end of the year.

Veterans Affairs says it will no longer provide health benefits to the jailed family members of former soldiers. The Conservatives had raised the case of a man convicted of murdering an off-duty police officer. The man, Christopher Garnier, received support from the Veterans Affairs department because his father was a veteran.

But the federal government is also under fire by the family of Tori Stafford, a murdered eight-year-old Ontario girl, because, CBC reports, one of her killers, Terri-Lynne McClintic, has been transferred from a maximum-security prison to a minimum-security aboriginal healing lodge.

An expert panel created by Ontario’s chief coroner says governments are failing at-risk youth. The panel examined the circumstances that led to the deaths of 12 young people who were in the care of children’s aid societies or Indigenous aid societies.

The federal government is said to be supporting the construction of a $40-billion liquefied natural gas project in B.C.

Alberta Premier Rachel Notley is demanding the federal government make major changes to its environmental assessment legislation, as she attempts to increase the pressure on Ottawa following the court ruling against the Trans Mountain pipeline project. Ms. Notley argues a bill before the Senate would extend Ottawa’s reach into provincial jurisdiction and undermine energy industry competitiveness.

Alberta’s governing New Democrats are asking the province’s ethics commissioner to investigate United Conservative Party Leader Jason Kenney’s trip to India. The government says Mr. Kenney sowed confusion about whether he was representing the province.

The B.C. government has put in place rules to limit the influence of campaign donations in local elections, but an apparent loophole is giving independent candidates an edge by allowing them to form unofficial groups without the constraints of a formal party. The new rules ban union and corporate donations, and limit individual donations to any party to $1,200 in total, but independent candidates who are working together can each receive the maximum donation. Concerns about the practice come as several candidates in Vancouver’s mayoral race pledge to release lists of donors, even though the law does not require them to.

Quebec seems destined for a hung parliament of its own next week.

And the Nova Scotia government says it will not help women have speedier access to abortion.

Campbell Clark (The Globe and Mail) on the New Brunswick election: “The numbers in the legislature look bad for Mr. Gallant, but they don’t look good for Mr. Higgs, either. And minority legislatures can be full of twists.”

Paul Wells (Maclean’s) on New Brunswick’s hung parliament: “I could go on about the Green Party’s three MLAs and the three from the anti-Francophone People’s Alliance, but for the next several days, the most important thing about each of these parties is the three votes they command in the legislature. They’ll be popular, because all sides will be trying to court them with favours.”

Petra Molnar and Ronald Deibert (The Globe and Mail) on the use of artificial intelligence to assess refugee claims: “The ramifications of using AI in immigration and refugee decisions are far-reaching. Vulnerable and under-resourced communities such as those without citizenship often have access to less-robust human rights protections and fewer resources with which to defend those rights. Adopting these technologies in an irresponsible manner may serve only to exacerbate these disparities and can result in severe rights violations, such as discrimination and threats to life and liberty.”

André Picard (The Globe and Mail) on a pay-equity victory for Ontario midwives: “The decision is obviously a victory for the province’s 900 midwives. It is also another warning to governments to take pay equity issues more seriously – something the Supreme Court did forcefully with two decisions it issued in May. And it is yet another reminder that the way that health care workers are paid, and their contracts are negotiated, need some fundamental rethinking.”

Chris Selley (National Post) on Terri-Lynne McClintic: “I’m mostly a bleeding heart because our prisons seem far better at doling out raw punishment than they do at accomplishing the far more useful goals of deterrence and rehabilitation. That said, there are some people who unambiguously need to be locked up very secure circumstances for all three of those reasons, no matter what their future prospects. McClintic is so obviously one of those people that it seems ridiculous even to say it.”

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