Latest news with #DennisKing
CBC
28-05-2025
- Business
- CBC
Lantz leaves door open for P.E.I. Progressive Conservative leadership run after all
Social Sharing Premier Rob Lantz says he is not ruling out a run for the permanent leadership of P.E.I.'s Progressive Conservative Party, despite previously indicating that he didn't want anything but the interim job. Lantz became the governing party's interim leader and thus the premier on Feb. 21, a day after Dennis King's sudden resignation from both roles. In a statement to CBC News on Wednesday, Lantz said he's been focused on leading the province and the spring legislative sitting over the past three months. "In that same time, many Islanders have approached me about reconsidering my stance on running for the leadership of the PC Party," he said in the statement. "I owe it to those who have been encouraging me to have a conversation with them and hear what they have to say — and that's what I am doing right now." WATCH | As P.E.I. PCs work on leadership convention plan, Premier Rob Lantz says he's being urged to run: As P.E.I. PCs work on leadership convention plan, Premier Rob Lantz says he's being urged to run 1 hour ago Duration 2:31 The interim leader of Prince Edward Island's Progressive Conservative Party says he's not ruling out a run for the permanent leadership of his party. That's a change from a few months back. The PCs haven't set a date for their leadership convention yet, says party president Sydney Gallant (shown), but that isn't stopping the talk in Island political circles. CBC's Wayne Thibodeau has more. King's resignation meant all three political parties with seats in the P.E.I. Legislature were left without a permanent leader. The Green Party will hold a leadership convention on June 7, while the Liberals' top spot will be contested Oct. 4. The PCs have not yet selected a date for their convention. Sidney Gallant, president of the P.E.I. Progressive Conservatives, said Wednesday that the party has now finalized the rules for the race. The government also has to call two byelections in the near future — one in Brackley-Hunter River triggered by King's resignation, and another in Charlottetown-Hillsborough Park after Natalie Jameson stepped down to run in a losing bid for the federal Conservatives in the April general election. WATCH | P.E.I. premier talks to CBC News: Compass about his resignation and what's next P.E.I. premier talks to CBC News: Compass about his resignation and what's next 3 months ago Duration 10:36 Dennis King announced Thursday that he was stepping down as P.E.I.'s premier and walking away from politics entirely. A few hours after the announcement, he joined CBC News: Compass host Louise Martin to talk about his decision and his plans for the future. "It's our job to make sure that the party's ready to tackle those byelections when the premier calls them," Gallant said. "There's a lot on the plate, and we don't take this lightly. The next leader of the PC Party will be the next premier of Prince Edward Island, so we want to make sure that we're not rushing [a convention]. We want to do this right." Other candidates unconcerned Lantz had been relatively clear from the day he was sworn in as premier that he did not intend to seek the permanent leadership — but even back then, he didn't fully close the door. "I may very much enjoy doing this job and regret that I don't put myself forward for that permanent leadership," he told CBC News in an interview after his Feb. 21 swearing-in ceremony. If the current premier throws his hat in the ring for the leadership, he'll face at least two other candidates, neither of whom said Wednesday that they would be concerned with Lantz entering the race. Mark Ledwell, a Stratford lawyer, announced last week that he's interested in the party's top job. He's been working behind the scenes with the Progressive Conservatives since the 1980s. "Premier Lantz stepped into a big job on short notice, and I think he needs to be applauded for doing that," Ledwell said. "I know what he said publicly, and whether or not he runs, that's his decision. I don't discourage anyone from running." Cory Deagle, the other announced candidate and the current MLA for Montague-Kilmuir, stepped down from a cabinet post just days after King's resignation to announce his leadership bid. Whether Lantz decides to run for leadership or not, Deagle said he expects the race to be competitive. "It would definitely change the dynamics of the race," he said Wednesday of the possibility of his current boss seeking the leadership. "A competitive race is good for the party. Ultimately it'll be up to Premier Lantz whether or not he decides if he wants to run for the leadership." Gallant said she expects more people to come forward, with a party search committee actively recruiting candidates. If Lantz does decide to run, he'll have just 10 days after the convention date is announced to hand over the reins of the province to yet another interim party leader, who would therefore also be premier.
CBC
27-05-2025
- General
- CBC
Spreading out services would better serve P.E.I.'s homeless: report
Social Sharing The P.E.I. government says it's ready to move forward on recommendations on how to best support Islanders experiencing homelessness. Carlene Donnelly, who was brought on as a special adviser to former premier Dennis King to help develop a "client-centred" model of care for those facing homelessness, recently submitted her final report. Her primary recommendation is a plan to decentralize services, particularly to reach rural areas often left out of traditional support models. This "distributed model" would shift away from central hubs and instead expand services through community-based efforts Island-wide. "I think that's the model to go," Donnelly told CBC News: Compass host Louise Martin. "It's more feasible to scale to rural P.E.I. that's always been on our radar. I know it seems sometimes like we're focusing on Charlottetown and Summerside and other communities, but really it's the whole Island that we're focusing on." A new report says P.E.I. can better help its homeless population. Here's how it could work 18 hours ago Duration 6:32 The final report on how best to support Islanders with complex issues who are experiencing homelessness is now complete, and the province says it has approved the recommendations. CBC News: Compass host Louise Martin spoke with Carlene Donnelly, who wrote the report, about what it suggests and what the next steps will be. The report outlines several benefits to decentralizing services, including amplifying existing community leaders in service delivery, reducing risk associated with concentrating complex services in a single location, and lowering capital costs by building on infrastructure that already exists. Over the past few years, the province has done some good groundwork that can support this shift, not only in terms of health, mental health and addictions services, but also housing, she said, pointing to the government's housing-first approach. The P.E.I. government is in the early stages of its five-year plan, released in 2024, aimed at increasing the province's housing supply and addressing the ongoing housing crisis. The strategy takes a housing-first approach to people dealing with homelessness, focusing on transitional and supportive housing. "Although we have more to do, a lot has been done," Donnelly said. Urban services to stay Donnelly noted that a distributed model doesn't mean some facilities in urban areas, like Charlottetown's Community Outreach Centre, will be moved. The centre along with an emergency overnight shelter, both located at 15 Park Street in the city's southeast end, has been at the centre of debate between the province and the City of Charlottetown. Back in March, Charlottetown council voted to reject the province's request for a zoning change that would have allowed the shelter and outreach centre to remain on Park Street. Two days later, Housing Minister Steven Myers said that vote didn't matter: The province would set up a special planning zone in the area that would allow both operations to stay in place, effectively overriding council's decision. Local residents have also raised concerns about the Park Street location, citing safety and neighbourhood impact. Donnelly acknowledged those concerns but said complex issues like homelessness, mental health and addiction require long-term strategies and support. "These are complicated, and they do take time," she said. "It is going to take compassion and understanding and in some ways, patience, to give us time to continue to work and address the housing issues." Community-government collaboration The report also recommends that oversight of any model be independent of government. "Things that are community-led in partnership and supported by government really do have a high degree of success. The entities that work the front line on a continuum and then really are invested in that long-term care focus generally have more of a knowledge base and relationships built with the folks using the services," Donnelly said.
CBC
22-05-2025
- Business
- CBC
Mark Ledwell announces bid for P.E.I. Progressive Conservative leadership
Lawyer Mark Ledwell says he's running for the leadership of the Progressive Conservative Party of Prince Edward Island. He made the announcement in a message online, saying P.E.I. needs leadership to "match the moment." "The imposition of tariffs by President Trump continues to cause painful economic uncertainty for Islanders and Canadians," Ledwell said. "Our nation faces economic and security crises. Islanders are feeling painful uncertainty. We need an experienced leader to assemble a vibrant team and deliver a new prosperity agenda for our province." Ledwell, who is from Charlottetown, has done legal work both on P.E.I. and around the world. He said he brings more than 35 years of experience advising on complex issues related to infrastructure, energy, agri-food and finance. The PC leadership position became open in February after Dennis King resigned as premier, party leader and MLA for Brackley-Hunter River. About a week later, Progressive Conservative MLA Cory Deagle announced he would step down from his cabinet role as minister of economic development, innovation and trade and become the first candidate to run for the party leadership. The date for the PC leadership convention has not yet been set.
CBC
17-05-2025
- Business
- CBC
P.E.I. party leaders reflect on the highs and lows of an 8-week spring legislature sitting
After eight weeks, the second session of the 67th General Assembly of Prince Edward Island wrapped up Friday. The spring sitting was Rob Lantz's first in the role of premier after Dennis King's shock resignation back in February, which led to the legislature being prorogued by a month past its originally scheduled start date. Safety in Island schools and the Progressive Conservative government's multimillion-dollar tourism deal with the National Hockey League were dominant topics of debate during question period. MLAs are scheduled to return for the fall sitting on Nov. 4. WATCH | Spring sitting of P.E.I. Legislature wraps after 30 days: Spring sitting of P.E.I. Legislature wraps after 30 days 4 hours ago Duration 2:53 The lieutenant-governor arrived at the Coles Building just after noon on Friday to give royal assent to the bills MLAs passed over the last eight weeks. CBC's Nicola MacLeod spoke to all three party leaders, who reflected on the spring legislative sitting. 'A lot of hard work': Lantz Lantz was sworn in as premier about a month before the spring sitting began. "It's been a whirlwind couple of months for me," Lantz said, adding that he felt well-prepared to begin work in the legislature, but that the role of premier takes a little getting used to. "I enjoyed it, but it's a lot of hard work and I'm glad to get to the end," he said. The PC government passed 19 bills, including the Interprovincial Trade and Mobility Act, which Lantz said was a personal high point. He brought the legislation to the floor himself. All provincial governments are working hard to smooth out interprovincial trade, and the act was P.E.I.'s effort to contribute, Lantz said. Other bills that passed included the Funeral Services Act, the Tariff Response Plan and changes to corporate and personal income taxes. Tense exchanges As for a low point of the sitting, Lantz said the back and forth nature of the legislature can get under people's skin. "Things get pretty prickly in the legislature sometimes," he said, adding that this spring saw more of that dynamic than usual. The premier had tense exchanges with Official Opposition Leader Hal Perry this week following comments Lantz made about the P.E.I. Liberal Party's spending that cited inaccurate figures from an annual report. Perry asked the premier to apologize, but Lantz doubled down. "The books are the books, the numbers are the numbers," the premiers said. "We can squabble over the details, but I stand by what I said." While some MLAs said they would have liked to see the legislative sitting continue so they could get more answers, Lantz said he thinks the government members answered the opposition parties' questions to the best of their knowledge. "I can't imagine there's an opposition party that has walked out of any sitting of the legislature saying they were satisfied with the answers they got from government," he said. "I do my best to be open, honest and transparent when I'm answering questions, but sometimes, frankly, the opposition is just trying to set traps for us." 'Islanders deserve better': Perry Over the eight weeks of the sitting, Perry said he and the other opposition MLAs took their jobs seriously. "Our job is to hold government to account for the decisions they make, or lack thereof," the interim Liberal leader said. "We ask questions on behalf of Islanders that are either met with political spin or they're stonewalled, and Islanders deserve better." Perry pressed the PCs on the NHL deal, a continuation from the previous fall sitting, during which the deal was brought up every single day. "The government mismanaged this file terribly," Perry said. "They are accountable for the taxpayers' dollars and they are not being transparent." For several days of the sitting, Perry also sought answers to questions about the case of a former substitute teacher who recently pleaded guilty to charges related to child sex abuse images and an incident where he sexually touched a girl in an elementary school classroom in front of other students. "It's a terrible low that Islanders had to go through this," Perry said. "The system failed these students. The system failed the parents and all Islanders." Perry posed questions about the incidents involving Matthew Craswell to current and past education ministers, including the premier. "This is a terrible situation. These are questions that I don't like to ask," Perry said, adding that parents have reached out with questions and concerns that they can't get answers to through other channels. "We need to know what happened in the past in order to move forward." Perry said his caucus did a wonderful job of holding the government to account. "We've asked really, really good questions," he said. "We may not have gotten the answers, which is unfortunate, but we went in every day being professional." 'Public pressure leads to change': Bernard For Karla Bernard, the P.E.I. Green Party's interim leader, the spring sitting was "an exercise in patience." "It got very personal this sitting, which isn't nice," Bernard said, adding that MLAs should be focused on attacking policies, not people. "It makes it really challenging to have a good working relationship with someone who's willing to personally attack you." Despite some "very uncomfortable moments," she said the sitting was productive overall. "The Greens kind of carved ourselves out as how we would be different as a government, and how we would bring things forward and how we would listen to the public and come forward with solutions," Bernard said. She called the two bills the Greens passed this session — an amendment to the Lands Protection Act and an amendment to the Education Act — "culture shifters." The amendment to the Lands Protection Act will ensure that the province looks at farmland seriously, while the Education Act amendment will make a difference in how sexual misconduct is reported in schools, Bernard said. The amendment to the Education Act was a bill Bernard herself brought forward, saying getting it passed was a high point of the sitting. "It was a great example of what can happen when there's public pressure… and how that public pressure leads to change," she said. "That was such a high and such a win for Islanders. I came out of there feeling like I had just done something with my team that was much bigger than myself, and that was by far probably one of my favourite moments in the legislature to date." In addition to those two bills, Bernard said the Greens also felt strongly about ambulance wait times and private contracts for health-care companies. The party was the first to reject the PC's call for unanimous consent to push remaining legislation through to third reading on Thursday. "We've been asking for [information] on Health P.E.I. employees' salaries for weeks," she said, adding that getting those contracts was one of the party's conditions for ending the sitting. "Despite the fact we were told we were going to get them last night, we still haven't got them."
CBC
02-04-2025
- Health
- CBC
Opposition hammers PCs, calling 2023 vow to empty P.E.I.'s patient registry 'April Fool's joke'
No apology for missing patient registry promise deadline as P.E.I. opposition MLAs grill government 4 hours ago Duration 2:48 Social Sharing The governing Progressive Conservatives' broken election promise to clear P.E.I.'s patient registry by this month had MLAs questioning the province's health minister in the legislature Tuesday. Opposition politicians also questioned the government's assertion that the Island's health-care system is improving. Two years ago, during a provincial election campaign, former premier Dennis King promised to eliminate the registry — the list of people waiting to be assigned to a primary care provider — by April 2025. "Islanders didn't realize that was an April Fool's joke, except… no one is laughing," Liberal MLA Gord McNeilly said during question period Tuesday in the P.E.I. Legislative Assembly. He aimed this question at Health Minister Mark McLane: "Will you finally admit that the system is broken, mismanaged and nowhere close to meeting its promises?" When King made the commitment in March 2023 to get everyone off the patient registry two years after the election, there were 28,546 people on the waitlist. Rather than dropping though, that number has actually risen more than 30 per cent since the pledge was made. At the end of March, the total number of people on the registry was 37,431. I've got one heck of a hole to fill, but... we're starting to do some things and fix this workforce problem. McLane admitted that eliminating the registry was a "lofty goal" given the province's rapid population growth, but said things are now heading in the right direction. He blamed the previous government for not investing enough in the health-care workforce, saying the governing PCs are making a difference through initiatives such as the new UPEI medical school and an increased number of nursing school seats. "I've got one heck of a hole to fill, but after 13 years of a Liberal government, we're starting to do some things and fix this workforce problem," McLane said in the legislature. The UPEI medical school is scheduled to accept its first cohort of students this fall, but those doctors won't start practising in the health-care system for a decade. 'We're starting to recover' McLane did say that P.E.I. is recruiting doctors in New England, specifically looking for Canadians who completed their residency in the U.S. and want to come back. The health minister also pointed to the province's new contract with doctors, which went into effect Tuesday. It includes financial incentives for family doctors that the government hopes will help with recruitment and retention. Green MLA Matt MacFarlane told the legislature he was foregoing one of his questions during question period to give the health minister the opportunity to apologize for the broken campaign promise — but no apology came. "You say momentum is turning and it's about to get better, but you can't repeat that for six years and expect Islanders to continue to believe," MacFarlane said. In response, McLane pointed to Canadian Institute for Health Information data that shows P.E.I. is recruiting family physicians at a faster rate than the national average. "We're starting to recover, we're seeing it in the data," he said. "We're leading the country in family physician growth, so… I will take responsibility for that. We're going in the right direction. We had a 13-year gap and we're starting to fill it now." WATCH | Province falls well short on pledge to eliminate P.E.I.'s patient registry: Province falls well short on pledge to eliminate P.E.I.'s patient registry 17 hours ago Duration 2:26 The deadline is now up on a campaign promise made by former premier Dennis King to eliminate the provincial list of people waiting to be assigned a family doctor. While Health P.E.I. says it's making progress, some Islanders are losing hope. CBC's Sheehan Desjardins explains. McLane wouldn't commit to a new date on getting the patient registry down to a minimal level — saying it will likely never reach zero. But a report quietly posted to the province's website two weeks ago did set a new target. It said 100 per cent of Islanders should have access to primary care by March 2026.
