Trudeau said the rapporteur could recommend a formal inquiry.

"And we will abide by their recommendation," he said in prepared remarks.

Trudeau and the head of Canada's intelligence agency have acknowledged that China attempted to interfere in the past two federal elections. They maintain the elections' overall outcomes were not altered.

The prime minister also said he's tasked the country's two intelligence review bodies — the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians and the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency — with investigating the issue.

"I talked to them about undertaking urgent work on the issue of foreign interference, within their mandates," he said.

MPs and senators on the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP) receive Top Secret security clearances and are permanently bound to secrecy under the Security of Information Act, permitting them access to the agencies' usually secret activities.

Trudeau said NSICOP will launch a new review of foreign interference, with a focus on elections.

The committee was set up in 2017 to provide parliamentary oversight of Ottawa's intelligence operations. It completed a report on foreign interference back in 2019, which called on the government to "do better."

"Canada has been slow to react to the threat of foreign interference," NSICOP wrote at the time.

The National Security and Intelligence Review Agency (NSIRA) is an independent and external review body that reviews all national security and intelligence activities to ensure that they are "lawful, reasonable and necessary."

Trudeau said NSIRA will look at how Canada's intelligence agencies work, "what information flowed or didn't flow properly and why."

Poilievre called Monday's announcement a "cover-up" taking place behind closed doors.

"A so-called 'special rapporteur' hand-picked by the prime minister is not the same as a true independent inquiry, with the full legal powers granted by the Inquiries Act, including compelling the testimony and the production of documents," he said in a media statement.

"Enough is enough. Justin Trudeau cannot continue to hide the truth from Canadians, and we won't let him bury the truth either. The Liberals must listen to the will of Parliament and establish an independent public inquiry."

Opposition calling for a public inquiry 

Earlier in the day Poilievre was asked if he would be open to receiving a high-level briefing from intelligence services as a compromise.

"No, that's a trick and that's a trap," he said.

"We're not going to have a situation where Conservatives are told that they have to be quiet about this scandal because they're sworn to secrecy. We need a public inquiry that is truly independent, to get to the bottom of it."

NDP House Leader Peter Julian told CBC's Power & Politics Monday's announcement was a baby step and the special rapporteur needs to be "impeccable." 

"It cannot be somebody who is considered partisan and cannot be somebody who is not considered independent from the Liberal government," he said.

Earlier in the day, Singh said he needs to see an investigation that is as transparent as possible.

"We want the public to know that we're taking steps to assess exactly what happened, how broad this is, and then take steps to recommend how we can prevent this from happening in the future," said Singh.

"That should be the goal."

The push for a public inquiry comes in response to recent reports detailing allegations of Chinese interference in Canada's elections.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre points to take a question from a journalist during a news conference on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on March 6, 2023. (Justin Tang/Canadian Press)

Back in the fall, Global News reported intelligence officials warned Trudeau that China's consulate in Toronto floated cash to at least eleven federal election candidates "and numerous Beijing operatives" who worked as campaign staffers.

Last month, the Globe and Mail reported that China employed a "sophisticated strategy to disrupt Canada's democracy" in the 2021 election campaign as Chinese diplomats and their proxies "backed the re-election of Justin Trudeau's Liberals."

A panel of public servants tasked with monitoring incidents did not detect foreign interference that threatened Canada's ability to hold free and fair elections in either the 2019 and 2021 elections. But the panel did say there were attempts to interfere in both campaigns, according to reports highlighting its work.

Foreign agent registry consultations coming 

Later this week, Trudeau added, the government will launch public consultations on creating what he called a "foreign influence transparency registry." 

Trudeau said the government wants to keep those who advocate on behalf of foreign governments accountable while protecting communities that often are targeted by attempts at foreign interference.

The government has promised consultations for months. Poilievre said the government still has not provided any details or timelines on this.

The U.S. and Australia have foreign agent registries that require those acting on behalf of foreign states to register their activities. 

CSIS Director David Vigneault has said that while such a registry wouldn't be the only tool needed, it would be a useful measure to improve transparency.

The government also promises to:

• Develop a plan to implement any outstanding recommendations from NSICOP, NSIRA and the independent assessment of the Critical Election Incident Public Protocol within the next 30 days.
• Invest $5.5 million to form an alliance of civil society partners to fact-check and counter disinformation.

RCMP investigating leaks to media

On Monday, the RCMP confirmed it's started an investigation into violations of the Security of Information Act related to leaks of government information about foreign election interference shared with media outlets.

The act is designed to safeguard and protect Canada's most secret information.

"This investigation is not focused on any one security agency," said RCMP spokesperson Robin Percival.

"As the RCMP is investigating these incidents, there will be no further comment on this matter at this time."

The RCMP says it wasn't able to launch a criminal investigation into allegations of foreign interference in the 2021 election because it did not receive actionable intelligence.

Prince Edward Island does have fixed election legislation setting the next voting date as Oct. 2, 2023, but King exercised his right as premier to trigger it early.

King later defended that decision when talking to reporters. 

"It's four years; it's time to have an election," he said. "There's uncertainty in the future and Islanders should have a say in that." 

King added that there is a chance of a federal election later in the year, given that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is leading a minority government. "There's uncertainty in Ottawa," he said. "There could be a fall election. Part of the reason our election was moved [is] because the election dates in Ottawa."

"It's four years; it's time to have an election," PC Leader Dennis King says. "There's uncertainty in the future and Islanders should have a say in that." (Cody MacKay/CBC)

The P.C. leader, who had held the premier's job since 2019, said he went to see Lt.-Gov Antoinette Perry on Monday morning to kickstart the election.

Who is running so far?

Shortly after King spoke, Elections P.E.I. issued a news release about the provincial vote to be held in four weeks' time, saying advance polls would take place on March 25, 27 and 31 from 9 a.m. until 7 p.m.

As of Monday evening, the Progressive Conservatives were the only party to have a full slate of 27 candidates nominated and ready to run.

The other parties are planning more nomination meetings in the coming days.

Here is the breakdown so far of how many people have declared their intention to run for each of the other major parties (nominated or soon-to-be-nominated):

• The Greens under Peter Bevan-Baker have 14 of 27. 
• The Liberals led by Sharon Cameron have 19 of 27.
• The NDP under Michelle Neill have 13 of 27.

Greens 'feeling really excited'

Green Leader Peter Bevan-Baker, whose party has formed the Official Opposition since 2019, said he would have preferred that King stick to the fixed election date of Oct. 2.

"It's not the right time for Islanders, and I also think it's not the right time for democracy," he said. "When you call a snap election like this, it creates such an imbalance between the ruling party … and the rest of us."

P.E.I. Green Party Leader Peter Bevan-Baker says his party is confirming a candidate slate that's 'second to none' for this campaign. (Rick Gibbs/CBC)

Given that, he's excited about his party's possibilities going into the April 3 election.

"We have a platform we've been working on for a very long time. We just nominated this evening two more candidates, so we continue to build a slate of candidates across this province," he said.

"The quality of the folks who are coming forward is second to none and I'm just feeling really excited and really optimistic about the next month."

Liberals, NDP criticize snap call

A spring election has been "the worst kept secret on P.E.I.," said Liberal Leader Sharon Cameron.

"The announcement is as heartbreaking as it is discouraging," she said. "We've always been very vocal about the snap election date."

Sharon Cameron, leader of the Liberal Party of Prince Edward Island, said her primary goal going into this campaign is addressing health care. (Brian Higgins/CBC)

Cameron said her primary goal going into this election is addressing health care, adding that the party has a strong, diverse set of candidates with more being announced by the day.

NDP candidate Herb Dickieson spoke on behalf of his party, saying not following the fixed election date amounts to "broken promise" for the PC campaign as it starts off.

"When governments attempt to deceive the people, they sometimes regret it," Dickieson said.

As for the party's priorities going into the election, he said the party has health care top of mind and they plans on running a full slate of 27 candidates.

The NDP under leader Michelle Neill had about half of their candidates confirmed as of Monday night, including former MLA Herb Dickieson. (CBC)

"Michelle Neill has a better deal for Islanders and that's our slogan and we have a very good platform to back it up with," he said. "We're looking with great anticipation for much better results [than 2019] and what we're going to see … is that New Democrats will be elected in the Island legislature."

The Island Party has also announced it plans to field candidates in the race, and has registered with Elections P.E.I. A recent news release said it will call for "responsible and transparent government." 

The issues heading in 

There will likely be more focused debate on hot-button issues this time around. Back in 2019, the province had a full slate of topics of concern, of course, but there was also a referendum on proportional representation tied to the vote.

This time, expect to see some of the same issues debated in 2019 return in an even more pressing manner, including:

• Health care and doctor shortages.
• Housing and homelessness.
• Inflation, poverty, wages and the economy. 
• Environment, climate change and shoreline protection.

Health care and doctor shortages are issues thataffect most Islanders, with more than 28,000 people and counting onthe P.E.I. patient registry. Combine that witha shortage of doctors in many parts of the province, leading to hospital closures in rural parts of P.E.I. and extremely crunched ERs at both Summerside's Prince County Hospital and Charlottetown's Queen Elizabeth Hospital. Also in the health care file is the COVID-19 pandemic that has dominated global attention since the winter of 2020 and is still claiming lives on P.E.I. 

Shortly after the election was triggered on Monday night, Elections P.E.I. released this photo of CEO Tim Garrity signing the writ of election for a provincial vote to be held on April 3. The agency said advance polls will take place on March 25, 27 and 31 from 9 a.m. until 7 p.m. (Submitted by Elections P.E.I.)

Housing and homelessness are an all-party priority heading into this election. On housing, increasing rents and a desperately short supply of units have squeezed the tenant population, with rising house prices pushing ownership out of reach for many Islanders. At the same time, more people have been living in tents, on couches, in cars, or at outreach centres and emergency shelters — likethe one that opened in Charlottetown last December.

Inflation has drained the resources of Islanders on nearly every bill, particularly when it comes to grocery shopping and buying gas and home heating fuel.Rent andmortgage rates are also way up, squeezing the budgets and putting more people on the poverty line. Use of food banks is at a historic high, with more and more rural populations installing community fridges to help their neighbours.

In some ways, major storms bookended the last four years of governance, with post-tropical storm Dorian in 2019 andpost-tropical storm Fiona in 2022 mercilessly pummelling Prince Edward Island. The unprecedented became precedented as all levels ofgovernment raced to rework and reinforce their climate change policies.

Elections P.E.I. has sent out voter information cards across the province ahead of the spring election, and is encouraging Islanders to make sure their information is up to date.

For more on how to do that,visit the Elections P.E.I. website.

The short answer is, because Dennis King wants one now.

Since Confederation it has been the prerogative of premiers and prime ministers to call elections when they deemed it was time to do so. This frequently led to cries of foul, when leaders moved to call elections when they appeared to have an advantage, or delayed calls to avoid what seemed to be certain defeat.

Over the last couple of decades there has been some effort at change.

British Columbia introduced the idea of fixing election dates in 2001, but the idea didn't catch on immediately. After dates were fixed federally in 2007 more provinces jumped on board. By the end of 2008 most provinces had fixed dates, and with their introduction in Nova Scotia in 2021 all the provinces now have legislation in place.

But in terms of election dates, "fixed" is a relative term. This is the fourth election for P.E.I. since the Election Act was amended in May 2008, and only the first of those, in 2011, was held on the first Monday in October — that would be Oct. 2 this year — as spelled out in the legislation. The other three were held in the spring.

So what gives? Why were Wade MacLauchlan and Dennis King allowed to call spring elections when legislation sets the date in the fall?

The premier does not call the election

The answer is found in the first 11 words in the section of the Election Act that sets the fixed date.

• Nothing in this section affects the powers of the Lieutenant Governor.

When people say the premier has called an election that is not technically true. The word "premier" does not appear anywhere in the Election Act. It is the lieutenant-governor that dissolves the legislature and instructs the chief electoral officer to issue the writs of election. But under the convention of responsible government, the lieutenant-governor only acts on the advice of the premier.

So, that crucial clause could be read as

•  Nothing in this section affects the powers of the premier.

This clause at the beginning of the section that sets the date of election relegates it from an order to a suggestion.

Crying foul again

The introduction of fixed date elections has had little impact on the controversy it was meant to address.

Liberal Leader Sharon Cameron did not wait for the actual election call to complain about an early vote. Cameron issued a news release last month calling on the premier to wait in order to allow potential candidates, and in particular women, the time to get their affairs in order and free themselves up to run for office.

Meeting with reporters after his election call speech Monday night, Dennis King said this: 'It's four years; it's time to have an election. There's uncertainty in the future and Islanders should have a say in that... There's four members of our legislature who have indicated it's time for them to move on, and others have taken their place, and it's time for Islanders to have their say.' (Shane Hennessey/CBC)

The P.E.I. Coalition for Women in Government has also come out in support of fixed election dates.

King was asked about fixed election dates during the 2019 campaign, and he agreed with Cameron and the coalition.

During a leaders' forum on women's issues, King said fixed election dates make politics more inclusive and less partisan.

"To me, a fixed election date is something that we should actually set and stick to," said King.

"To become a candidate for a party, whether you're a woman or not, it's a difficult decision. It takes time. I've been asked in the last four or five different elections to be a candidate and you have a lot of things that you have to weigh in the balance. When all of the sudden you're weighing that and an election is pulled out of the air, it makes you either frightened or pushes you into a decision that you're not ready to make."

Prince Edward Islanders will vote in a general provincial election on April 3.

Ole Hammarlund, who represents District 13: Charlottetown-Brighton, lost the nomination in his district Monday evening to challenger Janice Harper.

A news release says Harper is a land use planner with 20 years of experience.

Hammarlund was first elected in 2019 and was the opposition critic for Transportation and Infrastructure.

"Ole brought a depth of experience to the legislature while also bringing a great sense of humour — something that can often be in short supply in politics. I want to thank Ole for his friendship and his service to Islanders," Green Leader Peter Bevan-Baker said in an emailed statement.

"I encourage every Islander who believes they have something to offer to put forward their name when a call for nominations is issued. I appreciate the work and autonomy of the party membership to decide who they want to represent them. This democratic process is of key importance to the work of the Green Party of P.E.I."

Ole Hammarlund, who represents District 13: Charlottetown-Brighton, lost the nomination in his district Monday evening to challenger Janice Harper. A news release says Harper is a land use planner with 20 years of experience.

Hammarlund was first elected in 2019 and was the opposition critic for Transportation and Infrastructure.

"I actually wanted a contested nomination meeting," Hammarlund said. "I think that's the way to change guard. It should be, in this case, members of the party of the district that should make the decision."

Hammarlund praised Harper, saying she's "well-qualified and intelligent" and thinks voters maybe wanted to pass the torch on to a new candidate. CBC News reached out to Janice Harper for comment but she was unavailable to speak Tuesday.

He also said he was asked to step aside by the Green Party going into the nomination. 

"I rejected the notion, I thought that's not the way it should be. If somebody else wants to come in they should go through the motion and it should be the members that decide," he said. "I'm not for backroom dealings. I think people should vote."

Hammarlund added that he will not be running as an independent candidate.

'That's democracy at work,' Green leader says

Green Leader Peter Bevan-Baker said the party encourages anyone to come forward and contest a nomination, as it's central to the party's "grassroots participation.

'I think it shows excitement around the Green Party … I look at this as an incredibly positive thing for our party,' says Green Leader Peter Bevan-Baker. (Julien LeCacheur/Radio-Canada)

"If you feel you would be a good MLA, come forward and put your name [forward]. Whether there is a sitting MLA there or not. In this instance, we had a sitting MLA and somebody who felt that they'd be a good candidate," Bevan-Baker said.

"The membership decided last night that Janice would make a strong candidate, and she is now the candidate. That's democracy at work. I think it shows excitement around the Green Party.… I look at this as an incredibly positive thing for our party."

UPEI political scientist Don Desserud said it's "very rare" to see a sitting MLA be challenged for a nomination, let alone lose the nomination to the challenger.

UPEI political scientist Don Desserud said it's 'very rare' to see a sitting MLA be challenged. (Brian Higgins/CBC News)

Desserud isn't sure exactly why Hammarlund lost, but he did say Harper is a "star candidate" for the Greens heading into the election. Asked how it looks to see a sitting MLA fall in the nomination, Desserud said it may suggest higher engagement within the Green Party.

"It shows that there is a lot of interest in being a Green candidate," he said.

"The worst thing is when no one wants to come forward and to run. Challenging an incumbent is odd for sure … the fact that there was two people who wanted this [district] is at least an indication that people see the Green Party as having a future and they want to be a part of it."

But who is running and where? We have you covered on that.

We've put together a running list of the people who've put their name forward to run. People on this list are either already nominated or are seeking the party nomination to run in their respective district.

Typically on P.E.I., earning the nomination is a formality for most people who plan to run, but in some cases there's more than one contender — so a nomination vote has to happen to choose the party's candidate for a district.

Below are all the names of people who've come forward so far. If you're not on the list but plan to run, let us know by emailing cody.mackay@cbc.ca. 

This list will be updated weekdays during the day — so if you're curious about who is running where, it may be best to bookmark this page and come back as it'll have rolling updates.

The National Post was the first to report the story.

Garneau, 74, has represented the Quebec riding of Notre-Dame-de-Grâce–Westmount, formerly Westmount–Ville-Marie, as a Liberal since 2008. He served as minister of transport in Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government from 2015 to 2021, and then as minister of foreign affairs from January 2021 to October 2021.

Garneau did not take questions from reporters Wednesday morning on his retirement from the lower chamber.

"Out of respect, I wish to talk to my caucus first," Garneau said.

Garneau made history in 1984 when he became the first Canadian to fly in space. He later became deputy director of Canada's astronaut program.

Prior to his career as an astronaut, he was a commissioned officer in the Royal Canadian Navy, where he served from 1974 to 1989. He rose to the rank of captain before retiring.

He was appointed a companion of the Order of Canada in 2003.

"I've known and admired minister Garneau long before I came into politics," Environment and Climate Change Minister Steven Guilbeault, a fellow Quebec MP, said in a media scrum Wednesday.

"He's a Canadian who went to space, he has a long and accomplished career of public service for Canada and Canadians, and I'll be eternally grateful for everything he's done for all of us."

Garneau ran for the Liberal leadership in 2013, but withdrew from the race and supported eventual winner Justin Trudeau.

Garneau's resignation would leave the House of Commons with five vacant seats. Former interim Conservative leader Candice Bergen, who represented Portage-Lisgar, Man., resigned from the House of Commons last month. The death of former cabinet minister Jim Carr last year left a vacancy in another Manitoba riding, Winnipeg South Centre. The Alberta riding of Calgary Heritage and the Ontario riding of Oxford are also up for byelections later this year.

Casella Waste Systems confirmed that it's shipping more sludge from its large landfill north of Bangor across the border and into this province.

"We have recently entered into a new contract with a disposal outlet in New Brunswick," Jeff Weld, the director of communications for Casella, told Radio-Canada in an email.

The New Brunswick government appeared unaware of the increased shipments when contacted for comment.

Environment Department spokesperson Anne Mooers said Fredericton-based Envirem Organics is the only company in the province licensed to import biosolids and has been doing so "for a number of years."

She said the company imported 13,400 tonnes from Maine and Nova Scotia in 2022. "This isn't new," Mooers said in an initial response.

The N.B. government said it has had 'strict regulatory requirements for importing biosolids for many years.' (Francois Genest/Radio-Canada)

But Casella is moving far more than that amount, according to a company letter.

It's shipping 3,600 tonnes of Maine sludge — about 130 truckloads, according to one Maine media report — to New Brunswick each month.

In a second response, Mooers said Envirem has a "cap" of 100,000 tonnes annually so it "can handle" the additional shipments from Maine.

"The government of New Brunswick takes its role to protect the environment extremely seriously," she said.

"We have had strict regulatory requirements for importing biosolids for many years. New Brunswick legislation requires all importation of waste products to be approved by the province."

'Short term' increase, company says

Envirem CEO Bob Kiely said in a text message that the company has had contracts with Casella for years and "the increase in volume … is expected to be short term."

He said the company has developed more stringent standards for what it accepts "than any other regulatory jurisdiction." 

Casella is facing a serious capacity crunch as a result of two new state laws.

A law which took effect Feb. 8 bans the use of the sludge for agricultural production in Maine. 

It's a response to concerns the sludge contains so-called "forever chemicals" known as PFAS that are considered a risk to human health.

Biosolids, or sludge, contain chemicals known as PFAS that are considered a risk to human health. Exposure to certain levels have been linked to some cancers and decreased fertility, according to a U.S. report. (Francois Genest/Radio-Canada)

Another problem is a recent state ban on importing large bulky waste that Casella could mix with the sludge to bury it. 

The two bans leave Casella with too much sludge to handle at its landfill site in Old Town, north of Bangor. The site receives sludge from about three dozen local sewer plants.

Casella was shipping sludge to Québec for agricultural use but after Radio-Canada reported on those shipments last December that province imposed a moratorium, based on the same concerns about PFAS.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says exposure to certain levels of PFAS, or perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, have been linked by peer-reviewed studies to some cancers, decreased fertility, low birth weights and other effects. 

PFAS are chemicals used to make coatings that resist heat, oil and water and can be found in adhesives, packaging and non-stick cooking surfaces among other places. They do not break down and can accumulate.

Weld said in his email that the Québec moratorium "does not have anything to do with" the shipments to New Brunswick.

"All operations are in full compliance with regulations," he said.

Kiely said he expects Casella to find other sources of large bulky waste to mix with the sludge, which will allow it to be buried and reduce the surplus at the landfill, returning export levels to normal.

Concern from N.B. agricultural group

Joel Lamarche, president of the Agricultural Alliance of New Brunswick, said he was concerned about the shipments and would discuss them with the organization's board.

In the meantime, he is warning farmers in the province to not accept any biosolid-based fertilizers that might be from Maine.

"What I would tell them is to refuse it. It's better to refuse it and have no problems than accept it and risk having a major problem," he said.

"If you don't know what's in it, don't use it."

Kiely said Envirem makes compost and its product isn't used on agricultural land. He said he's not aware of any sludge applied to farm crops in the province by Envirem or anyone else.

Memramcook-Tantramar MLA Megan Mitton said the province needs to act on the Maine shipments. (CBC News file photo)

He also said the company is "very selective" about what it receives and recently added even more stringent standards to address "new and emergent concerns."

That includes allowing only "very low" levels of PFAS, he said.

Green Party MLA Megan Mitton says the province needs to act on the Maine shipments.

"They're sending them to New Brunswick because they don't want to deal with the consequences of those products," she said. "I don't want New Brunswick to have to deal with those consequences either."

Sabaa Khan, the David Suzuki Foundation's director-general for Québec and Atlantic Canada, says New Brunswick needs stricter rules on PFAS.

"Under New Brunswick's guidelines, PFAS levels in biosolids are not integrated into the quality criteria. Québec is now looking at that situation and New Brunswick has to take the same action." 

Sabaa Khan is a environmental lawyer with the David Suzuki Foundation says New Brunswick needs stricter rules on PFAS. (Francois Genest/Radio-Canada)

New Brunswick's environmental guidelines for the use of industrial byproducts in agricultural soil bans the use of "materials derived from municipal biosolids, which have high levels of pathogens," but does not mention PFAS.

Mooer's response from the environment department Tuesday did not address PFAS either.

In a Feb. 24 letter to a municipal sanitary authority in Maine, obtained by Radio-Canada and CBC News, Casella said the new state legislation had "greatly diminished" the volume of biosolids that its landfill could handle.

That would require 4,000 U.S. tons —the equivalent of 3,600 metric tonnes — to be sent "out of Maine," leading to higher fees to municipal sewage operations, the letter said.

Khan says in Canada, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency regulates the use of biosolids on agricultural land growing food for human consumption, but its criteria do not cover PFAS. 

Provinces have the jurisdiction to regulate biosolids through environmental guidelines, she adds.

"It's incumbent on every province to ensure its biosolid regulations are up to date."

-Patrick Ellis, Casella's director of organic solutions

The province's guidelines for biosolids do not include PFAS in their criteria.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says exposure to certain levels of PFAS, or perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, have been linked by peer-reviewed studies to some cancers, decreased fertility, low birth weights and other effects. 

PFAS are chemicals used to make coatings that resist heat, oil and water and can be found in adhesives, packaging and non-stick cooking surfaces among other places. They do not break down and can accumulate.

Casella’s director of organic solutions addressed a committee at the Maine State Legislature this week. (CBC)

Ellis said he did not believe municipal biosolids were the source of the PFAS that triggered such alarm in Maine.

Chemical levels in the soil were measured in parts per million, while the amounts in municipal biosolids handled by Casella were at the low end of parts per billion.

"The math doesn't work to create PFAS levels in the soil that are that high," he said.

Not a long-term solution

Ellis told the committee that Casella urged Envirem to notify New Brunswick provincial regulators "to let them know what was coming and so far things are going pretty well."

But he said the shipments are not a long-term solution because New Brunswick could still impose a moratorium on biosolid imports for agriculture, as Quebec did last week. 

"We have tried to be optimistic that it will not," he said, but that uncertainty is why Casella continues to look for other ways to avoid a surplus of sludge at its landfill near Bangor.

"We are riding the ragged edge of not having sufficient capacity on a daily basis. And that problem came to a head here in Maine a couple of weeks ago," Ellis told members of the Maine legislature's environment and natural resources committee.

Biosolids, or sludge, seen here in an agricultural field in Quebec. U.S. company Casella Waste Systems had to truck thousands of tonnes of sludge to New Brunswick because of a surplus. (Francois Genest/Radio-Canada)

"Fortunately we were able to avert the crisis but we are by no means out of the woods." 

The Juniper Ridge landfill, owned by the state and operated by Casella, accepts sewage waste from more than 30 municipal-level sewage authorities.

Those local entities are now facing higher fees because of the additional cost of trucking the sludge to New Brunswick.

Envirem said this week none of its products are applied to agricultural lands.

Provincial government spokesperson Anne Mooers said the environment department was notified on Feb. 27 that Envirem would be receiving additional shipments.

"However, it will remain below the volumes it committed to in its environmental impact assessment registration," she said.

A Casella letter to municipal sewage authorities said the company had to move 3,600 tonnes out of the landfill each month. At this week's committee hearing, the company said it needed to find capacity for 2,300 tonnes a month.

Mooers said Envirem has a cap on imports of 100,000 tonnes annually so the Casella shipments fell below that threshold. 

     A Casella letter to municipal sewage authorities said the company had to move 3,600 tonnes out of the landfill each month. At this week’s committee hearing, the company said it needed to find capacity for 2,300 tonnes a month. (Francois Genest/Radio Canada)

Ellis questioned the logic of the Maine ban on agricultural use of sludge, pointing out PFAS are present in materials other than municipal biosolids that are not banned in the state.

He argued PFAS levels in Casella's sludge are not high enough to be a health concern.

"What we have observed is that the activities that we are a part of, with the materials that we manage today, do not negatively impact drinking water sources," he said.

"Science will tell us that the quantity in our materials is going down, and that when used appropriately, they will not negatively impact drinking water sources." 

Sarah Nichols of the Natural Resources Council of Maine said Ellis's claims amount to "misinformation."

"We were aghast by their comments," said Nichols, who attended Wednesday's committee session at the legislature.

She said the presence of PFAS in drinking water is a completely separate issue from the soil contamination that prompted the ban.

Several members of the committee also pushed back at Casella. 

The ban "was necessary legislation," said Republican representative Mike Soboleski. "We can't knock it. We had to have it. We couldn't keep putting that stuff on the ground." 

Maine’s environmental protection commissioner Melanie Loyzim told the committee the state government is also trying to find new sources of oversized bulk waste for the landfill that would allow Casella to keep more sludge at that site. (Maine government website)

A second Maine law adopted last year bans the import into the state of so-called oversized bulk waste — large, solid debris that, when mixed with sludge, would allow it to remain at the Juniper Ridge landfill without risk of leaks or runoff.

Ellis said Casella warned the state last year that the bill "was going to have clear impacts, likely dramatic impacts, on our ability to manage biosolids that we are contractually obligated to manage." 

He said the company is looking at other options including shipping biosolids by rail to a facility in western Pennsylvania. 

The shipments to New Brunswick bought it some time to explore those alternatives, he said.

Maine's environmental protection commissioner Melanie Loyzim told the committee the state government is also trying to find new sources of oversized bulk waste for the landfill that would allow Casella to keep more sludge at that site.

Her office is also hoping to develop a plan "very quickly" for a new landfill for sludge but said she wouldn't be able to present it to the committee until January 2024.

The state is also examining programs to reduce PFAS getting into waste in the first place.

"The more of the PFAS coming into our waste stream that we can have not enter the waste, the less and less concern we would need to have about the constituents in our sludge."

Nichols, who campaigned for the ban on oversized bulk waste imports to Maine, said a solution needs to be found within the state.

"We do not want our waste shipped to other areas at all," she said. "We do not want to see it going to New Brunswick."

After 15 years of buying up Canadian pulp, paper and lumber mills, Paper Excellence is now the largest producer of paper pulp in the country, with about 20 per cent of all mill capacity — 50 per cent bigger than its closest rival, Canfor, according to data from pulp-market analysts TTOBMA.

But for such a major player, Paper Excellence is remarkably quiet about the inner workings of its business.

Who exactly runs the company? Who is Jackson Wijaya, the elusive founder and CEO? How did it come into the billions of dollars to fund its acquisitions, and what does it plan to do with nearly 22 million hectares of Canadian forest it now manages — an area four times the size of Nova Scotia?

The answers are hugely important for one of Canada's most iconic natural resources, its immense tracts of forest.

For Paper Excellence, the story is straightforward.

"Jackson Wijaya established Paper Excellence … with a dream to build a strong business in the pulp and paper industry in the Americas and Europe," the company said in a statement to CBC and five other media outlets last week. "His goal has been, and is, to create and develop a healthy and sustainable business."

But a months-long investigation by CBC News, in collaboration with Canadian and international media partners as part of a wider look at the global forestry industry by 40 media outlets under the umbrella of the Washington-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, has found that the reality and the rhetoric often don't align.

The people behind or associated with Paper Excellence appear to have a pattern of using thickets of corporations, including in tax havens, effectively shielding transactions and assets from public and government scrutiny.

The company won't open up about its past financing, some of which was facilitated by the China Development Bank, which is owned by the Chinese government.

CBC's investigation also found leaked records and insider accounts that show that Paper Excellence, at least until a few years ago, appears to have been closely — and secretly — co-ordinating business and strategy decisions with Asia Pulp & Paper, one of the world's biggest pulp-and-paper players, which has a track record of environmental destruction.

"It's not normal for a company that has such a huge impact on such a vast area of forests, which goes to the heart of Canadian identity in so many ways … that a company with such impact wouldn't have transparency," said Shane Moffatt, head of the nature and food campaign with Greenpeace Canada.

Deforestation concerns

Ask Greenpeace or any of a dozen environmental groups why they're concerned about Paper Excellence, and they link it immediately to a conglomerate called Sinar Mas. Owned and run by a billionaire Indonesian family of Chinese origin — the Wijayas — the family has interests in palm oil, real estate, financial services and a controlling stake in Asia Pulp & Paper (APP).

Sinar Mas and its subsidiaries have been the target of environmental advocacy groups for years. There have been reports of tropical rainforest clearing, peatland destruction and "extensive ties" to companies linked to fires and deforestation in Indonesia.

In 2007, APP lost its sustainability certification from the Forest Stewardship Council "because of substantial, publicly available information that APP was involved in destructive forestry practices," the FSC said. It has never regained it.

Stacks of timber are shown during an aerial tour of the Sumatran Forest with Greenpeace and South Sumatra Gov. Alex Noerdin in this 2010 file photo. The land is owned by PT.Rimba Hutani Mas, part of the Sinar Mas Group that owns Asia Pulp & Paper Co. (Ulet Ifansasti/Getty Images)

And that's where it gets tricky. Paper Excellence's official founder and CEO, Jackson Wijaya, is the grandson of the tycoon who created Sinar Mas in the 1960s. Over his life, Wijaya has held numerous positions with Sinar Mas, including as a director of an APP China holding company and of offshore corporations set up in the tax haven of Barbados. 

In return, he's benefited from his family's wealth and financial connections.

The first Canadian mill acquired, in Meadow Lake, Sask., in 2007, operated under the Sinar Mas banner for several years; the mill's website said it had been purchased by an Indonesia-based company. In 2008, Paper Excellence was incorporated in the Netherlands. The next year, it was still a fledgling company, yet it received a $17-million US loan at near-zero interest from family-owned Bank International Ningbo.

Now, 16 years later, Paper Excellence insists there are no ties between the two sides. 

"Paper Excellence is owned solely by Jackson Wijaya and is completely independent from Asia Pulp & Paper," it said in a statement to CBC and its media partners last week. "Nobody other than Jackson has ever been or is the ultimate owner or controller of any of the companies in Paper Excellence."

Jackson Wijaya, right, is seen with Brazilian politician Eduardo Bolsonaro in this image sent out via Twitter on July 30, 2019. (BolsonaroSP/Twitter)

That air of independence is important to its business. Most of Paper Excellence's operations have some kind of FSC certification, which enables a pulp-and-paper company to command higher prices for its output and attract environmentally conscious brands as clients. But if it were shown to be a branch of the disqualified APP, Paper Excellence could put its certification at risk.

The company's claims of independence are also impossible to verify. Paper Excellence is a private corporation, and despite saying it's Canadian-based, its ownership chain actually traces through companies set up in the Netherlands, Malaysia, the Malaysian offshore jurisdiction of Labuan and two shell companies in the British Virgin Islands.

CBC and its media partners — including Glacier Media in B.C., the Halifax Examiner, Radio France and the French newspaper Le Monde — twice asked Paper Excellence to provide some kind of proof of who really owns it. The company did not.

Leaked records show close collaboration 

Behind the scenes, though, there is evidence that Paper Excellence and Asia Pulp & Paper have worked cheek-by-jowl on everything from regulatory submissions to supply and pricing, at least until a few years ago.

Emails and internal company documents first obtained by the Halifax Examiner show there was close co-operation between APP staff in China and Paper Excellence personnel. The emails span a relatively short time in the late 2010s and are not necessarily indicative of Paper Excellence's or APP's practices today.

In 2017, for instance, Paper Excellence's Vancouver-based sales executive Edwin Widjaja emailed a vice-president at APP in China, asking for info on how much he should charge a potential client for a kind of wood pulp known as unbleached kraft, or UKP.

The reply came quickly, in the form of a directive. "Right now, don't sell any UKP to non-sister mills," the APP executive wrote. "Keep them in your warehouse first while we decide in a couple of days on what to do.… As for 2018, please don't commit to any long-term contracts till we get our UKP study done." 

The next year, a sales executive for Paper Excellence's two mills in France had an email exchange with the same APP vice-president in China, also about unbleached kraft. The VP asked for a monthly breakdown of how much one of the French mills was going to produce, and "then we can plan ahead of time how to introduce this new pulp to our customers."

The exchanges blur the line between corporate entities that are supposedly independent — a red flag, according to Ottawa-based competition expert Keldon Bester.

"That kind of language is red meat for antitrust enforcers," he said. "What are you really not supposed to talk to your competitors about? Pricing, quantity and distribution."

Cedar planks are stacked at a lumber yard in Montreal in this 2017 file photo. On March 1, Paper Excellence closed its latest acquisition: The $2.7-billion US purchase of Quebec-based Resolute Forest Products. (Paul Chiasson/The Canadian Press)

The leaked records were provided to the Halifax Examiner, and later to CBC, by a source who said that Paper Excellence's real nerve centre wasn't in Richmond, B.C., but in Shanghai, in the same offices as APP. The source said that, in fact, Paper Excellence's entire back office at the time — the teams handling legal, accounting, finance and market analysis — was run by APP and there were no boundaries between staff working for one or the other company. 

"APP staff is PE staff. There is no difference there," the source said. 

CBC agreed to protect the source's identity out of concerns for their safety.

The source said, for example, that the sales manager for Paper Excellence's subsidiary in France attended strategy meetings at APP's Shanghai offices, with other APP teams from Asia and Europe. 

"It's extremely nebulous. You never know who's working for who," another former executive at that French subsidiary told CBC's reporting partner Le Monde, on condition of confidentiality because he still works in the industry. 

"I had a direct relationship with the owners of APP. My boss at the time was based in China and our monthly videoconference meetings were held with Teguh Wijaya"— that is, Jackson Wijaya's father and the chairman of APP. 

Teguh Ganda Wijaya, chairman of Asia Pulp & Paper, speaks during a ceremony in Jakarta in this 2013 file photo. Paper Excellence is owned by Wijaya's son, Jackson. (Adek Berry/AFP via Getty Images)

But an employee who worked for APP for nearly a decade said that didn't reflect his experience, which was that APP and Paper Excellence were "pretty well siloed."

However, records show APP employees seem to have handled important Paper Excellence business outright. APP's outside lawyers and in-house legal department stickhandled submissions to Chinese antitrust authorities when Paper Excellence wanted to buy the Eldorado pulp mill in south central Brazil; ironically, the drafts even went so far as to list APP as a Paper Excellence competitor.

Paper Excellence did not respond to our inquiries about the above allegations. 

APP said any suggestion its staff have worked on behalf of or alongside Paper Excellence is wrong. "APP has not shared confidential information with Paper Excellence. Nor have its employees engaged in any work with Paper Excellence," the company said in response to questions from CBC and its media partners.

Paper Excellence continued its buying spree and swallowed B.C.-based Catalyst Paper in 2019 for an undisclosed price. That was followed by the purchase of the Quebec-American company Domtar in 2021 for $3 billion US. The most recent acquisition is the $2.7-billion US purchase of Quebec-based Resolute Forest Products, completed on March 1. Canada's Competition Bureau for the most part granted its blessing. 

Bester said the Competition Bureau's process doesn't provide much opportunity for the public to know what a company did — or didn't — disclose. 

"If the bureau has been misled or things have been omitted that are relevant to the competition analysis, the bureau would be extremely interested in that. So we can't say for sure because we don't know what they were and were not provided with."

Mystery of money from China

It takes billions of dollars to build a new, world-class pulp mill. Paper Excellence's expansion in Canada deliberately took a different tack. Its earliest acquisitions — initially under the Sinar Mas banner, and later in its own name — were older, often shuttered or insolvent mills in B.C. and Saskatchewan. 

But then there were costs for upgrades and repairs. Employees had to be hired. And the company's ambitions grew. 

By 2012, Paper Excellence sought big financing. And it came in the form of credit — $1.25 billion US worth — through a Chinese government-owned bank.

CBC's investigation has revealed that the China Development Bank had mortgages with a debenture for that amount on three Canadian pulp mills owned by Paper Excellence starting in August 2012 as part of the security for financing that was repayable on demand.

Paper Excellence would not answer questions about how much of that credit it drew on, nor why it sought financing through a Chinese government-owned bank. 

The flags for the China Development Bank are flown outside a subsidiary branch office of the bank in Beijing on Jan. 8, 2021. (Ng Han Guan/The Associated Press)

The loan was typical of many of the bank's investments at the time, said Rebecca Ray, a senior academic researcher at Boston University's Global Development Policy Center who studies development finance, including the China Development Bank.

"The kind of very large-scale financing that you were talking about in 2012 for raw commodity production, that comes as no surprise to me in that that's exactly the same kind of financing in those years that we see to major commodity producers around the world … as China is establishing the supply chains that it needs to support its new cities."

The discharge of the loan also corresponds to a time frame when the China Development Bank was pulling back from large loans to natural resource companies in favour of the government's new policy of smaller, more strategic lending, she said.

The mortgages on the Meadow Lake, Mackenzie and Howe Sound mills were discharged over the course of 2020 and replaced with loans from two Indonesian government-owned banks, Bank Mandiri and Bank Negara Indonesia, who now hold those amounts also repayable on demand.

The financing to Paper Excellence is the only time the China Development Bank or the Indonesian banks have registered any mortgages in British Columbia, the province's land records show.

The company didn't directly answer why it chose to finance in this way. "Paper Excellence constantly reviews market conditions and market circumstances in determining its financing strategies/options," the company said last week.

"To see that one of the biggest forestry players on Crown land in eastern Canada is an Indonesian giant, formerly financed by China, is not reassuring to us. We do not want to plunder our forests here in Quebec," said Daniel Cloutier, executive director of the Unifor local that represents unionized workers at Resolute and Domtar.

The Domtar paper mill in Espanola, Ont. Paper Excellence purchased the Quebec-American company Domtar in 2021 for $3 billion US. (Erik White/CBC )

Lumber and forestry have long been of interest to China, and the China Development Bank often plays a key role in advancing the country's goals, says Margaret McCuaig-Johnston, a former top official in the federal government's Industry and Natural Resources departments, and an expert on China.

"It's often one of the first organizations in the door when China wants to enter a market and acquire resources in another country," McCuaig-Johnston said. 

"So, in the form of a loan, that doesn't seem too difficult or too threatening to a government. But very often, that will then morph into other arrangements. And so it's where you actually get control by a Chinese company or Chinese interests that you really run into problems."

McCuaig-Johnston said companies owned by foreign interests with Chinese partners could decide to export its production to China and Indonesia.

"The reason Canadians should care is that we have seen in China's behaviour in other resource companies that they will often export all of the product to China for China's own use," she said. "Canada needs its own products from its own natural resources and we need to be assured that we will have access to that."

That's a sentiment echoed by Cloutier. 

"China has a voracious appetite for kraft pulp and in Quebec we're barely self-sufficient. What are they up to? Is their goal to get their supply from us? What impact is this going to have on our own needs?"

Elizabeth Thompson can be reached at elizabeth.thompson@cbc.ca. Zach Dubinsky can be reached at zach.dubinsky@cbc.ca.

- Jennifer Skene, with the Natural Resources Defense Council

"While well intentioned, the New York bill was misguided in falsely equating Canada's rigorous forest management laws with jurisdictions where there is much less scrutiny over forest operations. During the last 30 years, 90 per cent of global deforestation occurred in the tropics, so it makes sense that procurement policies aimed at preventing deforestation would focus on tropical forests."

The FPAC also wrote that the changes made in the bills reflected concerns raised by both Canadian and U.S. businesses.

Suing the province

On Sept. 30, 2022, Chapleau Cree, Missanabie Cree and Brunswick House First Nations launched legal action against the province of Ontario to stop degradation of the boreal forest in their traditional territories within Treaty 9, and to protect their way of life, livelihoods and well-being. 

The lawsuit claims that the "cumulative impacts from a range of provincially authorized uses including forestry, mining, agriculture, energy, transportation and settlement in their traditional territories has had significant adverse impacts on the health of the boreal as well as on their treaty and aboriginal rights." 

Chief Corston was raised in the middle of the boreal — a green ribbon of jack pine, black and white spruce, balsam fir, white birch, trembling aspen, balsam and poplar — that covers two-thirds of Ontario.

Chief Keith Corston, of Chapleau Cree First Nation, says Canada's boreal is at a tipping point, and if steps aren’t taken, there will be no boreal forest left within 30 years. (CBC)

He says logging companies clear cut up to 10,000 hectares, and then replant with only the species the industry wants, like jack pine and spruce. The land is then sprayed with glyphosate herbicide, to prevent leafy trees from growing.

He says this is converting the boreal into fibre farms. "They don't want a sustainable forest, they don't want the boreal as much as they say they do. They want a tree farm."

Corston says clear cutting and spraying creates a monoculture. 

"There's no more grey jays, whiskey jacks. You'll hear nothing. Soundless. Not a bird. You might hear the odd raven. You know, that's it. You go into a natural forest here — chirp, chirp, chirp. There's all kinds of noise, but that part is dead."

Corston says fur-bearing animals like fisher and marten are suffering and the moose population has declined by 50 per cent in the last decade. He says the logging industry wants to get rid of all the leafy trees, like poplar, that moose rely on as a food source.

"It is incidental to [the forestry industry]. I have a problem with that. It's not incidental. You must remember that the boreal forest is made up of many species. That's why it's a boreal forest and everything relies on the other."

Corston also says the industry only thinks about short-term gain.

"We're trying to think seven generations ahead. I think about my kids, my grandkids. If we don't do something about this, there will be nothing. Our way of life will be gone."

The Department of Finance referred questions about the change to Service New Brunswick, but Service New Brunswick said it cannot comment on what happened.

"We are unable to discuss individual accounts," Jennifer Vienneau, Service New Brunswick's director of communications, wrote in an email about the terminal's new tax status.

Vienneau said information about a change in the oil terminal's tax treatment would have to come from the "property owner." 

Irving Oil, however, did not respond to a request for information.

The revoked tax exemption is related to Canaport, a large crude-oil tank farm owned by Irving Oil on Mispec Point, at the edge of the Bay of Fundy.  

Arthur Irving was the 51-year-old head of Irving Oil when the company won a property tax exemption on its crude-oil tank farm in 1981 to help with a temporary crisis. He'll be 93 this year and the exemption is still on the province's books. (CBC)

The facility has a storage capacity of six million barrels and supplies Irving Oil's Saint John refinery from shipments it receives from ocean-going tankers that arrive from around the world multiple times every month. 

The tank farm and related infrastructure cover 430 hectares of land and sea floor in the east end of the city and is assessed for taxes by Service New Brunswick to be worth $30.2 million. 

It has always had to pay full municipal property taxes to Saint John, but since 1981 it has been one of a handful of New Brunswick business properties exempt from paying any provincial property tax. 

Response to oil crisis

The concession was granted by the former government of Richard Hatfield to help Irving Oil weather the 1979 oil crisis that saw crude prices spike and North American demand for petroleum products crater in response.

The oil crisis eventually passed and consumer demand returned, but the New Brunswick tax concession has continued on decades later.

In its most recent annual tax expenditure report, New Brunswick's Department of Finance valued the exemption in 2021 to be worth $674,929. Over 42 years it has saved Irving Oil more than $20 million in property tax on the location.

The "objective" of the exemption, according to the Department of Finance, is "to support the competitiveness of infrastructure that is important to economic development."

   As opposition leader in 2016, Blaine Higgs said he supported reviewing the provincial property tax exemption granted to Irving Oil's Canaport crude-oil tank farm and cancelling it if it had outlived its usefulness. (CBC)

But according to updated New Brunswick property records, the crude-oil tank farm has been switched from its longtime status as "provincial rate excluded" to "fully taxable" for 2023.

Although declining to comment on what caused the change, Vienneau did confirm that the exemption has not been cancelled by the province.

"There have been no changes," she said, about whether the exemption has been removed from legislation or altered in some way.

That means the tax change has been caused by another issue. Potentially, that could be the sale of unrefined crude by Irving Oil.

According to the exact wording of the tax exemption statute in the Assessment Act, it requires all of the oil arriving at the Canaport tank farm to be sent to the refinery for processing to qualify for tax-free treatment.

"Provincial taxes or rates shall not be … levied on crude oil storage tanks connected with an oil refinery … when such crude oil storage tanks … are used solely for supplying crude oil to the oil refinery for the sole purpose of manufacturing or producing petroleum products," the statute reads.

Irving Oil does not solely use crude oil to process at the refinery.

On its website, the company advertises that in addition to refined products, it also sells and ships unprocessed crude oil to large-volume customers who place orders of "50,000 barrels" or more.

"Talk with one of our expert advisors about crude oil for your business," says the company's website. 

It is not certain if reselling crude oil, rather than processing it, would be enough to cancel the property tax exemption.  Neither the company nor the province will say.

Green Party Leader David Coon campaigned on ending Irving Oil's crude-oil tank farm property tax exemption in the 2018 election. He says with the exemption suspended for 2023, the province should take the opportunity to kill it for good. (Sarah Morin/CBC)

In addition, selling unprocessed crude oil does not appear to be a new business venture for Irving Oil and if it cancelled the tax exemption for 2023, it is not clear how it would have survived in earlier years.

The tax exemption has been politically controversial for several years.

In 2016, then-opposition leader Blaine Higgs said the exemption should be reviewed and potentially cancelled, since the crisis it was created to help Irving Oil survive resolved itself in the 1980s.

"A lot of policies in government … start for a good reason, but they never end," Higgs said. 

"There's no exit clause, so it just doesn't hit the radar again."

In 2018, the New Brunswick Green Party put the cancellation of the property tax exemption on crude-oil storage tanks into its election platform.

In an interview, Green Leader David Coon said whatever caused the suspension in this year should be made permanent by removing the exemption from legislation. 

"It never should have been granted in the first place, Coon said.

"The timing couldn't be better to rip the Band-Aid off."

Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos is telling the provinces to put a stop to patients being charged for medically necessary care — and warns that Ottawa will claw back federal health transfer payments if the charges continue.

"I am very concerned with the recent increase in reports of patient charges for medically necessary services," Duclos says in a letter sent Thursday to all provincial and territorial health ministers. Federal officials provided CBC News with a copy.

"No matter where in the country Canadians live or how they receive medically necessary care, they must be able to access these services without having to pay out of pocket."

• Have you paid for a virtual appointment with a doctor? Let us know about your experience in an email to ask@cbc.ca. 

Companies charging patients for virtual visits with a family physician are the chief targets of the federal crackdown, according to a senior government official.

Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos is telling the provinces to put a stop to patients being charged for medically necessary care and warns that Ottawa will claw back federal health transfer payments if the charges continue. (Tony Davis/CBC)

Although the Canada Health Act prohibits charging "insured persons" for medically necessary services, there has been an explosion recently in the number of companies across the country offering online doctors' appointments and charging fees in the range of $50 to $100 per visit.

Companies that charge a fee get around the Canada Health Act prohibition by connecting the patient to a physician in a different province. Under the medicare rules in the province where the doctor practises, the patient technically would not qualify as an "insured person."

Some critics have called this a loophole in the Canada Health Act.

In his letter, Duclos says expanded access to health care using virtual platforms must remain "true to the spirit and intent of the Canada Health Act."

Duclos says he will give provinces and territories a document clarifying that charges for medically necessary services are not allowed, regardless of where the patient lives.

"The complexities of modern family health, virtual and surgical care, including its provision across jurisdictions, and expanding scopes of practice of health workers, should not be used to permit these charges," the letter says.

   Dr. Pascal-André Vendittoli looks at images of a patient's knee replacement surgery. He is medical director of the Duval Clinic, a private facility in Laval, Que., specializing in joint replacements for fee-paying patients. (Louis-Marie Philidor/CBC)

"As our health care system evolves, it must do so while respecting the Canada Health Act." 

One of the biggest players charging for virtual physician care is Maple, which describes itself as "Canada's top-rated virtual care app" and charges $69 or more for an appointment.

"We charge a fee for our services only when they are not covered by provincial health plans," says the company's website.

"We'd love to be eligible for public coverage consistently across Canada and we're working hard to ensure Maple is included in provincial coverage as soon as legislation allows."

It's not clear from Duclos' letter whether the Trudeau government will also crack down on other examples of doctors charging for medically necessary care, recently revealed by CBC News:

• Some for-profit surgical clinics are charging patients who travel from another province up to $28,000 for a hip or knee replacement.
• Doctor's offices in Ontario are offering virtual and in-person appointments with a nurse practitioner for a subscription of about $30 a month.

Nurse practitioner Olivia Kavanagh sees a three-year-old patient at Kindercare Pediatrics in Toronto. The clinic is offering patients the option of rapid access to appointments with a nurse practitioner, for a monthly fee. (Craig Chivers/CBC)

Duclos' move comes at a time of growing debate over the role of the private sector in the delivery of publicly funded health care in Canada, particularly as provinces struggle with surgical backlogs and staff shortages stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic.

In Parliament in recent weeks, the New Democrats have repeatedly argued that the Trudeau government is allowing increasing privatization of the health system and that for-profit companies are playing a growing role in providing care. 

The federal government struck a deal with the provinces and territories last month for a 10-year boost to its annual Canada Health Transfer funding arrangement.

Duclos' letter warns that those transfers could be reduced if patients are charged fees for medical care. 

"Canadians pay for their health care services through their tax dollars, and should not be asked to pay again by way of patient charges when they need to access those services," Duclos writes. 

"Where instances of patient charges for these services are present, I will pursue a reduction in federal health transfers by an equivalent amount."

Maple is one of the biggest players in the sector, selling virtual visits with Canadian physicians starting from $69 per appointment. (Carolyn Ryan/CBC)

Different provinces have different approaches to coverage of virtual medical appointments, and some of the rules have been shifting as the COVID-19 pandemic has waned.

• How do you feel about doctors charging for virtual health care? We want to hear from you. Send an email to ask@cbc.ca.

For instance, as of last December the Ontario Health Insurance Plan (OHIP) covers the cost of virtual or phone consultations only when the patient has an ongoing relationship with a doctor. "Virtual walk-in clinic" visits — with a doctor the patient has not seen face-to-face — are not covered.

That switch hampered the business model of another company offering virtual appointments — Rocket Doctor, which now charges $55 for a doctor visit.

"Virtual primary care and urgent care services are unfortunately no longer a service that patients can access for free on Rocket Doctor," says the company's website, which urges patients to sign a petition calling for that policy to be reversed.

"There should be no fees for medically necessary health-care services, wherever people may live in this country," Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos said at a news conference Friday in Ottawa.

A total of $1,277,659 will be taken back based on a federal estimate of how much New Brunswickers paid for diagnostic imaging such as MRI and CT scans in 2020-21.

A further $64,850 is being clawed back because of abortion access in the province.

The $1,342,509 total represents a sliver of the $1 billion Canada Health Transfer payment from the federal government to New Brunswick for 2023-24.

It represents an even smaller portion of the $3.2 billion the province planned to spend on health in the current fiscal year.

Overall, the federal government is clawing back $82.5 million from provinces across the country. Half of that is from Quebec. 

The Canada Health Act prohibits charging "insured persons" for medically necessary services.

The minister said the deductions could be refunded if provinces change their approach so people don't pay fees for medically necessary care. Duclos pointed to British Columbia, which has seen its deductions reduced after making changes. 

The deduction for abortion relates to the lack of abortion services outside hospitals in New Brunswick.

The New Brunswick government has refused to cover the cost of abortions provided at Clinic 554 in Fredericton. (Jon Collicott/CBC)

Abortions up to 13 weeks of pregnancy are covered by Medicare at two hospitals in Moncton and one in Bathurst.

However, it has refused to fund the procedure at the private Clinic 554 in Fredericton. The province has said the hospital services are sufficient to meet demand.

A federally commissioned study on the issue is expected to be completed in June. 

The province said in a statement Friday that it is aware of the federal decision and is assessing its implications.

Regulators rushed Friday to seize the assets of one of Silicon Valley's top banks, marking the largest failure of a U.S. financial institution since the height of the financial crisis almost 15 years ago.

Silicon Valley Bank, the 16th-largest bank in the U.S., failed after depositors hurried to withdraw money this week amid anxiety over the bank's health. It was the second biggest bank failure in U.S. history after the collapse of Washington Mutual in 2008.

The bank served mostly technology workers and venture capital-backed companies, including some of the industry's best-known brands.

"This is an extinction-level event for startups," said Garry Tan, CEO of Y Combinator, a startup incubator that launched Airbnb, DoorDash and Dropbox and has referred hundreds of entrepreneurs to the bank.

"I literally have been hearing from hundreds of our founders asking for help on how they can get through this. They are asking, 'Do I have to furlough my workers?'"

Little chance of chaos spreading

There appeared to be little chance of the chaos spreading in the broader banking sector, as it did in the months leading up to the Great Recession. The biggest banks — those most likely to cause an economic meltdown — have healthy balance sheets and plenty of capital.

Nearly half of the U.S. technology and health-care companies that went public last year after getting early funding from venture capital firms were Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) customers, according to the bank's website.

The bank also boasted of its connections to leading tech companies such as Shopify, ZipRecruiter and one of the top venture capital firms, Andreesson Horowitz.

Tan estimated that nearly one-third of Y Combinator's startups will not be able to make payroll at some point in the next month if they cannot access their money.

Internet TV provider Roku was among casualties of the bank's collapse. It said in a regulatory filing Friday that about 26 per cent of its cash — $487 million US — was deposited at Silicon Valley Bank. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Internet TV provider Roku was among casualties of the bank collapse. It said in a regulatory filing Friday that about 26 per cent of its cash — $487 million US — was deposited at Silicon Valley Bank.

Roku said its deposits with SVB were largely uninsured and it didn't know "to what extent" it would be able to recover them.

As part of the seizure, California bank regulators and the FDIC transferred the bank's assets to a newly created institution — the Deposit Insurance Bank of Santa Clara. The new bank will start paying out insured deposits on Monday. Then the FDIC and California regulators plan to sell off the rest of the assets to make other depositors whole.

Failure unfolded rapidly

There was unease in the banking sector all week, with shares tumbling by double digits. Then news of Silicon Valley Bank's distress pushed shares of almost all financial institutions even lower Friday

The failure arrived with incredible speed. Some industry analysts suggested Friday that the bank was still a good company and a wise investment. Meanwhile, Silicon Valley Bank executives were trying to raise capital and find additional investors. However, trading in the bank's shares was halted before stock market's opening bell due to extreme volatility.

   An employee checks his phone after arriving to work on Friday to SVB's shuttered headquarters. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Shortly before noon, the FDIC moved to shutter the bank. Notably, the agency did not wait until the close of business, which is the typical approach. The FDIC could not immediately find a buyer for the bank's assets, signaling how fast depositors cashed out.

The White House said U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen was "watching closely." The administration sought to reassure the public that the banking system is much healthier than during the Great Recession.

"Our banking system is in a fundamentally different place than it was, you know, a decade ago," said Cecilia Rouse, chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers.

"The reforms that were put in place back then really provide the kind of resilience that we'd like to see."

People try to access the Park Avenue location of SVB, in New York City, on Friday. (David 'Dee' Delgado/Reuters)

In 2007, the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression rippled across the globe after mortgage-backed securities tied to ill-advised housing loans collapsed in value. The panic on Wall Street led to the demise of Lehman Brothers, a firm founded in 1847.

Because major banks had extensive exposure to one another, the crisis led to a cascading breakdown in the global financial system, putting millions out of work.

At the time of its failure, Silicon Valley Bank, which is based in Santa Clara, Calif., had $209 billion US in total assets, the FDIC said.

It was unclear how many of its deposits were above the $250,000 insurance limit, but previous regulatory reports showed that lots of accounts exceeded that amount.

Anaergia Inc. will begin supplying the refinery with renewable natural gas, or RNG, from Rhode Island this coming summer. 

The company says the gas is carbon-negative because it's created from organic landfill waste — mainly food scraps —  that would otherwise release methane, a greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change. 

That means it will help reduce the refinery's carbon intensity, a measure of how clean the energy is that powers its operations.

Yaniv Scherson, Anaergia’s chief operating officer, said another advantage of renewable natural gas is that, except for the source, it is identical to the extracted natural gas Irving already uses at the refinery. (Submitted by Anaergia)

And that in turn contributes to Irving Oil's compliance with federal clean-fuel regulations and New Brunswick's output-based pricing system on carbon.

"The cost for this fuel on a carbon basis goes down significantly if the carbon intensity is low," Yaniv Scherson, Anaergia's chief operating officer, said in an interview.

"On a carbon basis, the fuel that we are producing from organic waste, because it has a negative carbon intensity, has a lower carbon cost to Irving Oil, to our customer." 

New Brunswick Green Party Leader David Coon said renewable natural gas is a credible technology, and Irving's decision to use it validates federal climate policies.

"It shows the power of environmental regulation because why they're doing this, to me, is the clean fuel standard that the federal government brought in. It's causing them to source much greener energy for their operations, which is fantastic."

Scherson said if a future federal government repealed existing climate policies, it would jeopardize the future growth of carbon-negative fuel sources, complicating efforts to reduce emissions.

"Decarbonization and renewable energy in general won't happen without policies in place," he said.

"Every major renewable wave or decarbonization effort starts with an objective or requirement to get there.

"Then over time, the marketplace reacts and there's greater volume, better pricing, and over time, the cost of decarbonization and sustainability decreases."

New Brunswick Green Party Leader David Coon said renewable natural gas is a credible technology. (Jacques Poitras/CBC)

The federal Conservative opposition has attacked the Trudeau government's carbon pricing and clean fuel regulations.

But Scherson said with "a really dangerous exponential rise" in emissions, such policies are essential to make non-emitting energy more cost-competitive more quickly.

"If we wait for the industry to act on its own, we see the detrimental effects of what's happening globally," he said. 

Irving Oil's rare public comments on federal climate policies, including carbon pricing, have included warnings that stringent rules might hurt the company's competitiveness.

But in 2021, the company said in a "report on sustainability" that it had "identified a series of potential projects for exploration focused on decarbonizing current assets."

Irving did not respond to an interview request, but in a news release, Irving Oil president Ian Whitcomb said the company was "proud to continue advancing on our energy transition journey," which include a goal of reducing emissions by 30 per cent by 2030.

The Anaergia deal could also yield benefits for Irving Oil under the New Brunswick government's output-based pricing system for large industry.

It requires major emitters to reduce their carbon intensity by two per cent each year until 2030. Companies can earn tradable carbon credits for reductions above that percentage.

Scherson said another advantage of renewable natural gas is that, except for the source, it is identical to the extracted natural gas Irving already uses at the refinery.

"It's the exact same molecule," he said, a "plug-and-play replacement" that avoids the need for costly new distribution systems and infrastructure that can take years to build.

Anaergia will capture biomethane from solid waste at a facility in Rhode Island and ship about 350 million cubic feet of it per year via pipeline to Saint John.

Capturing the gas will prevent the release of more than 40,000 metric tonnes per year of carbon dioxide-equivalent greenhouse gas emissions, the equivalent of taking 9,500 cars off the road, according to the company.

"When we sell the fuel to Irving, we sell all of the environmental attributes along with the fuel," said Alex MacFarlane, Anaergia's director of project development.

Province not seizing opportunities, says Green leader

Michelle Robichaud, president of the Atlantica Centre for Energy, an industry-supported think-tank, said renewable natural gas could replace about 1.3 per cent of the energy consumed in Canada now.

"It's a small role but definitely an important one," she said. "We are reducing the emissions that are going into the atmosphere by using RNG.

"I think we'll see more and more of it." 

Coon said his only complaint about RNG is that the current provincial government hasn't been willing to support the development of a local sector.

He said Laforge Bioenvironmental's commercial biogas production plant in the northwestern New Brunswick community of Saint-André could be supplying more RNG to the provincial market if better incentives were in place. 

There are "all kinds of possible opportunities," Coon said, "but the province is not seizing on it."

Former New Brunswick premier Frank McKenna, a longtime booster of Irving Oil's energy projects, sits on Anaergia's board of directors but Scherson said he played no role in the deal.

"He really was not involved at all," he said. "It is coincidental."

Officials from the two companies met at a biogas conference in Toronto last spring and began talking about a possible deal, MacFarlane said.

New Brunswick has accepted 57 asylum seekers who originally made their claim at the Roxham Road border crossing in Quebec.

In February, Quebec Premier François Legault sent a letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, asking that migrants applying for asylum at the Roxham Road border crossing be redirected to other provinces. He said Quebec can't handle any more.

Roxham Road crosses the Canada-U.S. border between Quebec and New York and is located about 50 kilometres south of Montreal. It's long been an unofficial border crossing for asylum seekers looking to get into Canada.

Last year, about 39,000 people applied for asylum at the border, Legault said. It's not clear how many of them stayed in Quebec.

In a Friday statement, Arlene Dunn, the Minister responsible for Opportunities N.B., said the province "has welcomed 57 asylum claimants" from Quebec. She said 36 are in Fredericton and 21 in Moncton.

She said they arrived by bus through the process set in place by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada.

"New Brunswick is ready to do its part to respond to the influx of asylum seekers crossing from the United States to Quebec," she said.

New Brunswick officials are still working to confirm the number of claimants that "our province will be welcoming in the short-term," she said.

Dunn said the federal government is providing support to those arriving in New Brunswick, but did not respond to questions about what kind of resources are available.

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Minister Sean Fraser says the government is working on making free legal aid accessible to asylum seekers who are being moved from Quebec to Atlantic Canada. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press)

At a news conference alongside federal Immigration Minister Sean Fraser, Dunn said all 57 have completed a skills questionnaire.

"We were there with the multicultural associations on the ground, speaking with them, understanding their circumstances, understanding where they were coming from, getting a better understanding of their skill sets, of their language capabilities," she said.

"Our priority is to make sure that we assist them in getting employment and settling into our communities and helping them thrive."

45 days to find a lawyer, submit application

Unlike provinces like Quebec and Ontario, New Brunswick does not provide legal aid services to refugee claimants who can't afford a lawyer. 

The New Brunswick Refugee Clinic is a Moncton-based group that helps claimants with the legal process for free. Executive director Olivia Huynh said the clinic is the only one of its kind in the province, and has only one employee — Huynh herself. Last year, with the help of three volunteer lawyers, she represented about 30 people, she said.

With the recent influx of claimants, she said her organization would not be able to help everyone unless they can expand and hire more lawyers.

Olivia Huynh is the executive director of the New Brunswick Refugee Clinic, which provides free legal services to refugee claimants. (Submitted by Olivia Huynh)

"It's not clear how many people we can represent," she said. "If say for example, 150 people are coming to New Brunswick in the span of a few months, that would be beyond our clinic's capacity to represent all of them in their hearings, especially ... if they're coming within the same time frame."

On Friday, Fraser said the government is working toward finding a solution for legal aid funding, but there is no set plan yet. He did not address the 45-day window.

Huynh said people crossing through Roxham Road are initially assessed to see if they are eligible. If they're not, they're not admitted to Canada.

If a person is eligible, Huynh said they are screened, photographed, and given a special ID card called a "brown paper." They also undergo health testing, and are admitted into Canada to prepare their application, including providing evidence that they're not safe in their country.

On the day of the crossing, a 45-day clock starts ticking. If they don't find a lawyer, they may have to ask for an extension or represent themselves. Huynh said self-represented claimants are less likely to be granted refuge.

"Especially with the language barrier and with people who are just recently arriving to Canada," she said. "Their chances of success are much lower without a lawyer ... Even if they do have a very strong claim and a credible claim."

She said as far as she knows, most if not all of the 57 people in New Brunswick are still within the 45-day window. The organization has been making presentations to the newcomers about the process of completing their asylum claim. She said they're also setting up one-on-one meetings to assess each case. 

The non-profit is funded by grants, donations and the municipalities of Moncton, Dieppe and Riverview, she said. She's reached out to the province, and plans to send a letter to the federal government as well, but no funding plans have been finalized.

Despite objections from residents during a round of public consultations, Coon's Fredericton South riding will be split between two new constituencies on the election map in the commission's final report.

"The commission does not believe that the evidence received during the current round of consultations is sufficient to make any changes with respect to this request," the commission writes in the report tabled at the legislature Monday morning.

Coon has represented Fredericton South, a downtown urban riding on the south side of the St. John River, since 2014.

The new map makes Regent Street, the city's main north-south artery, the dividing line between two new ridings, Fredericton South-Silverwood and Fredericton-Lincoln.

Commission co-chair Roger Clinch said the commission was asked by the city of Fredericton early in the process to create more "totally urban ridings" in the capital.

"In order to do that, we established the ridings the way that they are" while respecting the law, he said. 

Last year, the Green Party was excluded from choosing members of the commission after objecting to having to submit names to the premier's office, instead of the legislature, for vetting.

Objection planned

The commission is co-chaired by Clinch, a former Progressive Conservative MP, and Camille Thériault, a former Liberal premier.

"I don't think it's for us to judge the makeup of the committee," Clinch said when asked if the Fredericton map might have been different with Green appointees involved.

"We were appointed to the committee, and we did the best that we could to apply the guiding principles across the province." 

Coon said Monday there's no way to say for sure if there was a deliberate attempt to make it harder for him to get re-elected.

But he said he'll be filing an objection to the report because Fredericton's south-side downtown is a community of interest that shouldn't be divided between two ridings. 

He also said the law should be changed so that political parties don't get to submit names for the commission.

"It needs to be actually and truly independent," he said.

The splitting of Coon's riding is one of the few proposals the commission refused to reconsider.

It did listen to residents of Neguac who argued against its original proposal to move the village into the riding of Tracadie.

The commission made the move so that the overwhelmingly Acadian village would be part of a majority-francophone riding.

Neguac will stay in the riding of Miramichi Bay-Neguac. It was going to be moved into a riding that would have been called Tracadie-Neguac. (Village of Neguac)

But during the public hearings earlier this year, several Neguac residents including Mayor Georges Savoie said the village preferred to stay in the same riding as part of Miramichi.

Savoie said Monday he was glad the final proposal restores the riding as Miramichi Bay-Neguac. 

"It's a good decision. It reflects the desire of the population to remain with the Miramichi, where we're getting our provincial services, and to have the MLA and the services from the same region," he said. 

The commission also agreed to several other changes to its original map, including in Fredericton, Moncton and the southwest and northwest parts of the province.

Provincial law requires the election map to be redrawn every 10 years to take into account shifting population numbers.

Ridings must be roughly equal in the number of voters, though the commission is allowed to deviate from that by 15 per cent to reflect other factors, including local government boundaries, rural representation, linguistic representation and "communities of interest."

And in "extraordinary circumstances" the commission can deviate from the equal-representation number by up to 25 per cent.

Even with that latitude, the commission says in its report it couldn't avoid putting part of the new municipality of Cap-Acadie in the Tantramar riding.

The commission is co-chaired by Roger Clinch, left, a former Progressive Conservative MP, and Camille Thériault, a former Liberal premier. (Jacques Poitras/CBC)

Cap-Acadie Mayor Serge Léger questioned why the community, just created Jan. 1 under local government reform, would then be split between two provincial ridings.

Other residents said they wouldn't have effective representation in a majority anglophone riding.

But the commission says in its final report that the Tantramar riding would be too small — 29 per cent below the average number of voters — unless it included part of a neighbouring francophone community.

The report says the commission asked for a legal opinion and was told it had "no latitude to deviate from the absolute maximum deviation" of 25 per cent allowed by law.

The commission recommends the legislature pass legislation to create an exception to the 25-per-cent range for Tantramar before the next election.

Shediac-Beaubassin-Cap-Pelé Liberal MLA Jacques LeBlanc, whose riding includes Cap-Acadie, said the report was "disappointing" but he understood the commission had to respect the law.

He said he would look for other MLAs to support a bill to make an exception for Tantramar.

"That's the only solution that I can find at this time to move forward." 

Boundary changes

Other changes from the proposed map to the final version include:

• Removing part of the city of Moncton from the mostly rural riding of Champdoré. Rural residents argued their clout would be weakened if a section of the fast-growing city were in the riding.
• Shifting the village of Saint-Quentin into the same riding as Grand Falls.
• Keeping Campobello Island in the Saint-Croix riding as it is now, after initially recommending adding it to Fundy-The Isles-Saint John Lorneville, formerly named Fundy-The Isles-Saint John West.
• Moving part of the Marysville area of Fredericton into Fredericton-Grand Lake to avoid splitting that part of the city between three ridings.
• The community of New Denmark will be part of the Carleton-Victoria riding rather than in Grand Falls-St. Quentin, as the commission proposed at first. 

Under the electoral boundaries law, any two MLAs can file a written objection to any of the final recommendations. 

The commission then has another 30 days to consider those objections but isn't obligated to heed them.

After that, the provincial cabinet is required by law to adopt the new ridings without changes.

The next provincial election is scheduled for Oct. 21, 2024. 

Saint John City Councillor Gerry Lowe said he is stunned to hear about the reductions because the original 2021 assessment increases on the mills appeared bulletproof given the multi-year review Service New Brunswick launched to analyze and implement them.

"How could they put it up and say they did a complete study and then turn around two years later and knock it down," said Lowe.

 "It's off the wall how they do things."

Anne McInerney, J.D. Irving Ltd.'s vice president, communications, said in an email the company challenged the 2021 assessment of $27 million given to the paper mill soon after receiving it. The amount was $3.7 million (16 per cent) higher than the 2020 assessment.   

With a decision on that dispute still pending, the company then challenged the mill's 2022 assessment which Service New Brunswick had issued in the meantime for $27.3 million, a one per cent increase from the 2021 amount.

J.D. Irving Ltd. is New Brunswick's largest forestry company. It runs a pulp, paper and tissue mill in Saint John that will pay a combined $4.7 million in municipal and provincial property tax in 2023. That is down from $6.4 million it paid in 2012. (Roger Cosman/CBC)

Twin Rivers Paper Company followed a similar pattern with assessment increases it got at the same time on its pulp mill.

Sometime earlier this year, Service New Brunswick informed both companies their challenges had been successful. In Irving's case, the agency lowered the assessment on the mill by $3.5 million in each of the two years in dispute. The reduction for Twin Rivers is closer to $4 million per year. 

It is the right decision, according to McInerney.

The review "was successful given economic challenges in the paper industry, including consumers' growing reliance on screens over paper," she said.

'Property should be assessed at a lower value'

Caryn King, the director of strategic marketing with Twin Rivers, agreed. 

"We concluded that it merited an appeal and we availed ourselves of one through Service New Brunswick, as any ratepayer is permitted to request," said King in an email.

"We agree with Service NB's determination that our property should be assessed at a lower value."

The lower assessments require property tax refunds to J.D. Irving Ltd of about $170,000 of what was billed on the mill for the 2021 year and $165,000 for 2022. The refund for Twin Rivers is closer to something over $180,000 for each year.

The Twin Rivers Paper Company pulp mill in Edmundston is a major employer and tax payer in northeastern New Brunswick. It will save about $180,000 per year in property tax with assessment reductions it has won from the province. (Étienne Dumont)

Over half of those amounts involve municipal property taxes that were paid to Saint John and Edmundston, although the province alone will pay the refunds since it is responsible for assessments and revisions.

However, the mill's reduced assessment will lower tax revenue to the cities going forward. Lowe said that is a problem, and he questions why Service New Brunswick wouldn't have more faith in the extensive work it did assessing the mills and deciding on the increase.

"They put it up, and they reduced what they put up by 90 per cent," said Lowe. 

"They did a two-year study of it and they were wrong by 90 per cent. How could anybody do that? They should be replaced." 

Longstanding issue

Property taxes on the mills have been a hot issue for the last decade.

In 2012, the two plants were assessed to be worth a combined $113.1 million by Service New Brunswick, and they paid municipal and provincial property taxes that year of $5.5 million. 

In 2013, Service New Brunswick dropped their assessments almost in half as part of a province-wide reduction granted to all pulp and paper mills to help them weather tough markets. 

More assessment decreases followed in subsequent years until 2019, when the assessed value of the two mills had fallen to a combined $45.2 million, and they were paying $2.203 million in annual property taxes — 60 per cent less than in 2012.

Irving Paper employs 325 people on Saint John's east side. It bills itself as North America's largest 'supercalendared' paper producer, with an annual production capacity of 410,000 tonnes. (Roger Cosman/CBC)

In 2019, Lowe was a Saint John MLA and he initiated two days of hearings at the legislature into how major industrial properties are assessed and taxed in New Brunswick.

At those hearings, Service New Brunswick officials revealed a major, multi-year and in-depth "reinspection" of pulp and paper mill properties was underway to follow up on the 2013 reductions, and the province would be resetting assessments at new levels based on the results.

"They are significant properties and they are complex properties. It takes us two to three years to actually do a full, complete reinspection," then-executive director of assessment services, Stephen Ward, told the hearing.

"We have three people on our heavy industrial team. They are specialists. They specialize in these heavy industrial properties. That is all they do, heavy industrial property valuation. They are trained. They are specialized with specific expertise in the valuation of these properties."

'Enduring consequences'

Service New Brunswick eventually increased the assessed value of the Irving paper mill and Twin Rivers pulp mill in 2021, based on that specialized and in-depth review, by $3.7 million and $4 million respectively.   

Although not pleased with the decision at the time, J.D. Irving Ltd. did acknowledge in a press release the 2021 assessments were the result of an "independent review of market values," and it had been given a chance to present its side of the issue.

"We co-operated fully with the work of Service New Brunswick," said the company.

Two years later, Service New Brunswick has retracted most of the increased valuations on the two mills but with little explanation as to why.

In an email, Service New Brunswick confirmed that it did change the assessments after the companies asked for a review and said that is part of normal reviews and market analysis it does on all properties to identify whether "improvements or changes" are required.

Lowe is not sure he believes that, but said whatever caused the change it will have enduring consequences.

"I just shake my head when they do things like this," said Lowe.

"It affects us in the years to come. We will definitely be getting less taxes in the city than we got in 2021." 

Envirem Organics, a compost and environmental remediation company, says it applies strict standards to what kind of waste it accepts — and even then, it can't spread the Maine sludge on farms and won't use it in the compost it bags for retail sale.

"We don't bag municipal biosolids," Envirem CEO Bob Kiely said in an interview.

He said any waste from municipal systems in Maine is destined for Envirem's work cleaning up contaminated sites, where some bacterial strains in waste can help break down contaminants such as petroleum.

And besides, Kiely added, Envirem has set its own standard for acceptable levels of PFAS  — perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances  —  linked by peer-reviewed studies to some cancers, decreased fertility, low birth weights and other effects.

Biosolids, or sludge, seen here in an agricultural field in Quebec. That province recently imposed a moratorium on imports of sludge for agricultural spreading. (Francois Genest/Radio-Canada)

Envirem accepts waste with a maximum of 20 to 30 per cent of the PFAS amounts permitted in guidelines being drafted by the federal and New Brunswick governments, Kiely said.

He called that "very low levels, in parts per billion, that are only showing up because labs have evolved."

The New Brunswick government confirmed that Ottawa is looking at adopting standards for PFAS that would apply to imported biosolids.

Envirem found itself in the spotlight last week after it emerged that Casella Waste Systems is trucking 2,200 metric tonnes of waste from municipal sewage plants in Maine to New Brunswick.

Casella's landfill north of Bangor is overcapacity because of a new ban in Maine on municipal biosolids, or sludge, being spread on farmland in the state.

Quebec recently imposed a moratorium on imports of sludge to the province for agricultural spreading.

The Maine ban was prompted by alarm in the state over high levels of PFAS found in farm products.

      A new law which took effect Feb. 8 bans the use of the sludge for agricultural production in Maine. Maine's Defend Our Health, an activist organization, lobbied for the ban. (Francois Genest/Radio-Canada)

Kiely, who helped found Envirem and has been CEO since 2010, said "almost all" of those levels were traced back not to municipal sludge in Maine but to several large paper plants in the state using PFAS at levels that no longer exist.

Those levels were measured at parts per million, a thousand times more than the parts per billion. 

"That was because of an industrial contaminant that entered the municipal system. That is not a typical municipal biosolid," Kiely said.

"This is not current, this is historic when there was other types of PFAS that was used." 

Kiely's assertion was disputed Tuesday by Sarah Woodbury of Maine's Defend Our Health, an activist organization that lobbied for the ban on sludge spreading in the state.

"It's 100 per cent not correct," she said.

Woodbury said after some initial findings that farms were contaminated with PFAS, the state's Department of Environmental Protection imposed a maximum standard for the chemicals in sludge used in agriculture.

State screening found 95 per cent of the samples had higher levels than the state's allowable threshold — and that sludge came from both industrial and municipal sources, Woodbury said. 

"The argument that the contamination is coming from the industrial sludge is incorrect. The DEP's own data show that that's incorrect." 

Any level of exposure 'not acceptable,' says activist

In 2021, media reports in Maine said 164 PFAS-contaminated wells were near crops fertilized with sludge from the Kennebec Sanitary Treatment District, whose biggest source of wastewater was a paper mill in Waterville using the chemicals. 

The district spread the sludge on farms under a state program, now eliminated, that aimed to reuse waste rather than add it to landfills.

Woodbury also disagreed with Kiely's claim that Envirem's own PFAS thresholds ensure levels are below any potential risk to human health.

She pointed out that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency unveiled strict new rules for PFAS levels in drinking water on Tuesday.

"Any level of exposure from our perspective is not acceptable," she said.

'They're everywhere'

Kiely said PFAS in municipal water systems would be "a very bad thing," but said the chemicals are part of daily life at low levels.

"PFAS are ubiquitous.... They're everywhere in society, unfortunately, but they are being reduced, especially in industrial users," he said.

"They're continuing to go down as we phase products out," he said. "Levels are continuing to decline.… The worst ones have been banned." 

He said all the compost in Envirem products is subject to federal rules.

"We test and these levels are very, very low, close to non-detectable. These are coming from small towns without potential industrial contaminants today. There is no risk of high PFAS levels coming from these sludges today." 

Chicken farmers in Nova Scotia are concerned about the threat of avian influenza — also known as bird flu — after cases of the disease were discovered in a backyard flock in Port Maitland.

The outbreak in the small flock in southwestern Nova Scotia reported last weekend is the first detection of the disease in poultry in almost a year and the second that has been detected in the province in nearly a year.

According to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, the flock of about 20 birds has been killed. The previous detection was of avian influenza in a commercial poultry operation in Nova Scotia was in March 2022.

Amy VanderHeide, the chair of the Chicken Farmers of Nova Scotia, said on Information Morning on Thursday that farmers are concerned about the possibility of widespread bird flu in the aftermath of the most recent outbreak.

"We know that that's going to bring an influx of avian influenza with it, so we're keeping a very close eye on things," VanderHeide said.

The coming spring months are critical, she added, as the disease can follow migratory pathways that are travelled by birds that are flying across countries during the warmer months.

VanderHeide said bird flu is often carried by geese and other waterfowl, like ducks and swans. Kings County happens to be the home of a large part of the province's poultry industry, she said, so an outbreak there would impact the industry across Nova Scotia.

Now, the focus is on biosecurity measures, VanderHeide said. Those include keeping entryways disinfected, changing clothes when moving between farms and keeping wild birds out of commercial flocks.

The CFIA say some symptoms of avian flu to look for include:

• a drop in production of eggs, many of which are soft-shelled or have no shells.
• diarrhea.
• haemorrhages on the hock.
• high and sudden mortality rate.
• quietness and extreme depression.
• swelling of the skin under the eyes.
• wattles and combs become swollen and congested.

Labs in Ontario, Manitoba and New Brunswick are equipped to test for the infection and can provide results in one to two days or more, depending on the lab's capacity.

'Fast-moving virus'

"When there is a suspected case of avian influenza, every hour counts," she said. "It's a very fast-moving virus, so every hour that we're waiting for those tests, [is] an hour that we could be doing further things to reduce the spread."

Long waits for test results are why chicken farmers in the province are calling on the province to improve testing in Nova Scotia — something that would involve upgrading labs that currently exist to improve wastewater and ventilation systems, among other changes.

There's also a need to hire accredited lab staff that are trained to diagnose infections, she said.

VanderHeide said with the growing concerns about spread to commercial flocks, it's not enough for testing needs in Nova Scotia to be met by labs outside of the province, especially considering testing priority depends on capacity and urgency.

"It's really just trying to find out where we're supposed to go with this and who can support this initiative and get us what we need to react faster," VanderHeide said.

Earlier this week, the provincial Liberals also made a call for flu testing in Nova Scotia.

"The current system involves sending samples out-of-province, sometimes as far as Guelph, Ontario or Winnipeg, Manitoba, resulting in long wait times for results and greater disruptions to farm operations," the statement reads.

"New Brunswick had their Fredericton lab certified last year. Newfoundland and PEI have plans to ensure their own testing capacity. The introduction of a lab in Nova Scotia would mean a quicker turnaround for diagnosis and any safety protocols to follow."

Thanks to the advancement of technology, though, he didn't need artistic skills to draw New Brunswick's political leaders as Muppets — artificial intelligence did it for him.

Artificial intelligence Midjourney drew Premier Blaine Higgs as a blue Muppet. (Submitted by Lyle Skinner/Midjourney)

Skinner, an Ottawa constitutional lawyer who grew up just outside of Fredericton, asked an AI called Midjourney, a software that uses written prompts to produce images, to draw Premier Blaine Higgs, Green Party Leader David Coon and Liberal Leader Susan Holt as Muppets.

"Obviously, it's all in good fun," Skinner said.

Liberal Leader Susan Holt got the red Muppet treatment. (Submitted by Lyle Skinner/Midjourney)

While Susan Holt appears to appreciate the humour — she changed her Twitter profile picture to her artificially-designed Muppet — Skinner said he hasn't heard from Higgs or Coon about their puppet identities.

Skinner said people often discuss serious issues on social media, making this "just an opportunity to be a little silly."

Green Party Leader David Coon was drawn, rather appropriately, as a green Muppet. (Submitted by Lyle Skinner/Midjourney)

Skinner isn't done. Next, he plans to ask the AI to draw New Brunswick's MLAs throwing pies at each other in the Legislative Assembly in 1940s comic-book style, he said.

Susan Holt changed her Twitter profile picture to the AI-engineered Muppet version of herself. (Twitter)

While he couldn't say he has a favourite among the three Muppets the AI has already drawn, Skinner said he did enjoy the Cookie Monster pin drawn on Higgs's jacket.

"That was slightly humorous," he said.

NDP MP Rachel Blaney told CBC News Network's Power & Politics she is "content" with the decision to appoint Johnston — but the party still wants to see a public inquiry.

"Canadians need a sense of trust. They need to know their institutions work for them," she told host David Cochrane, adding that Johnston's work and recommendations need to be transparent.

"I think that Mr. Johnston is going to have to be held to a high account. Canadians are watching this very carefully."

Reacting to Johnston's appointment, Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet issued a statement repeating his own call for a public inquiry.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre speaks during an announcement and news conference, in New Westminster, B.C., on Tuesday, March 14, 2023. (Darryl Dyck/Canadian Press)

Prior to Wednesday's announcement, Poilievre cast doubt on the claim that the rapporteur would be independent.

"[Trudeau] could pick someone independent but he won't," Poilievre told reporters last week.

Poilievre said last week that his party will continue to push for a public inquiry into recent media reports that claim China took steps to ensure a minority Liberal government was returned in 2021 and that certain Conservative candidates were defeated.

Other reporting alleged intelligence officials warned Trudeau that China's campaign of interference included funding a "clandestine network of at least 11 federal candidates running in the 2019 election."

A panel of public servants tasked with monitoring election incidents reported that it did not detect foreign interference that threatened Canada's ability to hold free and fair elections in either 2019 or 2021. The panel did say there were attempts to interfere in both campaigns, according to reports highlighting its work.

But Conservatives called into question the most recent report — written by former public servant Morris Rosenberg — over the author's past affiliations.

From 2014 to 2018. Rosenberg served as CEO of the Trudeau Foundation, which funds and promote academic and public interest research.

Rosenberg's tenure was marked by controversy when it was revealed that Zhang Bin, an adviser to the Chinese government, attended a private fundraising dinner with Prime Minister Trudeau and donated thousands of dollars to the charity that bears his father's name. The foundation recently returned the donation.

Rosenberg's report recommended that the election monitoring panel's scope be expanded to include the periods leading up to election campaigns.

Tory deputy leader questions Johnston appointment

On Wednesday, Conservative Deputy Leader Melissa Lantsman questioned the need for a special rapporteur and pointed to Johnston's own affiliation with the Trudeau Foundation. The organization lists Johnston — who has worked at a number of Canadian universities — as a member.

"Maybe it would be best to find someone not associated with [the foundation]?" she tweeted. "Or, just call a public inquiry."

Wednesday's news release said that Johnston's mandate hasn't been set yet. Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino was asked on Power & Politics if Johnston's mandate would allow him to look beyond the campaign periods themselves.

"He will have a sufficiently wide and flexible mandate," he said. "He will have the kind of robust access that he needs to classified information."

Mendicino was also pressed to say how soon Johnston will put forward his recommendations. The minister didn't offer any specifics but did say Johnston's work is "urgent."