Premier Blaine Higgs (Photo: Government of New Brunswick)
Access to abortion services in New Brunswick was on the agenda as Premier Blaine Higgs sat down with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in Ottawa on Monday.
Fredericton’s Clinic 554 has struggled to stay open and is slated to close since the province does not cover the cost of abortions at private clinics.
Higgs didn’t make any commitments related to the clinic but he agrees with Trudeau that the province needs to comply with the Canada Health Act.
“We’ll ensure that we meet what the prime minister is looking for in terms of accessibility for all patients and that’s what our goal will be,” he says.
Efforts have been underway to try and save Clinic 554 from closing and even Horizon Health has said the province should fund abortions at the facility.
The province currently only covers the cost of abortions at the Moncton Hospital and the Chaleur Regional Hospital in Bathurst.
We covered several subjects in our time together including softwood lumber tariffs, healthcare funding, the Glencore closure, small nuclear reactors, Atlantic Salmon, Our carbon plan and specifically our proposed output based pricing system.
— Blaine Higgs (@BlaineHiggs) December 16, 2019
Softwood lumber was another issue on the table for the premier and the prime minister.
Higgs calls the issue a crisis and says he recently met with industry officials who are very concerned.
He notes how industry has spent $60 million in tariffs as European imports come in with no tariffs.
Some mills are closing while Higgs says others are on the verge of shutting down.
Higgs says the Trudeau government has indicated it wants to put the new NAFTA trade agreement to bed first before wading into the softwood lumber issue.
Meantime, the premier thinks the feds will sign-off on New Brunswick’s carbon plan early in the new year.
While the consumer portion has been approved and will take effect in April, it’s still not clear what big industry emitters will pay.
Higgs adds he’s concerned about jurisdictional issues with Ottawa since the federal backstop was imposed on the province earlier this year when a previous carbon plan was rejected.
