In the news today: Quebec premier swearing in, Ontario jails, B.C. bear attack

Here is a roundup of stories from The Canadian Press designed to bring you up to speed …

Christine Fréchette to be sworn into office today as Quebec’s second female premier

Christine Fréchette is set to be sworn in as Quebec’s premier today with less than six months to go before the provincial election.

She defeated Bernard Drainville in the race to replace François Legault, who created the Coalition Avenir Québec in 2011 and had been premier since 2018.

The 55-year-old Fréchette will be the province’s second female premier after the Parti Québécois’s Pauline Marois held the role from 2012 to 2014.

Fréchette has said she will name a cabinet next week and intends to make at least one announcement in the coming days related to the cost of living.

—

Ontario Premier Doug Ford defends plan to increase jail capacity by thousands

Ontario Premier Doug Ford is defending his government’s plan to build many more jails, saying the billions in cost will be worth it.

Government documents obtained by The Canadian Press show the province plans to add upward of 6,000 new jail beds by 2050.

Ford says the province plans to continually build more jails and expand capacity at existing ones.

But opposition party leaders say building jails is very expensive and is the wrong approach, and that the province should instead deal with a backlogged court system that is filling up jails while accused people wait for their trials to start.

—

New Brunswick highway fuel spill reached tributary of Hammond River, official says

A New Brunswick official says fuel spilled from a tanker truck rollover on a southern highway on April 8 reached a tributary of the Hammond River and a nearby wetland.

The province’s deputy environment minister Charbel Awad says cleanup crews deployed dams and booms to contain the spill.

Awad says crews are removing contaminated soil and using vacuum trucks to suck up the fuel from the water.

He says he expects Route 1’s eastbound lanes near where the spill took place to reopen within days.

—

Warehouse leasing jumps after global shippers seek tariff workarounds

A new report says Canadian warehouse leasing numbers surged last year as shippers sought flexibility — and a way to work around burdensome U.S. tariffs.

Real estate firm Cushman and Wakefield says in the Toronto area, leasing activity soared to the third-highest level on record in 2025, reaching nearly 27 million square feet, with national volumes also way up.

Across the country, activity ramped up in the second half of the year as packaging and logistics firms strove to meet a boost in demand from shippers and retailers looking to manage risk in response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs.

Experts say uncertainty rather than economic growth is driving the warehouse rush.

—

No ongoing public safety threat after grizzly bear attacks man in Vanderhoof, B.C.

A man who encountered a grizzly while walking on his own property in central B.C. escaped with a leg injury after scrambling under a barbed-wire fence.

The provincial Conservation Officer Service says a man was walking two dogs off-leash on his rural property in Vanderhoof on Monday when the bear attacked, but it disengaged and ran off when he got under the fence.

It says both conservation officers and Mounties did a sweep of the area but did not find the bear.

The officers assessed evidence at the scene and interviewed the victim, but the service says based on the location and circumstances, the attack was “defensive in nature and there was no continued threat to public safety.”

—

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Month Date, 20XX.

The Canadian Press