Andrew Furey

Early Life and Family

Andrew Furey was born in St. John’s. His father, George Furey, was a teacher and principal in Newfoundland’s Catholic schools. He later entered politics. In the 1980s, George Furey became a prominent lawyer. He worked in private practice and later served on the Provincial Police Complaints Commission. In 1999, he was appointed to the Senate of Canada, where he served as Speaker from 2015 to 2023. These experiences gave Andrew some indirect exposure to politics. Additionally, George’s brother Chuck served as a member of the Newfoundland and Labrador House of Assembly (MHA) from 1985 until 2000.

Medical Career

After high school, Andrew Furey attended Memorial University of Newfoundland. He earned a Bachelor of Science in biology in 1997 and a Doctor of Medicine in 2001. Continuing at Memorial, he trained in clinical epidemiology and orthopedic surgery. He then completed a one-year fellowship in orthopedic trauma at the University of Maryland in Baltimore. He returned to Memorial in 2008 to work as associate professor in the faculty of medicine and director of orthopedic research.

Furey researched prolifically throughout his career in the faculty of medicine. He co-authored more than 30 peer-reviewed articles in medical journals and wrote on operating techniques in orthopedic surgery.

Humanitarian Work

In January 2010, a catastrophic earthquake hit Haiti. In June of that year, Andrew Furey travelled to Port-au-Prince with a group of doctors from the University of Maryland. To sustain the critically needed medical assistance, Furey and his colleagues founded Team Broken Earth, a volunteer-driven Canadian humanitarian relief organization.

Furey returned to Haiti numerous times in the following years. By the end of 2015, Team Broken Earth had established a two-storey earthquake-proof base for their operations there. Furey went on to do humanitarian work in Bangladesh, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Ethiopia, often training local medics in trauma relief. Team Broken Earth established operations in all those countries as well as Nepal, sustaining programs for surgery, medical education, vision care and children’s health. Furey also co-founded the Dollar A Day Foundation in 2018. It supports mental health services throughout Canada.

Furey’s humanitarian work led him to obtain a diploma in organizational leadership from Oxford University’s Saïd Business School in 2015. In 2020, he published a book reflecting on these experiences called Hope in the Balance: A Newfoundland Doctor Meets a World in Crisis.

Entry into Politics

In a 2015 interview, Andrew Furey said that his humanitarian work had left him with a “desire to do more.” He suggested he could be interested in pursuing politics.

In 2020, Newfoundland and Labrador premier Dwight Ball resigned, largely due to complaints about apparent cronyism in his administration. Furey announced his candidacy for the leadership of the Liberal Party of Newfoundland and Labrador on 3 March 2020. About one week later, transatlantic flights were cancelled and social distancing was mandated across North America to prevent the spread of COVID-19. The pandemic set the backdrop for Furey’s entry into government. He won the Liberal leadership in August and was sworn in as premier later that month.

In October, Furey gained a seat in the House of Assembly after winning a by-election for Ball’s vacated seat in Humber–Gros Morne. He won handily, with almost 64 per cent of the vote. On 15 January 2021, Furey dissolved the government and called for a general election. It was the first election in Canada to exclusively use mail-in ballots; the deadline to submit them was 25 March 2021. The election narrowly delivered Furey the majority government he was seeking. His party won 22 seats with 48.2 per cent of the vote, compared to 13 seats and 38.8 per cent of the vote for the second place Progressive Conservatives.

Majority Government (2021–25)

Andrew Furey’s medical background enabled him to take a uniquely hands-on approach to the management of the COVID-19 pandemic. At times, he even helped to administer the vaccine himself. Assisted by its geographic isolation, Newfoundland and Labrador weathered the pandemic relatively well. The province’s rate of COVID-19 deaths per capita was 1 death per 1,617 people — much lower than the national average of 1 death per 1,037 people.

In addition to the pandemic, two other issues dominated his agenda as Furey took office. First, he acknowledged that there was a need to increase transparency and strengthen the public’s trust in provincial institutions. Secondly, with oil prices at a low ebb, royalties had declined, opening up a $2.1-billion deficit in the provincial budget. Furey suggested that this was a consequence of the province’s reliance on oil and highlighted the need to move toward a more stable, diversified economy. Nonetheless, his administration ultimately pushed for the expansion of Newfoundland’s offshore oil and gas industry.

Following the recommendations of two internal reports, Furey moved to eliminate the energy crown corporation Nalcor Energy by folding it into NL Hydro. Nalcor had been created in 2007 to manage the province’s hydroelectric, oil and gas projects, but this ultimately generated redundancies. Also in the energy file, Furey renegotiated a longstanding deal with Hydro-Québec, obtaining higher prices for NL Hydro’s electricity in exchange for plans for the energy companies to jointly develop infrastructure on Labrador’s Churchill River.

Resignation as Leader and Absence as MHA

On 25 February 2025, Andrew Furey announced that he would be resigning as premier and Liberal leader and returning to medicine. He cited the return of US president Donald Trump for a second term as a central reason for his decision. “This guy’s a maniac,” Furey said, adding, “whatever he says one day is not going to be accurate the next day.” Furey also cited a desire to spend more time with his family as part of his decision, stating that it had felt “like one five-year-long shift” since taking office in August 2020. He was officially replaced as Liberal leader and premier by John Hogan on 9 May 2025. Furey also said he planned to return to practising orthopedic surgery full-time.

However, Furey did not resign his seat as the MHA for Humber–Gros Morne. Despite this, he was absent from the legislature every day after 9 May. He reportedly received approval for a leave of absence from the Liberal caucus whip and continued to collect the $95,000 annual MHA salary. But he did not receive the formal permission required from the Speaker of the House. This led to speculation that Furey planned to hold the seat until the upcoming election, which must be held on or before 14 October, to amass the five years of service time needed to qualify for the MHA pension.

(See also Premiers of Newfoundland and Labrador; Politics in Newfoundland and Labrador.)