The Province of Nova Scotia Releases it’s 2022 Budget on Tuesday March 29th, 2022!
By Kendall Worth!
The funding, announced by the province Thursday, includes:
A one-time payment of $150 to all current income assistance recipients, including Disability Support Program participants receiving income support. For example, a single parent on income assistance with three children will receive $600.
A one-time payment of $150 to all currently eligible recipients of the Heating Assistance Rebate Program. The payment is expected to be made by the end of April.
$1 million to Feed Nova Scotia to distribute among its 140 food banks province wide.
$200,000 to local food banks across the province, which are not part of the Feed Nova Scotia network.
“We made a number of announcements, including as recently as this morning," said Premier Tim Houston. And this is good news for people on low incomes.
However, more permanent help needs to become available, and none of the above cancels out the need for increasing the Income Assistance rates, or the need to address the increasing homeless population.
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| Kendall Worth in front of Province House |
Anyway, lets hope the budget will expand on doing more to help those in need. However, I am writing this article on a different matter related to the budget.
It turns out that this year, along with the past couple of years the public only received 5 days notice of the date that the budget will be presented in N.S. The government has got to give the public more notice than that.
Some advocates in the community get invitations to attend the “budget lock up” – that is to sit in a locked room earlier in the day to examine the budget in detail before it is read, and to do analysis. You are literally “locked in” until the budget is read. I have been hearing from different advocates in my community, that in years when the Public only gets 5 days notice from the Government on budget day, it is hard to find the time to attend, or to have an event take place before the budget gets read in the house.
Another side to this story is when the Public gets more than just 5 days, or shorter, notice, it is difficult to plan Budget Watch protests outside of Province House. This BLOG Post speaks to what Benefits Reform Action Group (BRAG) organized in 2019 when the public had ( if I Remember Correctly) 30 days Notice of the date when the Budget was going to be presented.
I need to touch on this issue because if BRAG, in 2019, only knew 5 days prior to the date of budget reading, we would not have been able to organize our Budget Watch event outside the House that year. Just one example!
I remember in 2020 when the Budget was introduced, and COVID lock-downs had not even started yet, and BRAG could not organize that yearly event because the government only gave such short notice to the Public.
5 days notice is also not enough notice for some advocates who would like to attend to watch from the Gallery or who get invited to the Lock-Up event. I talk to one person in my community who tells me that when when the public gets short notice, on the day of the budget reading, the first hour is spent making phone calls to cancel appointment he has had with clients on that day. When he gets a lot more then 5 days notice, clearing his schedule for that day is a lot easier.
A working group I sit on, always makes a plan to have some of our members in attendance at the budget reading. However it is more difficult for us to arrange for people from the working group to be in attendance when the public only get short notice like 5 days or less.
I will end this article by saying in the past the Public knew the exact date of the budget reading more then just 5 or less days notice. In the future, I suggest perhaps announce the date of the Budget on the exact same day that you announce the house going back in session!
At least advocates can better plan for doing Budget Watch Events on that day.
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