By – Kendall Worth!
Province House went in on March 21st and rose on April 12th 2023 meaning that Province House only sat 14 days, this time around. The house sitting for only 14 days was totally unexceptional.
Sign is from 2016! Unfortunately still too relevant!
I wrote this BLOG as an open letter to Opposition Community Services Critics asking that a question be asked to the Minister of Community Services demanding an update on ESIA Transformation. For those of you who are people living in poverty, who are waiting for an answer… you may be wondering if the question got asked. I do not think it was asked but do not know as I was not able to find out anything. The short session meant that, although I had hoped to meet with Kendra Combs, NDP Community Services Critic, the session ended before we could get together.
This previous post, pinpoints the strong hopes of the community of people living in poverty that something would come out of this sitting - with the government offering more help to those on low income. However, as I mentioned when covering the budget, there was no increase in the Income Assistance Rates and nothing introduced to help with out of control inflation.
You cannot say that nothing was done considering:
The provincial government did extend the rent cap in Nova Scotia which will prevent even more people from becoming homeless for a little while longer.
They did increase amount of rent supplement available (but In late January, the province quietly changed the eligibility rules for the Canada-Nova Scotia Targeted Housing Benefit, known as the rent supplement program. To qualify now need to be paying over 50% of income in rent!)
They did increase minimum wage
They did continue to put strong focus on health care (but number of Nova Scotians without a family doctor increased to 142,262, or 14.3% of the province's population, on April 1st.)
So all of the above helps but the government needs to do better!
The NDP caucus tried its best during this sitting to bring to light, at every opportunity they had, the needs of so many Nova Scotians, and the numbers needing help. The NDP caucus spoke about the need for people living in poverty to get help with the cost of living. However the NDP demands seem to have fallen on deaf ears on the PC side of the house. The PC’s expressed no interest whats-so-ever in wanting to help with the rising cost of living nor increasing the amount of Income Assistance. It is hard to believe that the Government did nothing, to address income assistance, after all the community pressure they were under to raise Income Assistance Rates.
In the EYES of people living in poverty, this 14 days limited sitting also meant that the house rose before Members could even get into any discussions about Community Services related issues.
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