By Kendall Worth!
In Nova Scotia, as we approach the beginning of another sitting of Province House, the community of people I advocate for, strongly believe that the Tim Houston government has been in power long enough to educate themselves on the issues that encourage people in this province to continue to live in poverty. In this post I talked about how 2023 in general was a learning experience for many of those same people I advocate for, and illustrates the many lessons learned. Even though I have been been an anti- poverty advocate in Halifax since 2013, I, and many others in my community also learned a lot last year. We believe that there are lessons in that post which should serve as learning experience for government as well.
So, here are the Current Issues:
My community is asking the government to please pay attention to the following during this upcoming sitting of the House.
Although those deemed to have a disability (60-70% of Income Assistance recipients) will get a $300 a month increase starting in April, which will mean adding three hundred to the current $950 = $1250.00 a month, it is still not enough. With the cost of rent and groceries these days, $1250.00 still does not meet the basic needs of recipients. In addition, there needs to be an increase for everyone on Income Assistance! Remember, those who do not qualify for that $300 bump will still only receive $950.00, or less, depending on circumstances, like, whether you are housed or classed as a boarder.
When you look around Halifax today, you see lots of construction of condo style buildings going up throughout different parts of HRM. Yet the number of HRM homeless people is increasing at a rapid rate whether people are in tents or shelters. The government neds to investigate how many of these brand new units are actually going to be affordable for people on low and fixed income. Also, action needs to be taken to make sure at least some of these brand new units are going to be affordable for people who cannot afford to pay $1700 a month to $3000 a month. Those amounts are what most renters in HRM are paying these days.
I want to remind readers that Premier Tim Houston and the PC’s got elected on the promise that he would fix the Health Care System. There are 3 things I need to say about the current state of our Care System.
#1 – These days even if you are lucky enough to have a primary care clinic, nurse or doctor, individual medical practices we are finding that weeks or even months go by before we can get an appointment. This is a serious matter for those of us who have an urgent need for medical attention.
#2 – There are still a large number of Nova Scotians without a family doctor. As reported in this post , the list of Nova Scotian's waiting for a family doctor hit a new milestone in August last year -- it now sits at more than 150,000 – or about 15 per cent of the population.
#3 – Throughout the PC’s time in power, the community of people I advocate for experienced no improvement whatsoever in the mental health system in Nova Scotia.
My community believes that the current PC government in Nova Scotia has been around long enough to educate themselves on the issues of poverty in Nova Scotia. It is now time to take action. Several sittings of province house have taken place since the election in 2021. Many, I advocate for, have been strongly frustrated by the fact that Not one thing happened to update the Liberal’s ESIA transformation plans, since Tim Houston came to power. In the past few sittings I could not even get an opposition MLA to raise a question, asking for an update on ESIA transformation. I gave a reminder of the ESIA transformation plus other issues in this letter posted on October 1st 2024 to Trevor Boudreau who is the current Minster of Community Services. The issues I raise in this letter, are still relevant today and hopefully will be looked at during this sitting.
Finally, I am asking all MLA’s to please keep Carrie Ann Bugden in mind, during this sitting of the House. Here is a letter she wrote after I completed a seven part story about her case on my blog.
I look forward to this upcoming sitting and hopefully we will see some changes made.
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