Danny Cavanagh: Why the secrecy about Nova Scotia’s health care deal?
Danny Cavanagh on the health care deal struck between Nova Scotia and the feds.
Danny Cavanagh on the health care deal struck between Nova Scotia and the feds.
About eight hundred Nova Scotians marched to Province House because they hate the devastation of our forests caused by clearcutting and because bureaucrats and politicians aren’t listening to them. To mark this important event we offer up a handful of photos and a transcription of the remarks by Melissa Labrador, a Mi’kmaq woman of the Wildcat community near Kejimkujik.
The state of public housing in Nova Scotia at times is terrible. There is no other way to describe it. Last week I drove to Sheet Harbour and met Brent and Donna, very nice people who deserve better than having to call and call again for somebody to deal with a backed up septic tank, or to have mould simply spray painted over. We hear these stories a lot, and we go check them out when we can.
Dave Kent, president of People First Nova Scotia and Korey Earle, president of the national People First, feel devastated that the issues they raised around the Adult Capacity and Decision-making Act (Bill 16) at Law Amendments were not taken seriously at all. “The presentations ended at 10:30 am. By 12:20 pm, the first article about it was written and online stating that the Bill had passed second reading as is.”
On the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty Halifax first voice activists and their allies called for all levels of government to stop their empty tinkering and finally start addressing poverty in a meaningful way. Start by listening carefully to people with a lived experience of poverty, was the message, and put your money where your mouth is.
Six weeks without benefits is the harsh punishment meted out by Community Services to people on social assistance who don’t engage in employability activities, things like missing an appointment or not showing up for a training course. We meet Kate, who got hit with the six week cut off when she was forced to quit her job when her son got very sick. And through a Freedom of Information request we find out that it happens to hundreds of social assistance recipients each year. Some of them are innocent family members who did nothing wrong.
Kendall Worth follows up on his earlier stories about a woman who had to go in for day surgery but who had nobody to stay with her during the first two weeks of her eight-week recovery, even though the hospital insisted that this be the case. Turns out she has been getting nightly check-up visits from the police. No matter how well intended, she isn’t happy about it, especially since the visits were arranged by the hospital without her permission.
A problematic story in the Chronicle Herald about a staffer’s transphobic comments causes reporter Rebecca Rose to take an in depth look at the harm they cause and and how to counteract them. She also looks at the significant policy changes that triggered the comments, and how these changes came about. But no matter how good the policy changes and staff training, decarceration and community inclusion remain the best solution, advocates say.
Yet another national survey comparing provincial poverty rates was released today. Whether it’s child poverty that is being measured, minimum wage, or the release of Statistics Canada census-based income data, somehow for Nova Scotia the news is always grim.
Frequent contributor Alex Kronstein describes how autistic people, as a community, possess a great deal of truth and knowledge that they’ve figured out by themselves and for themselves. “I know this because I’m autistic myself,” he writes. “Autistic people have plenty of valid knowledge, and we by and large are fed up with non-autistic researchers claiming to have “discovered” this knowledge.”