Last month Community Services told Income Assistance recipients who qualify that they must apply for the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB). We are hearing that this decision has raised many questions and quite a bit of anxiety.
Judy Haiven looks at the similarities between two recent mass shootings in Nova Scotia. “The RCMP still speaks about “domestic violence” as a set of one-off incidents. It’s time that the public demand more from the RCMP when they deal with these horrible crimes against women and children.”
Tireless water protectors Rachael Greenland-Smith and Dale Poulette are calling on the Nova Scotia Department of Environment to suspend the Alton Gas Industrial Approval, effectively halting the proposed dumping of large quantities of brine in the river. They hope allies will join them in that call.
On April 29 Martyn Williams sent an open letter to Jacques Dubé (Halifax CAO) and Brad Anguish (Director, Public Transportation and Works) expressing concern that genuine issues relating to social distancing rules and lack of space for pedestrians were not taken seriously by Halifax City Hall. Here is a further exchange between Brad Anguish and Martyn Williams.
Kendall Worth on living through the pandemic when life is hard even at the best of times.
At present, there are many hundreds of vulnerable people living in large and small congregate settings across the province, many with challenging physical and mental health needs. And there are chronic staff shortages being further exacerbated by the pandemic. So how do we go forward?
We believe one of the key ways to do this is to support the people caring for them. We need to recognize the essential role they are playing with our population during these uncertain and frightening Covid-19 times.
“Events of the last few weeks have provided a disturbingly strong case that Nova Scotia Premier Stephen McNeil’s well-worn, anti-union biases prevented him from making the right decisions on fighting the Coronavirus in Nova Scotia’s long-term care (LTC) facilities,” writes John McCracken.
A new alliance of higher-education unions urgently calls on the Province of Nova Scotia, the Federal government, and university administrations to support our higher-education sector through this crisis. Help us protect our institutions, our students, and our work for Nova Scotia.
Sheri Lecker, executive director of Adsum for Women and Children, on the obstacles poor people encounter when dealing with isolation in the days of COVID-19. “One answer is simple and affordable: give everyone on income assistance a phone and an internet connection. There need be no ‘medical proof’ for justification. Loneliness and isolation are reason enough.”
Nova Scotia’s failure to adequately protect nursing home residents resulted in Canada’s third worst rate of death from COVID-19, writes Richard Starr, who wonders whether ageism is a factor in both government neglect of the long term care sector and how it’s being reported.