Danny Cavanagh: Blaming the workers and the minimal government benefits they receive is unfair. It is also unfair to portray workers as lazy and unproductive. It is fair to say that today’s workforce wants better than low-wage part-time jobs without benefits. They will no longer tolerate being called part-time while working full-time hours. They want paid sick leave and other workplace benefits.
With affordable housing at such a premium everywhere in Nova Scotia people are pointing at vacant lots and empty buildings in towns and cities all across Nova Scotia and wondering why we can’t do better. Now there is a mapping application, This should be housing, that exposes the extent of these opportunities.
Kendall Worth: This is a story about William (not his real name), a man who was forcibly handcuffed by police and taken to the QEII when he had a mental health breakdown. William came out of the hospital feeling even worse than when he went in.
41,370 children, one in four, live in poverty in Nova Scotia. For children under six that number is actually almost one in three! Educators for Social Justice want child poverty to get the attention it deserves during the election campaign and at the voting booth.
Stephen Wentzell reports that roughly three weeks out from election day in Nova Scotia, one organization is challenging parties to take meaningful action on child care in the province.
Wellness Within: An Organization for Health & Justice applauds the state of Minnesota for passing the Healthy Start Act, which will give incarcerated people who are pregnant the option of receiving pre- and post-natal care and giving birth in community settings. They will no longer be separated from their newborns shortly after birth. We urge Nova Scotia to implement a similar policy.
It’s Kendall’s birthday today. Meet Jason and Kate (not their real names), two welfare recipients who knew each other from back in the days when they lived a better off life. Kendall talks with them about birthdays and how life has changed altogether.
Jen Powley responds to Waye Mason’s op-ed in the Chronicle Herald earlier this month. “While Mason argues that the province needs to build more affordable units, he and his municipal colleagues keep selling off land on the peninsula that could have been a home for affordable housing.”
Last week journalist Stephen Wentzell sat down with Gary Burrill, the leader of the provincial NDP, to have a wide-ranging conversation about issues dear to the Nova Scotia Advocate’s heart, things like the climate crisis and the threat to biodiversity, the sale of Owls Head Provincial Park, poverty and social assistance, housing and rent control, healthcare and many other issues
A group of ten community organizations and members are calling on the Halifax Regional Municipality to abandon its plan to remove temporary shelters from public property today, on July 13, 2021. Whatever its public justifications, what is happening is that the city is reacting to those who view the shelters as eye sores and their residents as bad for business and property values.