In Ontario yearly health care costs for a food secure person are around $1600. The same costs for a person who experiences severe food insecurity are almost $4000. Almost 4% of Nova Scotia’s households experienced severe food insecurity, meaning that people missed meals, reduced food intake and at the most extreme went day(s) without food. You can’t solve our healthcare crisis while you ignore those numbers. Raise the rates and the minimum wage!

Human rights lawyer Vince Calderhead tackles last month’ budget and the election. The realization that the inequality in our society is actually a political decision raises hard questions, he writes. These are questions not just for our political leaders but also for ourselves as members of a society that repeatedly select politicians who by their choices, maintain poverty and malnutrition. When are we, as a society, going to tell our political candidates and leaders that we will not tolerate poverty in our society?