Bill No. 97 - Social Safety Net Security Act - 2nd reading

CLAUDIA CHENDER « » : Mr. Speaker, I just wanted to rise and say a few words about this bill. I would say that we support the spirit of this bill, if not necessarily every detail of the content.

I do want to say why I think something like this bill is a good idea. Since I am addressing my remarks mostly to the government, who get to be the final arbiters of the passage of legislation in this Chamber, I'll make a health care analogy, because we want to talk about health care.

To me, the $13 billion, the money that has been quickly deployed to help folks with the cost of living - I would say that that is a band-aid, and band-aids are important. If you're bleeding, you need a bandage - you can't just walk around bleeding. Often though, if you're bleeding and you need to be bandaged, you really ought to go into an emergency room and figure out what's actually wrong.

I think that this is one of many examples, actually, in the budget, and in the announcements we've seen from this government of an approach toward an issue which does offer a remedy - there is some action taken - but it's a band-aid. It's not a surgery.

What we often stand up and talk about over here is the need for systemic solutions to systemic problems, and when we're talking about poverty, that is the ultimate systems failure, and it rests on all of our shoulders. We have the power in this Chamber to change the course of people's lives, and we do it every day, but I would argue there's nowhere more important for us to take that responsibility seriously than when we're dealing with people who are living right at the edge. I think that's what we're talking about here.

At the risk of digressing in a slightly boring way, I would just say that often we heard the government, when in Opposition, use the analogy that government finances are like household finances, and we need to make sure we're not overspending, et cetera, et cetera. The reality is that government spending actually isn't like household spending. In a household, you don't suddenly discover that you're sitting on an extra billion dollars in January or February. I mean, I wish that that would happen in my household, but it won't. It won't in any of our households, because governments have massive budgets and they're somewhat unpredictable.

That allows for what we've seen, which sometimes we criticize, but also, we acknowledge as slippage or March Madness - extra spending that happens when there are extra dollars. I won't make a comment on the deployment of those dollars. They were there and they've been spent, and we like the way some of those dollars have been spent, and we're not so thrilled with the way that some of those other ones have. Thank you for Lake Banook, by the way. Very happy to see canoes and kayaks supported.

That doesn't actually address the problem long-term. Inflation rises, the cost of living is rising. So when we talk about what can be done, yes, in a five-year plan, I'm sure lots of ideas can come from a five-year plan, but if we're in the emergency room, in terms of affordability, which so many Nova Scotians are - there are actually systemic surgeries that can happen quickly.

Again, at the risk of praising my colleagues in the Liberal Party, I will say that I do think the $100-a-month increase to income assistance is an example of that, and I spoke to that last year in my response to that budget, and I'll say it again: That is an example of a government acting quickly with a systemic solution. That changed permanently - or at least somewhat permanently - people's situation.

Indexing income assistance rates would do the exact same thing. That could happen - I don't know about tomorrow, but it could definitely happen quickly. It's not a hodgepodge, it's not a one-time, it's not a help-right-now, it's a common-sense approach.

We often talk about the minimum wage, and there is an independent committee that is looking at the minimum wage. We still feel like we need to move to a living wage more quickly. This is another example like that. We in this Chamber have the power to change people's lives, and we have the power to pull people out of poverty. Not only do we have the power to do that, but we have the responsibility to do that. I would urge the government: If not this bill, please listen to some of the ideas that have been put forward today.

To the Minister of Community Services, without any criticism of the money that has gone out the door, I think we are talking apples and oranges in a way. We're talking about, yes, what needs to happen right now. The government is taking some action, and that's good, but that is not long-term action, it is one-time action.

Food banks shouldn't actually exist. We need to support them when they're really needed, but we need to also make them not need to exist anymore. That's our job. I would urge the government to look at these systemic problems to really try to come up with systemic solutions. We are available to talk about that at any time.

I thank the members of the Official Opposition for bringing this bill forward, and I hope that we will continue to have more fulsome debate on these topics in this House.