NDP leader Claudia Chender on province-wide tour to start New Year
TRURO, N.S. — It’s a chance to get around the province and hear the issues that are important to Nova Scotians, provincial NDP Leader Claudia Chender said of her tour to start the New Year.
“It’s great to have the opportunity to have those conversations, and it's great to get out of Halifax,” joked the Dartmouth South MLA, who has been her party’s leader since late June of last year.
“Of course, we have members and supporters right across this province and, I think, a message and track record that resonates with people across the province,” she added.
Chender was speaking to the Saltwire Network while on Truro’s busiest street – Prince Street – on Tuesday afternoon, where she was about to visit the Colchester Food Bank and learn more about its operation from executive director Shelly DeViller. She noted it was one of several meetings she had lined up in Truro and Colchester, starting with meeting folks in Stewiacke that morning.
“We’re just talking to people and finding out what is going on, what are community members discussing, and what the challenges and opportunities are here,” she said.
“Certainly, when we were down in Stewiacke, we were hearing a lot about growth and managing growth, about the number of people who have moved here, and we are hearing about housing right across the board – availability, affordability, or lack thereof. We’re hearing about inflation, which is impacting everyone but, most of all, just like in the rest of the province, (in Truro/Colchester) we are hearing about health care. People concerned about having a family doctor, whether their emergency rooms are going to be open, and just a general concern about accessing health care.”
Health care concerns illuminated by recent tragic stories as well as statistics.
“Numbers in terms of wait times and the lack of access to a physician, access to emergency rooms,” she said. “Notwithstanding our political stripes, we all want that to improve for the people of Nova Scotia.”
On the health care front, Chender said she’ll bring up what she considers to be one of the NDP’s lasting achievements during their time in power in Nova Scotia – collaborative care.
“The NDP government brought collaborative care into this province which has, subsequently, been replicated across the country,” she said. “They were talking about it on (CBC program) The Current this morning as the solution to the kind of family practice crisis right across the country.
“We pioneered it here and so we have said, and we continue to say, the first priority of government should be to make sure that every Nova Scotian has access to family medicine. That might not look like always seeing a doctor, but if we have professionals working together in a team-based practice, working to their scope, then when people have issues, they can see a physician.
“That ultimately keeps people healthy, keeps people out of the emergency room, and makes sure people have the help they need and pay for.”
Housing was the other issue which is jumping out as she has conversations.
“We really sort of refute the premier's line the solution to the housing crisis is to build housing,” Chender said. “That is necessary, we do need to build housing - all kinds of housing - but if we want to combat the issue around affordability, we need non-market housing. So we need affordable housing, and when we say affordable, we mean rent geared to income - the CMHC definition of 30 per cent of your income, no more than that, should go to housing. That requires government intervention.”
She talked about non-profit housing.
“Housing that doesn't have a profit margin, that exists to make sure that people are sheltered,” she said. “I think Truro is not dissimilar than a lot of other places in the province where people are saying, ‘well, we see cranes in the sky, but no one we know is going to be able to live there.’
“I think that's absolutely true and, particularly in a town like this where there are so many students and newcomers, it's more important than ever the government starts to train their focus on how do we make sure people get housed if they can't afford the market right now, which (pertains) to so many people across this province.”