Bill No. 279 - Financial Measures (2023) Act. - Third Reading

CLAUDIA CHENDER « » : Mr. Speaker, I rise to address the Financial Measures (2023) Act. As we all know, this is the Act that enables the budget. So how do we feel about this budget? Well, it's more, faster except for when it is less, slower. It contains a great deal of funding for a number of health care initiatives but no clear plan for what comes on the other side of these investments and third, money is no object except for when it is.

Let's begin with more, faster and less, slower. We measure budgets by the impact they have on people's lives and by that measure I am not sure what exactly will happen faster. People won't get a family doctor faster. In fact, we are looking at something like 10,000 residents of HRM who are newly on the list. It also appears in the health care area that faster is for this government a synonym for private. Pharmacy clinics, virtual care, mobile clinics, travel nursing, these are the big ticket items and these are all partnerships with private companies. Millions - tens of millions of dollars out the door through contracts with minimal capacity and minimal oversight, a great deal of which can and should be delivered publicly.

It the wallet is open, let's spend some money to improve our public health care system. Is the plan to re-sign multi-million dollar contracts with Maple for the foreseeable future? Are we to believe that a Zoom appointment is a stand-in for a family clinic? What about private nursing companies. Will we rely on travel nurses forever, as they continue to poach, understandably, nurses from the public system, which we are leaving to rot.

It doesn't appear that faster means evidence-based, since the evidence overwhelmingly points to the need for attachment to a family health team that can follow you. People, parents, seniors across this province want to be able to call their doctor's office when they have a health issue.

The Premier has said that health care is going to look different - and we agree, health care should look different. I think the experts agree that health care should look different. It should look like collaborative health care teams, family health homes - an idea which, in fact, the NDP brought to this House and to the province over a decade ago, and which the Liberal government discontinued under their reign.

We know that better health outcomes come from community-based integrated care. We have a fantastic example right here in HRM in the North End Community Health Clinic, which for decades has been delivering this kind of care.

THE SPEAKER « » : Order. There's a bit of chatter in here.

The honourable Leader of the New Democratic Party.

CLAUDIA CHENDER « » : Thank you. We see no indication in this budget that people will have a doctor's office to call when their children are sick, when they are sick. That is an unbelievably missed opportunity.

There is no expansion of midwifery services, despite the savings it would provide to overstretched hospitals and clinics - despite the talk of increasing the scope of professionals. The Midwifery Association themselves came out today - and I'll table this when I get a copy of it - and said that they were deeply disappointed by the lack of inclusion in this budget.

Many members of this house, I know, have used midwives. This is a simple thing that could take pressure off of specialists, off of family doctors, off of our health care system. It could provide appropriate caring health care for pregnant people across this province.

We saw no commitment to the provision of free birth control, despite again, the savings that this would result in for the system as a whole. We know that this was recently included in the British Columbia budget - as was a significant financial commitment to change the structure of pay for family physicians so that they could offer consistent primary care to people in that province. We know what a difference that would make in the lives of women. Yet we saw nothing.

We saw no coverage for the Shingrix vaccine, despite the high out-of-pocket cost that people have to pay if they want it. I think it's about a hundred dollars the last time I checked, for at-risk seniors, whom we know currently are suffering the most of any demographic in our health care system.

We saw no new funding for health care in the province's prisons, despite the tragic outcomes of insufficient access and the recent deaths that have been reported. It's unclear if and when new collaborative health care clinics will open, but we haven't been given any details on this. Then again, this government has shown that the budget is a document of convenience. It doesn't necessarily tell us what's going to happen.

There's no money for a universal school food program, despite being the only G7 country that doesn't feed kids to ensure that they can learn and that they stay healthy. There's no money for mental health crisis response teams across the province that advocates, and now in so many ways, the Mass Casualty Commission, have asked for. We need to transform our approach to policing. We have seen no commitment to that in this Chamber - despite repeated questions, not just in this session, but for years.

We have not seen meaningful progress towards the promise of universal mental health care. Not for the first responders who report terrible experiences trying to get the help they need to stay healthy and get back to work - including paramedics, professional firefighters, and others - and not for the communities affected by the mass casualty, whom the Mass Casualty Commission recommended have extraordinary supports in place by May 1st.

We have a more, faster health care budget that misses the boat on the better and sooner care that people truly need, and that would lower the costs and stressors on the system in the long run. Despite repeated promises and being elected to fix health care, there is no definition of what that means. There is no clear plan.

Every person who wants health care fixed wants something different. We all agree that we want health care fixed, but for some, that means that they just want to be able to call the doctor. They just want to be able to know that they can take their kid somewhere when they're sick and they won't have to take two days off of work, driving from walk-in clinic to walk-in clinic, or trying to find mobile care that's open, or book an appointment with Maple.

Some want reduced surgery times. I can think of so many people over the last few years who are waiting for joint replacements, hip replacements, and knee replacements. That's what it means to them. For some, it's access to emergency mental health supports when they need them. Some just want a diagnosis. They don't want to wait a year and a half to see a specialist. Some just want to be able to afford their medications.

What's the priority? If there is one, we haven't heard it. If it means addressing any of the things that I just listed, we haven't seen it. It seems to mean that if you're lucky, you'll be able to get antibiotics for an ear infection from your pharmacist or a virtual appointment for something minor. With respect, I don't think that's what people are looking for when they're told that health care is going to be fixed.

This government needs to stop telling us that things are getting better when, objectively, they are not, and start telling us when they're going to get better and what that's going to look like.

Last, money is no object, except for when it is. On health care, we actually saw minimal investment in this budget in what I believe people want the most: health care that they can count on. Family health teams are something that would be truly transformative and is absolutely needed. I'm reminded of the Barenaked Ladies song If I Had a Million Dollars - only in this case, it's over a billion dollars.

Just a fraction of the overall budget, but a billion dollars in unexpected revenue landed in this government's lap. We've been asking ourselves, our constituents, the experts, and the people that we talk to - what would you do if you had an extra billion dollars to spend?

We hear all the time from governments that their hands are tied. The spending is allocated. They don't really have any room to manoeuvre. But this government, in this budget, in this year had room to manoeuvre.

If I had control of a government that had an unexpected extra billion dollars in revenue in a province with skyrocketing home prices and less than 1 per cent vacancy rates, I would spend a lot of it on creating affordable housing. I'd build housing. I would leverage the money for truly affordable, rent-geared-to-income, affordable housing. I would set up a branch of enforcement for residential tenancies - something both landlords and tenants have repeatedly asked for. I would establish a reliable system of rent control.

This government plans to build zero new public housing units even though there are thousands and thousands of people on the wait-list. Even those who are deemed a priority - special priority, by the way, is given to victims of family violence, those whose homes have been condemned, or those who need to live near a hospital for health reasons. For those priority folks on the list, the wait is a little over a year, if you're lucky - but it's closer to two years in some parts of the province.

As was discussed - and as our office has discovered and brought to the floor of this House - we also have the cut to eligibility for rent supplements. The rent supplement program is now so stringent that it only applies to people who are literally desperately poor, who I don't actually understand because I don't have the lived experience of how they can make it from one day to the next. In extreme housing insecurity, it excludes the working poor, and it excludes seniors on the GIS. So we see those folks sleeping in shelters and going to work.

You won't qualify for the supplement if, for example, you live in Dartmouth, rent a one-bedroom apartment and make more than $19,377 a year - $19,000 a year. This government refuses to close the fixed-term lease loophole - a key tool that landlords are using to get around the rent cap that has the effect of massively increasing housing insecurity in our province.

I know, and we have heard, that people talk about the legitimate uses for fixed-term leases. In a normal rental market, we might be able to talk about that, but in this rental market at this time, we simply cannot, because with a 2 per cent rent cap, we saw a 9 per cent increase in rents. That is because you now almost can only get a fixed-term lease. Until the government acts, the housing system will not change.

There are thousands of people living with the anxiety right now of what they are going to do when their 12-month lease is up. Despite the government's insistence on building supply, that the answer to the housing crisis is to build housing - I believe I am paraphrasing - none of the cranes in the sky that any of us see on our walk to work, or in our drive around the province, are going to result in housing that anyone would call affordable.

Of course, there are a few pockets, the federal funding for the Rapid Housing Initiative has resulted in some units. There have been some partnerships - and I heard the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing reference this earlier - with non-profit housing providers, but it's not nearly enough.

If I had $1 billion, I would build public housing. I would add to the buildings that exist, build new ones, support non-market and non-profits to build more. There is an RFP that was put out in downtown Dartmouth well over a year ago that I know, because even though it hasn't been announced, there were two qualified bidders. I know that both of those bidders intended to create hundreds of truly affordable housing units, but I can't get answers on whether there has been any progress on that, what's happening on that. There is simply not enough being done to make sure that people have a home they can afford.

If I had $1 billion, I would raise the ESIA rates immediately, and then I would index them. Anything else is a cut - a cut to people living miles below the poverty level. In this job, we are required to have empathy. So everyone imagine for a moment that a single person in Halifax living on income assistance this year will be living $18,000 a year below the poverty line. Poverty is not enough - people need to be in double poverty.

A single parent with a two-year old child will be $17,000 a year below the poverty line. A couple with two children, ages 10 and 15 - maybe some people in this Chamber have been in that situation - will be $21,000 a year below the poverty line. They will not be able to afford to feed those children properly. They will not be able to afford their medications, if they have them. They will not be able to afford transportation. This government has the power to do something about that.

As Vince Calderhead explains, this year's provincial budget represents a clear step backwards in the province's compliance with its human rights obligation to provide an adequate income. The province's decision to effectively lower the standard of living for those in receipt of assistance violates their basic human rights. That's from Hansard, but I can table that after I finish.

If I had $1 billion I would freeze families' and seniors' Pharmacare fees. That's only something like $64 million. That's only a little teeny part of $1 billion. This government has the gall to make a big deal about how they haven't raised Pharmacare fees, but as we've been saying for almost a year now, they should freeze them entirely.

This budget projects revenue of more than $64 million in seniors' Pharmacare fees, during a cost of living crisis where people regularly have to choose between food and medication.

We've heard a lot about the social determinants of health. We've been speaking in this Chamber on this topic for years. That's way upstream. Further downstream than that is just being able to take your meds, if they are prescribed to you. Many people, including the people in our provincial Pharmacare programs, can't do that, and this government could change that today. They could freeze those fees and make sure that people can take their medication, keep them out of emergency rooms, keep them healthy.

On the heels of a truly terrifying IPCC report - and for those of you who don't spend a lot of time thinking about climate, I would really recommend looking it up - standing on the coast of a peninsula that is basically and might soon actually be an island, with thousands of miles of unprotected coastline, which is on the front lines of climate change - if I had $1 billion and a majority government, I would immediately enact the Coastal Protection Act and ensure that we are doing everything we can to protect our province and all that it contains: people, flora, and fauna.

Studies show that every $1 spent on adaptation now will save $15 on future costs. That's money that will come from this government. That adaptation is a cost that we will have to bear. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and we refuse to prevent the catastrophe coming our way.

Our government would massively invest in deep retrofits. We've gone some way there but we have much further to go. Are the new developments being greenlit behind closed doors net zero? No, they aren't, and they aren't affordable either. If this government is in the business of doing favours and expediting projects, the least they could do is ask for something in return. Imagine if we were building new net-zero public housing. We could kill two birds with one stone.

This budget includes no strong financial commitment to the Atlantic Loop or a Plan B to get off coal. The Premier is suddenly cold on the idea of the Atlantic Loop. When asked what is Plan B, he just says wind, solar, tidal, tidal, solar, wind, in different successions, and we are supposed to believe that's a plan. That is not a plan. Those are words. We need to understand how we are going to move this province off coal and into a cleaner future, if not for us, then for our children.

There are no accelerated investments in active transit or in public transit. As the Ecology Action Centre points out - and I will table this - of the $41.4 million in direct funding for the climate plan, the vast majority - $34 million - was already earmarked for environmental initiatives through the Green Fund. We've talked about this a little bit tonight, what the government is actually doing versus what was already in the works. The government says the climate change plan will be further resourced, but we need so much more and we need to move so much more quickly.

The Nova Scotia Government showed today - they said that a robust response to the crisis is possible. That was a reference to the spending on health care. However, this budget fails to recognize concurrent emergencies beyond health care that demand our attention. Certainly, whether we like it or not, the environment is one.

In light of what we have read in the report of the Mass Casualty Commission and also what we have been advocating for years, if we had an extra billion dollars, we would substantially increase funding to organizations working to combat gender-based violence. We would recognize the call for a transformation of our approach to community safety, something we have also been calling for for years. We have been amplifying, in fact, the calls of people on the front lines who tell us over and over again that our current carceral approach to policing simply doesn't work.

We would ensure that there are more infant and toddler child care spots in the province and not pretend that a few hours of unlicensed before- and after-school care - which is needed - fulfills that commitment. It does not. I meet people every day who aren't going back to work, who are leaving the province, and who are not sleeping at night because they cannot find child care. I have been in the position of trying to find child care. Many of us have been in that position. It is something that we were promised would be fixed, and it has not been fixed.

We would ensure that education workers are paid a living wage and not wait for the second group of them in a year to go on strike, as CUPE members are preparing to do in the breakdown of conciliation and absence of further meaningful negotiations with this government. This from a government with little respect for collective bargaining unless it serves them to say so as a delay tactic.

We would immediately ensure that victims of assault, abuse, and bullying are not subject to the misuse of non-disclosure agreements by relying on existing legislative precedents and jurisdictional scans to inform a bill that would have passed this session. This is something on which we agreed with the current government when they were in Opposition but which has changed significantly since then.

These areas - family health teams; cost of living, including housing; child care and income; action on climate change; transforming our approach to gender-based violence; and community safety - are all areas where this government is moving so slowly. These are all part of health care.

If we had an extra billion dollars with a growing and increasingly younger population, we would make sure that the policies, budgets, and choices of our government lifted everyone up. We would ensure that all Nova Scotians could share in the prosperity that we have and that we could all have a chance to thrive - that paramedics and education workers and Uber drivers and students and seniors and families all have the opportunity to thrive.

We would acknowledge again and again the truth of our small province: that we are connected, and we are and should be interested not just in each other's business and who your father is - because we know that we are interested in those things but also how you are doing and if you need a hand. They say we are separated by six degrees, but I think we can all agree that here in Nova Scotia, it's more like two. With that connection comes a responsibility to care for each other, to celebrate our successes and to work to fix our failures, to ask for help when we need it and to offer it when we have it. Government can reflect these values or ignore them. Sadly, I think that in so many areas of this budget, they are ignored.

In the Barenaked Ladies song, which maybe some of you will be humming tonight as you fall asleep - I would sing it but I'm not allowed - the chorus says. "If I had a million dollars, I'd buy your love." Mr. Speaker, if we in the NDP had an extra billion dollars, we would show Nova Scotians - all Nova Scotians, the ones who need help the most - that we love them and that we love them enough to believe that they should have health care that they can count on, a home that they can afford, meaningful action on climate, and a focus on equity. Unfortunately, this budget falls short of that, and so we will not be supporting it.