Leadership you can believe in

NSNDP PLATFORM | 2024

Leadership you can believe in

Claudia

Chender

A SECURE HOME YOU CAN AFFORD

HELPING BRING DOWN YOUR HOUSEHOLD COSTS

PROVIDING BETTER, FASTER HEALTH CARE

PRIORITIES FOR A BETTER NOVA SCOTIA

MESSAGE FROM CLAUDIA CHENDER

Let’s make this election about your priorities – and about electing a government that will finally take action on those priorities and deliver solutions to make your day-to-day life better, more affordable, and more secure.

So you can build the future you want right here in Nova Scotia.

Finding those solutions and helping you build that future are what motivate me every single day.

Because I know that by working together we can get through these tough times when so many people are hurting and looking for hope.

I believe the strength of our province has always been our unwavering commitment to our family, friends, neighbours and communities – to lift each other up and band together to get through

the challenges. I also believe you deserve a government that shares that commitment – that cares about all of us the way we care about each other.

Instead, the Houston Conservatives – and the Liberals before them – have shown time and again they’re willing to leave people behind.

Especially at times like this, when the going gets tough.

Their legacy is a string of broken promises on housing, health care and affordability – and in this election, they’re hoping you don’t notice.

My commitment to you is a New Democrat government that doesn’t just talk about getting things done – but actually gets things done, starting on day one.

Working together, we will build a future where all Nova Scotians are secure, are getting ahead not just getting by, and are proud to call this province their home.

Join us as we move Nova Scotia forward together.

WHAT’S AT STAKE IN THIS ELECTION When Nova Scotians see – in the middle of a housing crisis – rents grow by an average of 18%, they know they don’t have a government that’s working for them.

And that’s the fundamental question in this election: Who exactly is Tim Houston really working for?

With every decision he makes, he’s showing he’s not on the side of everyday people in Nova Scotia: When seniors are at risk of being homeless because they’re being priced out of their rental homes, Tim Houston isn’t there for them.

When so many people here are living in or close to poverty – in a province with the country’s highest overall poverty rate – Tim Houston isn’t there for them.

When Nova Scotians see the wait list for getting a family doctor grow by over 100% since he was elected, they know Tim Houston just isn’t there for them.

And instead of getting on with the job of fixing these and so many other problems, Tim Houston calls a snap election to seek a mandate he already has. In fact, the real issue in this election is how little he’s done for everyday Nova Scotians with that mandate – and now he’s just pushing the problems we all face further down the road.

But Nova Scotians can’t wait any longer.

They need solutions to the biggest problems facing our province, and they need them now.

Claudia Chender and the Nova Scotia NDP team are ready to get the job done.

We have the people, the ideas, the energy and the drive to fix what’s not working and take Nova Scotia forward so it again becomes the province we all want it to be.

Here are our three key commitments and priorities for getting that done:

A secure home you can afford

Helping bring down your household costs

Providing better, faster health care

COMMITMENT #1

A secure home you can afford

A good home is the foundation of our lives. It’s at the centre of our kids’ futures, our parents’ security, and our communities’ heart and soul.

But for too many Nova Scotians, housing has become a source of anxiety and insecurity. Can they make next month’s rent? Will their landlord refuse a new lease or evict them in order to jack up the rent for a new tenant?

The simple truth is that the spiralling cost of rent is hurting people across our province, from young families trying to get ahead to seniors on fixed incomes – and everyone in between. And as for the dream of home ownership, that’s now become a pipe dream for most first-time buyers.

And we’re here because Tim Houston picked a side in Nova Scotia’s housing market – and it’s not yours. Think about what he could have done to make your life better – but didn’t. He could have fixed the damage done by the Liberal government when they created a giant fixed-term lease loophole that landlords can use to astronomically hike rents for new tenants. But instead, Tim Houston made things even worse for renters by loosening the rules for evicting current tenants, making it easy for landlords to get those new tenants and the higher rents they pay.

The bottom line is, if you’re a renter in Tim Houston’s Nova Scotia you are vulnerable through no fault of your own.

This one-sided manipulation of the rental market and the housing

This is the Nova Scotia we live in today.

crisis it’s created has to end – and Claudia Chender and the Nova Scotia NDP are the team to do it.

HERE’S OUR PLAN TO GET MORE HOMES BUILT, MAKE THEM MORE AFFORDABLE, PROTECT THE RIGHTS OF RENTERS, AND PUT YOU ON THE PATH TO HOME OWNERSHIP.

Putting an end to spiraling rent increases with rent control by establishing rent control that cuts in half the allowable Tim Houston rate increase (2.5% from 5%).

We’ll also close the Houston fixed-term lease loophole that has allowed landlords to exploit Nova Scotia’s tight rental market and charge double-digit rent increases.

Providing $900 housing rebates for low-income renters and homeowners by bringing in a new rent and mortgage tax rebate for low- and middle-income households. The Affordable Homes Rebate will help hundreds of thousands of renters and homeowners by providing an average annual rebate of $900 when their household incomes are under $70,000 a year – so it will benefit approximately half of all Nova Scotia households.

Protecting renters from unfair evictions and renovictions by reversing the Conservatives loosening of eviction rules, establishing eviction and renoviction protection that works for both tenants and landlords, and creating a new Residential Tenancy Enforcement Unit, as was recommended by the government’s own consultant.

Creating a path to home ownership through a new Rent-to-Own Starter Homes Program that combines more home construction with lower up-front costs for first-time buyers. We’ll work with the growing factory built home construction industry to deliver high quality, energy efficient, affordable homes to first time home buyers with a household income of less than $100,000 per year.

Rents will be used to build equity in the home for the new owner. .

Building more non-market and co-op homes. Claudia Chender and the Nova Scotia NDP are ready to tackle the housing shortage and have set an ambitious initial goal of 30,000 new affordable rental homes. We’ll do it by: Leveraging federal funding to make our province’s dollars go much, much further;

Working with municipalities to identify land they can commit to needed housing construction and to speed up and standardize construction planning and approval timelines, getting to “yes” faster and without delay;

​​​

Enable municipalities to levy a tax on vacant lots that are zoned for residential development but where developers are delaying builds;

Taking meaningful action to tackle homelessness in Nova Scotia beginning with reversing Houston’s rent supplement eligibility decision – a move that’s pushed more people into homelessness – and ensuring no one pays more than 30% of their income on housing costs.

COMMITMENT #2

Helping bring down your household costs

Here’s the problem Nova Scotians have been seeing every day for the past three years: While the sharp increase in interest rates and the cost of living have been hammering Nova Scotians, Tim Houston stayed on the sidelines.

He did nothing to help as he watched Nova Scotia’s poverty rate skyrocket by 52% in his first year in office to 13.1%, higher than any other province or territory in the country. And it’s across the board – we have the highest poverty rate for children, people of working age, and seniors.

He did nothing as rents in Halifax jumped by a record-setting ​​18% in 2023 over two years, or as the reliance on food banks increased by 14% in just a year.

Through all of this, Tim Houston watched. And stayed on the sidelines.

Now with an election, he’s offering 1% off the HST, while the Liberal Party tries to outbid him by offering 2%. What both parties know but aren’t telling you is that a blanket HST reduction benefits their friends, the people who can afford to buy expensive things like new cars and costly furniture.

It does virtually nothing for the 57% of Nova Scotia’s single parents who are classified as food-insecure and trying to simply afford fruits and vegetables for their kids.

WE NEED ACTION NOW TO BRING MONTHLY COSTS DOWN FOR EVERYDAY NOVA SCOTIANS. AND CLAUDIA CHENDER HAS A PLAN TO GET IT DONE.

Providing immediate relief with a Gas Tax Holiday by cutting the gas tax, saving you 15.5 cents per litre at the pump every time you fill up. We will keep this cut in place while inflation is high and as we work to bring down your costs.

​​​Helping reduce your home heating costs by removing the tax off of the purchase and installation of heat pumps, providing upfront savings so that people can make the switch to more efficient power sources.

​​​​​​​​​

Axing unnecessary and outdated licensing fees.

We’ll waive fees for driver’s licences, license plate renewals, basic identification cards, and change of name/ address requests.

Reining in Nova Scotia Power and lowering your power bills. The Nova Scotia Energy Poverty Task Force suggested that a bill assistance discount to income-qualified households of 50% for both electricity and fuel oil. We’ll implement the recommendation, providing a 50% discount on your power bill, for electricity and oil, saving the average household $1,000 annually.

Removing the provincial tax on phone bills, internet and groceries to reduce monthly costs for all Nova Scotians, particularly seniors on fixed incomes and young and single-parent families struggling to get by.

Lowering costs and improving public transit options for commuters by making the Halifax Harbour ferries free. We’ll expand transit options in the HRM by fast-tracking the recommendations included in the HRM Rapid Transit Strategy, including more rapid bus lines, more ferry routes, and more options to get you home to your family faster.

Doubling the Cape Breton Regional Municipality finance grant and making it permanent increasing from $15 to $30 million in the first year.

Raising income assistance rates and helping Nova Scotians make ends meet with an immediate monthly increase of $100. We will tie rates to the annual rate of inflation, and then work with community to develop a long-term Poverty Reduction Strategy for Nova Scotia. We will also move those receiving the “essentials rate” up to the “boarder rate”– nearly doubling the amount that they receive.

THE MONEY YOU COULD SAVE WITH THE NOVA SCOTIA NDP RENTALS REBATE

$900 RENT CONTROL FOR AN AVG. 2BR

$950

TAX OFF INTERNET

$100 GAS TAX HOLIDAY

$400 REIN IN NOVA SCOTIA POWER

$1000/YR

ELIMINATE SENIORS’ PHARMACARE PREMIUMS

$380

TAX OFF HEAT PUMP INSTALLATION

$960

CAREGIVERS TAX CREDIT

$1400/YR

TAX OFF PHONE BILLS TAX OFF OF GROCERIES

$165

$135

COMMITMENT #3

Providing better, faster health care

Three years into his mandate, Tim Houston’s promise to Nova Scotians to fix health care is not just falling short – it’s falling apart.

The wait list for people trying to get a family doctor keeps getting longer and longer. Many have been on the list for more than three years with no end in sight. And things could get even worse as a quarter of our province’s doctors are over age 60 with retirement looming.

Put simply, the total number of doctors in Nova Scotia just isn’t keeping up with demand.

The most recent accountability report shows the number of hours Emergency Rooms were unexpectedly closed jumped 32% in just a year.

And, tragically, our province now has the longest wait time for medically necessary care in the country, at 56.7 weeks.

Tim Houston simply has failed to deliver on his biggest commitment to Nova Scotians.

How much worse could health care be if he’s given another four years?

NOW’S THE TIME FOR REAL ACTION ON MAKING HEALTH CARE WORK BETTER FOR YOU. AND CLAUDIA CHENDER THE NOVA SCOTIA NDP ARE READY TO DELIVER.

Building Family Doctor Clinics around your health care needs. New Democrats will ensure that Nova Scotians can get the health care they need, when they need it. We pioneered doctor clinics, and we’re committed to making primary care available to everyone who needs it, now.

An NDP government will open 15 collaborative Family Doctor Clinics across the province in our first year. These clinics will connect every Nova Scotian currently on the waitlist to primary care.

We will continue to open 15 clinics per year, over three years (total of 45) to ensure doctors and patients can choose where to provide and receive care.

Connecting you to a family doctor faster by moving to automatic, location-based attachments. In a primary care crisis, our priority is to connect patients and doctors as quickly as possible – this universal, automatic attachment model is being seen more and more around the globe as the best way to create primary care connections and the fastest way of reducing family doctor wait times.

Training, attracting and keeping more doctors, nurse practitioners, nurses and other health professionals with a practice-in-NS guarantee.

As part of a realistic and long-term health human resources strategy we’ll develop, new recruitment and retention incentives in return for a long-term Nova Scotia residency guarantee.

Helping the helpers through a refundable income tax credit for caregiving. The vast majority of health care now takes place in the home, provided by friends or family members. Such care needs can be acute, long-term and vary considerably. In order to support as many caregivers as possible, Claudia Chender and the Nova Scotia NDP will create a new Caregivers Tax Credit of $1,400 that can be claimed by any Nova Scotian who is providing ongoing voluntary care to a family member, a friend or a neighbour in the province.

Saving you money on the prescriptions you need.

With costs rising for rent, food and more, we need to make sure people aren’t skipping needed medication because they simply can’t afford it. That’s why Claudia Chender and the Nova Scotia NDP will: Provide free contraceptives;

Eliminate Seniors’ Pharmacare premiums;

Waive the deductible families pay for prescription drugs and devices covered

by Family Pharmacare; and,

Make the HIV prevention medication PrEP universally available to anyone who needs it.

This is an investment that makes sense for people and our province – a single case of HIV costs public health care about $1.5 million, on average to treat; the cost of offering PrEP for free will be about $1.5 million annually.

Reducing costs of cancer care at home. The cost of a 28-day cycle of treatments is upwards of $7,500 but the average monthly household income in Nova Scotia is $5,900. Current programs designed to assist with travel and recovery costs are difficult to access, leaving people with considerable stress, financing their own health care needs. We’ll ensure we live up to the promise of public health care for cancer patients by:

Covering the costs of home cancer drugs through our Nova Scotia Pharmacare program.

Removing hospital parking fees for families with a loved one needing care and the workers providing it.

Defending and expanding access to reproductive health services. We’ll start by making surgical abortion procedures available in underserved regions.

We’ll address delays to abortion access by increasing the number of sonographers across the province. And we’ll reduce the stigma of abortion by regulating anti-choice crisis pregnancy centres and by making health-focussed information more available.

Expanding women’s access to health care including:

Improving maternity care across the province through a new midwifery strategy that increases the number of midwives in Nova Scotia and expands their scope of reproductive and sexual health care services – including more services like IUD insertion and prescribing Mifegymiso – to help ease the pressure on other primary care providers while providing more personalized care for people.

Helping prevent cervical cancer by detecting it earlier. We will provide home self-screening kits to test for the human papillomavirus (HPV) – making it easy for people to proactively detect the virus before it leads to cervical cancer.

Protecting women against health care risks like heart disease and osteoporosis, and reduce the risk of cancer, by providing free menopause treatment with HRT.

Delivering supportive, safe, quality care when a mental health crisis is reported to 911.

When people are in crisis and don’t know where to turn, we’re going to make sure they get the urgent and compassionate care they need. We will fast-track the expansion of civilian-led and health-focused crisis response teams across the province – this will free up police resources and help reduce stigma for those suffering from mental ​​illness.

Our priorities for a better Nova Scotia

As we act urgently on our three key commitments for Nova Scotians, we know there’s more work to do to keep our province moving forward – from action on the climate crisis and better protecting our coastline, to strengthening schools and our kids’ education, to building a strong, prosperous economy with a secure future for Nova Scotia families.

HERE ARE OUR PRIORITIES FOR NOVA SCOTIANS.

Boosting our economy From our thriving agriculture and fisheries industries, to our growing clean technology and innovation sectors, to tourism, forestry, mining, shipbuilding, manufacturing and energy, we will create the conditions for a strong, sustainable economy that attracts the kind of investment and jobs that keep our province growing.

The Houston Conservatives’ economy is one where people are working harder but falling further and further behind. Costs are going up and wages are stagnant.

For Claudia Chender and the NDP, a strong economy is one where everyone is not just getting by but getting ahead. Where life gets a little easier each month, not harder.

Where people like you are rewarded for working hard, with good wages, job security and a safe place to work. That means working with local communities, labour, and First Nations as partners in economic growth and sustainability – because it’s the right thing to do, and because without partnership and reconciliation, uncertainty will continue to delay investment in rural economies and across Nova ​​Scotia.

Helping Nova Scotia small businesses thrive, expand and create jobs. Small businesses are the key to job creation in our province, with employment growth that’s outpacing large businesses by 30% over the past five years. At the same time, though, too many opportunities are being lost due to labour shortages – in fact, Nova Scotia businesses missed out on about $1 billion in potential sales and contracts in 2022 because they didn’t have enough workers. Claudia Chender and the Nova Scotia NDP will give small businesses the shot in the arm they need by:

Cutting the small business tax rate to 1.5% from 2.5%, so businesses can invest more in their growth and hire more workers to take advantage of opportunities.

Creating real incentives to support local business through a buy local program that is inclusive and allows entrepreneurs, rather than corporations, to thrive.

Investing more in training and apprenticeships to help make sure Nova Scotia has the highly skilled and well-qualified workers businesses are looking for.

Protecting our environment So much of what we love about Nova Scotia is at risk because of the impacts of climate change. It’s time for a government that tackles those risks with urgency.

Protecting our diverse coastlines from the Houston government’s decisions that left 13,000 kilometres of coastline vulnerable. We will bring back the Coastal Protection Act, pass and enforce that Act to better protect our coastline from climate change and private development impacts.

Fighting the climate crisis by transitioning Nova Scotia to renewable energy like wind and solar. We’ll also speed up the transition to net-zero buildings and make it easier for people to become part of the solution by offering rebates for moving off coal and fossil fuels for their home heating.

Strengthening public services We’ll make the investments we need to deliver quality, public services and community infrastructure that will support human rights and social inclusion: Delivering more child care where it’s needed. This is an investment that just makes sense for Nova Scotia, because for every dollar invested there is a $2.23 increase in GDP. We’ll establish a pilot program with four new publicly owned and operated child care centres in underserved areas, provide capital funding to schools to provide more child care spaces closer to home for parents, and make child care opportunities fairer for all through a centralized waitlist.

Making schools work better for students, parents, teachers and ​​staff. We believe local voices and accountability to the community are critical for healthy, visionary schools – that’s why we will work with communities to restore a school board model to the province.

We’ll also take immediate action to improve the health and safety of our schools by enforcing indoor air quality standards, requiring regular water quality testing, and providing capital funding to improve student safety and comfort. We’ll act immediately on the Auditor General’s recommendations to reduce school violence which has increased an alarming 60% over the past seven years​​. And we’ll make sure more students get the one-on-one help they need in the classroom by reducing class sizes – that means accelerating new school construction in high-growth areas and using factory construction to build and add entire new, comfortable and energy-efficient classroom wings to existing schools.

Providing better public long-term care for seniors.

We will fast-track long-term care beds for seniors because, right now, there is a shortage of around 2,000 single rooms for seniors needing long-term care.

We will build a single long-term care room for every senior who wants one.

We’ll also take the profit out of long-term care by prohibiting public money from being spent to fund new beds in for-profit homes.

And we’ll improve the care seniors receive by hiring more well-trained care staff so that we increase the minimum daily hours of direct care each resident receives to 4.1 hours.

Providing more support and greater independence for people with disabilities.

We will honour the incredible work of the Disability Rights Coalition by moving forward with vigour and determination in implementing the Remedy, its five-year plan to correct systemic discrimination against persons with disabilities. With a fresh energy from a new government, we can make sure that Nova Scotians with disabilities can lead independent and barrier-free lives.

Standing up for equity seeking groups. Claudia Chender and the NDP will fully fund the 2SLGBTQIA Action Plan in order to fight stigma and discrimination particularly for 2SLGBTQIA youth. We will fund organizations that fight IPV and support Nova Scotians experiencing gender based violence ensure that survivors of sexualized violence have access to trauma-informed counselling. And we’ll end the misuse of Non-Disclosure Agreements and protect victims of sexual assault from the personal and institutional cycles of abuse, bullying, and bad behaviour.

A secure home you can afford

Helping bring down your household costs

Providing better, faster health care Leadership you can believe in Authorized by the Official Agent for the Nova Scotia NDP | 902-423-9217