Make It Happen by Nova Scotia PC Party

Lower Taxes

Reducing the HST and Income Taxes to make life easier for families and workers in N.S.

PLATFORM 2024

More Doctors

Training and hiring even more doctors with a new Medical School at CBU and an International Medical Graduate Assessment Centre

Higher Wages

Raising the minimum wage, bargaining fairly, and helping you keep more of what you earn.

The only Leader and Party with a real plan to Make It Happen for healthcare, and make life more affordable for you and your family.

It has been the honour of my life to serve the people of Nova Scotia these last three and a half years, and we are just getting started.

Yes, we have made great progress in healthcare and have taken important steps to building the foundation to establish Nova Scotia as a powerhouse for generations to come. Now it’s time for the second phase of the transformation.

We live in the most beautiful place in the world. You’re never more than a few dozen kilometers from the ocean. We have some of the best golf in the world. Our seafood is second to none. Nova Scotia’s wine sector is known globally as the Napa Valley of the East. We are paradise for anyone who loves the outdoors - both in summer and winter. And all of it is surrounded by more than 13,000 kilometers of diverse coastline from rocky cliffs to sandy beaches and incredible hiking trails.

We have it all. So many opportunities. It is only the PC Party that has the vision and the team to unlock and seize our potential. In 2021 we asked you for a mandate to fix healthcare. We will continue to push hard to improve healthcare and see through the many initiatives that are taking root.

As we’re now in our fourth year in office, it’s time to ask Nova Scotians for a second mandate. With your support, we will deliver new investments focused on the everyday lives of Nova Scotians. A more “livable” province where people can get around, secure a good job and live in an affordable, comfortable home.

By voting for your PC candidate on November 26th, we can continue to move the province forward by focusing on lower taxes, more doctors and higher wages.

Thank you for trusting me as your Premier. I hope I will continue to earn your confidence to take Nova Scotia to new heights.

Together, let’s Make it Happen.

Yours truly,

Tim Houston, Leader of the Nova Scotia PC Party

Make It Happen for Healthcare

Healthcare has been the single most important priority of our PC Government since 2021. There is still work to be done, but to date, we have made significant progress by:

Establishing a new medical school at Cape Breton University (CBU) to train 30 new doctors for Nova Scotia each and every year.

Opening the first International Medical Graduate Assessment Clinic in the world that will license around 45 new doctors for Nova Scotia every year.

Opened 31 primary care clinics at pharmacies so Nova Scotians can get easy access to our pharmacists who can diagnose, treat and prescribe for some illnesses.

Hired 265 net new doctors, including 75 net new family doctors.

Hired more than 1,750 net new nurses.

Established a pension plan for doctors to help retain doctors in Nova Scotia.

Expanded virtual care to everyone in Nova Scotia.

Created the YourHealthNS app - a one stop shop for access to care, information, bookings and access to your patient records.

Started a new cardiac catheterization lab in Cape Breton that will save lives of heart patients close to home.

Provided free coverage for sensor-based glucose monitoring sutpplies, saving diabetes patients up to $4,000 a year.

Added 2,200 new long-term care beds and established a policy preventing separating couples in long-term care. We are also on the path to open over 5,700 new and replacement long-term care beds.

Opened 21 new collaborative care clinics and strengthened 53 existing clinics.

Established new mental health day hospitals in Halifax, Sydney and Kentville and new recovery support centres in Dartmouth, New Glasgow and Lunenburg.

Expanded dialysis at the QEII Health Sciences Centre, in Springhill, Shelburne and Richmond County so patients no longer have to travel as far for care.

Made the high dose influenza vaccine free for seniors.

Added four new MRI machines across the province, including a mobile machine to visit underserved areas.

Expanded the emergency department and added a new SPECT/CT scanner at the Yarmouth Regional Hospital.

Bringing a PET-CT scanner to Cape Breton so cancer patients no longer have to travel.

All of these initiatives are playing a part in attaching Nova Scotians to primary care. As the changes become reality, we will continue to pick up steam. Since coming into government in the summer of 2021, we have seen over 92,000 Nova Scotians attached to primary care practitioners.

With the foundation firming up, the number one thing people say is “keep going.” We will.

We are ready to move on to the next phase.

A re-elected PC government will:

Establish an internal travel nursing team, ending the need to hire external companies.

Implement a universal (no cost) shingles program for all Nova Scotians 65 and older, giving free access to the vaccine to everyone.

Support women’s health and create Canada’s first Menopause Centre of Excellence.

Provide free parking at all Nova Scotia Health facilities and the IWK.

Make It Happen for Affordability

Our PC Government recognizes the struggles families are facing with the cost of living, that’s why our Government:

Is cutting the HST for the first time ever in Nova Scotia making the items we buy cheaper.

Provided the biggest tax break by indexing tax brackets and increasing the Basic Personal Amount making sure you bring home more pay.

Created the seniors’ care grant, putting money in the pockets of seniors who need it the most.

Created the More Opportunities for Skilled Trades (MOST) program so high in demand trades workers under the age of 30 pay no provincial income tax on their first $50,000 of income.

Established a Province-wide School lunch program with free lunch for every student.

Is raising minimum wage for hard working Nova Scotians - the largest minimum wage increase of any Nova Scotia government in the province’s history.

Will cap power rate increases to the Canadian average increase.

Make It Happen for our Economy

While lower taxes and higher wages are positive, we need to create the conditions for businesses - and our overall economy - to thrive. That’s why our PC Government will: make it happen for our economy

Decrease the small business tax rate from its current rate of 2.5% down to 1.5%.

Increase the small business threshold from its current $500,000 up to $700,000.

Focus on the smart development of our energy and natural resources sectors through Nova Scotia’s Clean Energy Plan, which will in turn provide more opportunities for families and result in fewer of our children going ‘out

west’ for work. It will make Nova Scotia a world class energy producer in hydrogen and sustainable aviation fuel.

The construction of these two industries will provide a decade of new construction jobs, along with new high paying long-term jobs that will benefit the entire economy and Province.

Make It Happen for Families

Our PC Government:

Is building seven new replacement schools across the province.

Is building four new schools to address the growth in Greater Halifax/Dartmouth and surrounding communities.

Offered new teaching jobs to every Bachelor of Education graduate in Nova Scotia.

Introduced cell phone restrictions in all schools.

Reduced fees for daycare by 50%, with a plan to reduce fees to an average of $10/day by March 31, 2026.

Our PC Government will continue to support young families but we also have to make sure that when our children start going to school, they enter a system that is equipped to provide them with the best education in the country.

In that school community, everyone - be they students, teachers, student aids or administrators - deserves to learn and work in a safe environment. The work the PC Government is doing with partners to finalize an updated Code of Conduct will make schools safer.

To keep our schools safe, we will:

Ensure the new Code of Conduct gives school administrators the power they deserve, including the power to suspend students and address problem behaviours. It will give administrators the ability to use their professional judgement to find the balance between an individual students’ right to education with the broader student bodies’ right to learn in a safe environment.

Hire two police officers to work within the Department of Education and focus exclusively on supporting school teams across the Province with security protocols, incident prevention and incident response.

Make It Happen for Housing

To make housing more affordable and create more supply, our PC Government:

Established the Down Payment Assistance Program to help Nova Scotians who prequalify for a mortgage to buy their first home by providing a loan of up to 5% of the purchase price of a home to help with the down payment.

Developed the province’s first housing plan that will lead to more housing by creating the conditions to help create 41,200 new homes.

Grew affordable housing, creating the conditions to support 17,250 more affordable units.

Built two new community college residences with five more underway.

Removing barriers to housing starts by amending the Halifax Regional Municipality

Charter to shorten the approval process for residential housing developments.

Launched a secondary and backyard suite incentive program to make it more affordable to add on or renovate your home to accommodate housing for more Nova Scotians.

Purchased modular transitional housing for healthcare workers and converted the Wheelhouse Motel in Lunenburg into new housing for healthcare workers.

Protected renters by extending rent caps on residential units.

Made the largest investment in public housing in 30 years.

Our investments and planning are making a difference. We’re making progress on our plan by creating the conditions to build more housing in an effort to provide more options to Nova Scotians. We will continue to open more housing options and make it easier to buy your first home.

To do this, our PC Government will:

Help you buy your first home by creating a First Time Home Owners Program through the Credit Union to decrease the down payment required to only 2%, making home ownership more achievable.

Make vacant land parcels available to communities for $1 on the condition that they be developed into affordable housing options.

We know that housing and transportation go hand in hand and that we need to make generational investments in our transportation system to meet our current housing needs. Our transportation vision will move people. That’s why we are advancing a transportation vision that will allow Nova Scotians to get from more point A’s to more point B’s, faster.

Our plan includes:

Eliminating tolls on Macdonald and MacKay Bridges to improve the flow of traffic in the HRM.

The largest ever investment in HRM roads to ease traffic congestion.

A feasibility study to build light rail for commuters that will give Nova Scotians more of the most precious asset: time. Less time in traffic, less time commuting means more time for what matters most: family and community. Rail routes to be explored will begin with Windsor to Mill Cove, Bedford and in CBRM.