Canadian among group pushing Vatican to adopt zero-tolerance policy for clergy abuse

HALIFAX – Nova Scotia Liberal Leader Zach Churchill says if his party is elected to govern on Tuesday, it would develop a comprehensive housing strategy for seniors.

Churchill made the announcement Wednesday at Liberal headquarters in Halifax before heading off on his campaign bus to his riding in Yarmouth, N.S.

The proposed strategy, part of the Liberals’ previously announced platform, calls for developing small, walkable communities that offer “wellness supports” for seniors.

The platform also says a Liberal government would work with non-profit agencies to ensure there is affordable housing available for seniors.

As well, Churchill wants to make it easier for healthy seniors to stay in their homes longer.

“We’ll increase funding for programs that help seniors upgrade their homes to meet their changing needs, whether that’s adding a ramp or widening a hallway,” he said. The platform calls for spending $5 million over four years on adapting existing housing.

“Our seniors aren’t just sitting around waiting for long-term care. Our seniors are the bulk of our volunteer force. They’re keeping many service organizations going.”

Churchill said a Liberal government would also review the property tax system, which he says penalizes seniors who want to downsize. In particular, he said the residential deed transfer tax had to be changed.

The Liberals are also promising to double the province’s annual seniors care grant to $1,500 and expand eligibility for the grant by increasing the maximum annual household income threshold to $50,000 from $45,000.

“This will help with paying for the essential expenses like home repairs, phone bills, transportation,” he said.

In the past three years, an average of 32,400 seniors received the existing $750 grant each year. The total cost for the program during this fiscal year is expected to be almost $27 million. The Liberals’ proposed changes would more than double that cost to about $59 million annually.

As well, Churchill is promising to spend an additional $10 million annually to improve the working conditions of homecare workers, a move the Liberals say would help eliminate a current staffing shortage.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 20, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

HALIFAX – Nova Scotia NDP Leader Claudia Chender doesn’t make a habit of getting kicked out of the legislature — it’s happened once in her seven-year political career.

But last fall, when a Progressive Conservative minister said children across the province had access to free, healthy food in schools, Chender — knowing that statement wasn’t true — couldn’t help but blurt out, “that’s a lie.”

In response, the Speaker of the Nova Scotia house of assembly demanded Chender retract her unparliamentary language, but she wouldn’t. As a result, she was booted from the legislature.

“Theatrics really aren’t my thing, but at that moment it felt really important to me,” Chender said in a recent interview.

“I think you don’t have anything in politics if you don’t have your integrity.”

Chender, 48, a non-practising lawyer and mother of three, said she jumped into politics in 2017 because she got tired of yelling at the radio. She had strong opinions about the improvements needed in health care and in the education sector, which had recently gone through a one-day teachers strike in February 2017 — the first time teachers walked off the job in the province’s history.

Inspired by former NDP leader Alexa McDonough — who in 1980 became first woman to lead a major Nova Scotia political party — Chender put her name forward as a candidate for Dartmouth South. At the time, her twin daughters, Molly and Ana, were five years old and her son Sam was three.

“In my young life I saw people like Alexa McDonough who had been that powerful voice, who had brought the frustrations of everyday folks into the political arena in a really successful way,” she said.

Those frustrations were on display at the legislature on Oct. 13, 2023. Chender was listening to Education Minister Becky Druhan, who said kids in Nova Scotia already had access to free food. It would be a year before the province’s school lunch program began accepting food orders.

Chender’s exclamation — “that’s a lie” — came out of frustration, she said. “I really thought I was just saying that to myself.” 

Despite apologizing multiple times for using unparliamentary language, Chender would not take back what she said. 

“This is a job where you need to represent the people of the province and your constituents as well as you can. And the fact of the matter is, what I said was true,” Chender said.

“Kids didn’t have access to healthy food. Amazingly, they do now, which is fantastic and maybe not totally disconnected from that sequence of events.”

Born and raised in Halifax, Chender graduated with a bachelor of arts from Dalhousie University in 1999. She earned a law degree from the University of Victoria in 2004, and has worked as a legal educator with the Nova Scotia Barrister’s Society, as an associate publisher for a non-profit media company, and as a consultant in organizational design and development. 

She and her husband Jamie moved to Dartmouth in 2012 to start a family. 

Throughout the election campaign, Chender’s NDP has emphasized plans to address Nova Scotia’s housing crisis and high cost of living, with a platform that includes building 30,000 affordable rental homes, making Halifax ferries free, and temporarily removing the provincial portion of the harmonized sales tax on gasoline. 

The party has also pledged to remove the HST from the cost of home heating and build 500 houses using prefabricated construction for a rent-to-own home program that would be available to people who make less than $100,000 a year.

The Nova Scotia NDP started the campaign with a full slate of 55 candidates, but lost one along the way, announcing earlier this month that Tammy Jakeman was no longer running in Eastern Passage, after the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs alleged she had made “hurtful” social media posts.

Elections Nova Scotia lists Jakeman as an Independent candidate for the same riding. 

When asked about Jakeman’s comments and departure from the party, Chender said the former candidate offered her resignation “and we respected her decision,” adding that the resignation came without the party asking for it. 

“It really starts and ends there. We are in a 30-day election campaign and we must remain focused on the conversations we’re having with voters.”

Those conversations, Chender said, are most often focused on affordability, health and housing, and she feels the party’s message is resonating.

“People want to see a government that actually protects renters and builds housing they can afford. People want to see the primary care wait-list shrink … and people need a break on their bills,” she said.

Recent polls have indicated a tight race between the NDP and Liberals for second place, and a new poll released Wednesday has the New Democrats pulling ahead.

The survey, conducted by Narrative Research between Nov. 4 and 17 with a sample of 800 eligible voters, has the Progressive Conservatives in the lead with support of 44 per cent of respondents. The NDP is behind them with 28 per cent support, and the Liberals are in third place with 24 per cent. The poll has a margin of error of 3.5 percentage points, 95 times out of 100.

Chender said she doesn’t put much stock in polls, and feels strong going into next week’s vote alongside the NDP’s “hard-working candidates from one end of the province to the other, who are talking about the things that really matter, who are the ones people trust to actually address the housing crisis.” 

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 20, 2024. 

FERGUS FALLS – The trial of two men accused of human smuggling is getting a look at messages the prosecution says prove the pair conspired to sneak people across the Canada-United States border.

Steve Shand and Harshkumar Patel have pleaded not guilty to charges of organizing several illegal crossings of Indian nationals from Manitoba to Minnesota in late 2021 and early 2022.

During one of their alleged operations, a family of four froze to death just north of the border in a blizzard.

The trial was shown text and social media messages sent between two cellphones registered to Shand and a phone number that matches one Patel had submitted when he earlier applied for residency in the U.S.

In one exchange in December 2021, a message from Shand’s phone said it was “cold as hell” followed by, “They going to be alive when they get here?”

The other phone responded that they would send their location. 

A criminal analyst with Homeland Security Investigations showed other messages that had been extracted from phone records as well as bank deposits that showed money being put into an account that belonged to Shand and his wife.

Shand’s lawyers have said he was simply a taxi driver who was unaware he was doing anything illegal until the day the family of four died.

Patel’s lawyers have said he has been misidentified as a participant in human smuggling. 

On Jan. 19, 2022, U.S. border patrol arrested Shand just south of the border. He was driving a van with two people from India inside. Five other migrants soon emerged from a field, one of them suffering severe hypothermia in temperatures that felt colder than -30 C with the wind.

Hours later, RCMP found the frozen bodies of a family — Jagdish Patel, 39; his wife, Vaishaliben Patel, 37; their 11-year-old daughter, Vihangi; and their three-year-old son, Dharmik. The Patels were not related to one of the accused who has the same last name.

The boy’s body was cradled in his father’s arms. 

The trial earlier heard from Rajinder Paul Singh, who said he worked as a human smuggler for eight years, mostly getting people across the border between British Columbia and Washington state, for a man named Fenil Patel, who is also not related to the family who died.

Singh testified that Fenil Patel told him he had received a phone call from the family who died, and the family said it was too cold to continue. Singh said Patel told the family to turn around and he would have someone pick them up where they started, but it was a lie because there was no one to pick them up.

Indian authorities said last year they were working to extradite Fenil Patel and another Canadian to face charges in that country.

Singh’s testimony for the prosecution was challenged by defence lawyers, who suggested he was co-operating in hope of special treatment. Singh told court he has three convictions for smuggling and fraud and is facing deportation.

“What you want is to not go back to prison and to stay (in the United States),” Thomas Plunkett, a lawyer for Harshkumar Patel said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 20, 2024.

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