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Nova Scotia Premier Stephen McNeil to step down after 17 years in politics

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Nova Scotia Premier Stephen McNeil announced Thursday he will step down.

McNeil was first elected in 2003 as MLA for Annapolis and has been premier since 2013.

“Seventeen years is a long time,” he said at a media availability that was broadcast live following a cabinet meeting, “and it’s long enough.”

McNeil said he had made the decision to resign prior to the coronavirus pandemic, but he reconsidered when the virus arrived in Nova Scotia in March.

“All of those plans were put on hold, and I gave this my all. I spent five weeks here without ever getting home to my own property and my own home. [I was] away from my family because I was working with Public Health and with our team to try to get control of it.”

McNeil said he will continue to act as premier and Liberal Party leader until the party chooses a replacement. He said he expected a leadership campaign to take months. Nova Scotia does not have fixed election dates but is due for an election by 2022.

“We’re at a position right now where I felt the window for me to — I either had to say I was going, or I was too late.”

The long-serving politician is in his second term of a majority government. He said he feels two terms is a long time for one person to hold that responsibility and for the province to have the same leader.

 

McNeil makes a campaign stop at a farmers’ market in Bedford, N.S., in May 2017. (The Canadian Press)

 

‘This is not a lifelong career’

Before announcing his resignation, McNeil gave a seven-minute speech rounding up his time in office and took questions from reporters for more than 30 minutes.

McNeil said he didn’t pursue politics with the ambition to become party leader or premier.

“I ran in the first case wanting to change the community and help support the community I live in, one that I was raised in and one where our kids were raised,” he said.

Before being elected as MLA for his rural community, McNeil owned and operated a small appliance repair business.

When he was first elected, the Liberals were the third-ranking party in the province behind the governing Progressive Conservatives and opposition NDP.

McNeil was leader when the party became the Official Opposition in 2009, and then defeated the governing New Democrats in 2013 to form a majority government.

 

McNeil at his campaign headquarters in Bridgetown, N.S., on election night in 2013 after winning the provincial election. McNeil is joined by his children, Colleen and Jeffrey, and his wife Andrea. (Mike Dembeck/The Canadian Press)

 

“I spent the last six years doing what I think is in the best interest of all Nova Scotians,” he said Thursday.

McNeil touched on some of the polarizing decisions he and his government have made, including imposing contracts on several public-sector unions.

“Of course we all remember the unions rallying around Province House. That wasn’t an easy time. We asked our public-sector unions to take less — not take nothing, just take less.”

He connected those spending decisions to his government’s track record for balancing the budget, which is a point of pride often touted by McNeil. His government’s latest budget, passed in March, was balanced at the time before being blown apart by COVID-19.

 

 

Health care was a hot-button issue in Nova Scotia even before the pandemic, with constant criticism from opposition parties about McNeil’s handling of a shortage of physicians and scrutiny of plans to redevelop the province’s largest hospital system.

In his remarks Thursday, McNeil highlighted that his government is spending hundreds of millions of dollars on the hospital project.

McNeil said he celebrated his 17th anniversary in elected office on Wednesday.

“I love this job. I’ve enjoyed every day of it, and every day I’m inspired by the people of this province. But this is not a lifelong career.”

McNeil said he doesn’t have any plans lined up for when he steps away from public office.

 

McNeil at a recent COVID-19 press briefing. (Communications Nova Scotia)

 

A ‘historic day’

Leaders from both of the province’s opposition parties offered well wishes to McNeil in statements after his announcement.

“The premier and his family deserve thanks for their sacrifices during a life dedicated to public service. Seventeen years is a long time at any job. Seventeen years as an elected official serving our province is a remarkable accomplishment,” said Tim Houston, leader of the Official Opposition Progressive Conservatives.

NDP Leader Gary Burrill said Thursday marked a “historic day.”

“I have valued the opportunity to debate Premier McNeil on the issues that matter most to people in our communities. Although we have frequently differed over the path forward for our province, we have enjoyed a relationship of mutual respect.”

Once McNeil officially steps down, the 55-year-old will immediately qualify for a $120,000-a-year pension.

 

McNeil gets a kiss from a supporter at his election night celebration in Bridgetown, N.S., in 2017. (Andrew Vaughan/The Canadian Press)

 

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Source: – CBC.ca

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Alberta Premier Smith aims to help fund private school construction

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EDMONTON – Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says her government’s $8.6-billion plan to fast-track building new schools will include a pilot project to incentivize private ones.

Smith said the ultimate goal is to create thousands of new spaces for an exploding number of new students at a reduced cost to taxpayers.

“We want to put all of the different school options on the same level playing field,” Smith told a news conference in Calgary Wednesday.

Smith did not offer details about how much private school construction costs might be incentivized, but said she wants to see what independent schools might pitch.

“We’re putting it out there as a pilot to see if there is any interest in partnering on the same basis that we’ll be building the other schools with the different (public) school boards,” she said.

Smith made the announcement a day after she announced the multibillion-dollar school build to address soaring numbers of new students.

By quadrupling the current school construction budget to $8.6 billion, the province aims to offer up 30 new schools each year, adding 50,000 new student spaces within three years.

The government also wants to build or expand five charter school buildings per year, starting in next year’s budget, adding 12,500 spaces within four years.

Currently, non-profit independent schools can get some grants worth about 70 per cent of what students in public schools receive per student from the province.

However, those grants don’t cover major construction costs.

John Jagersma, executive director of the Association of Independent Schools and Colleges of Alberta, said he’s interested in having conversations with the government about incentives.

He said the province has never directly funded major capital costs for their facilities before, and said he doesn’t think the association has ever asked for full capital funding.

He said community or religious groups traditionally cover those costs, but they can help take the pressure off the public or separate systems.

“We think we can do our part,” Jagersma said.

Dennis MacNeil, head of the Public School Boards Association of Alberta, said they welcome the new funding, but said money for private school builds would set a precedent that could ultimately hurt the public system.

“We believe that the first school in any community should be a public school, because only public schools accept all kids that come through their doors and provide programming for them,” he said.

Jason Schilling, president of the Alberta Teachers’ Association, said if public dollars are going to be spent on building private schools, then students in the public system should be able to equitably access those schools.

“No other province spends as much money on private schools as Alberta does, and it’s at the detriment of public schools, where over 90 per cent of students go to school,” he said.

Schilling also said the province needs about 5,000 teachers now, but the government announcement didn’t offer a plan to train and hire thousands more over the next few years.

Alberta NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi on Tuesday praised the $8.6 billion as a “generational investment” in education, but said private schools have different mandates and the result could be schools not being built where they are needed most.

“Using that money to build public schools is more efficient, it’s smarter, it’s faster, and it will serve students better,” Nenshi said.

Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides’ office declined to answer specific questions about the pilot project Wednesday, saying it’s still under development.

“Options and considerations for making capital more affordable for independent schools are being explored,” a spokesperson said. “Further information on this program will be forthcoming in the near future.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 18, 2024.

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Health Minister Mark Holland appeals to Senate not to amend pharmacare bill

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OTTAWA – Health Minister Mark Holland urged a committee of senators Wednesday not to tweak the pharmacare bill he carefully negotiated with the NDP earlier this year.

The bill would underpin a potential national, single-payer pharmacare program and allow the health minister to negotiate with provinces and territories to cover some diabetes and contraceptive medications.

It was the result of weeks of political negotiations with the New Democrats, who early this year threatened to pull out of their supply-and-confidence deal with the Liberals unless they could agree on the wording.

“Academics and experts have suggested amendments to this bill to most of us here, I think,” Independent Senator Rosemary Moodie told Holland at a meeting of the Senate’s social affairs committee.

Holland appeared before the committee as it considers the bill. He said he respects the role of the Senate, but that the pharmacare legislation is, in his view, “a little bit different.”

“It was balanced on a pinhead,” he told the committee.

“This is by far — and I’ve been involved in a lot of complex things — the most difficult bit of business I’ve ever been in. Every syllable, every word in this bill was debated and argued over.”

Holland also asked the senators to move quickly to pass the legislation, to avoid lending credence to Conservative critiques that the program is a fantasy.

When asked about the Liberals’ proposed pharmacare program for diabetes and birth control, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has often responded that the program isn’t real. Once the legislation is passed, the minister must negotiate with every provincial government to actually administer the program, which could take many months.

“If we spend a long time wordsmithing and trying to make the legislation perfect, then the criticism that it’s not real starts to feel real for people, because they don’t actually get drugs, they don’t get an improvement in their life,” Holland told the committee.

He told the committee that one of the reasons he signed a preliminary deal with his counterpart in British Columbia was to help answer some of the Senate’s questions about how the program would work in practice.

The memorandum of understanding between Ottawa and B.C. lays out how to province will use funds from the pharmacare bill to expand on its existing public coverage of contraceptives to include hormone replacement therapy to treat menopausal symptoms.

The agreement isn’t binding, and Holland would still need to formalize talks with the province when and if the Senate passes the bill based on any changes the senators decide to make.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 18, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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Nova Scotia NDP accuse government of prioritizing landlord profits over renters

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HALIFAX – Nova Scotia’s NDP are accusing the government of prioritizing landlords over residents who need an affordable place to live, as the opposition party tables a bill aimed at addressing the housing crisis.

NDP Leader Claudia Chender took aim at the Progressive Conservatives Wednesday ahead of introducing two new housing bills, saying the government “seems to be more focused on helping wealthy developers than everyday families.”

The Minister of Service Nova Scotia has said the government’s own housing legislation will “balance” the needs of tenants and landlords by extending the five per cent cap on rent until the end of 2027. But critics have called the cap extension useless because it allows landlords to raise rents past five per cent on fixed-term leases as long as property owners sign with a new renter.

Chender said the rules around fixed-term leases give landlords the “financial incentive to evict,” resulting in more people pushed into homelessness. She also criticized the part of the government bill that will permit landlords to issue eviction notices after three days of unpaid rent instead of 15.

The Tories’ housing bill, she said, represents a “shocking admission from this government that they are more concerned with conversations around landlord profits … than they are about Nova Scotians who are trying to find a home they can afford.”

The premier’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Also included in the government’s new housing legislation are clearer conditions for landlords to end a tenancy, such as criminal behaviour, disturbing fellow tenants, repeated late rental payments and extraordinary damage to a unit. It will also prohibit tenants from subletting units for more than they are paying.

The first NDP bill tabled Wednesday would create a “homelessness task force” to gather data to try to prevent homelessness, and the second would set limits on evictions during the winter and for seniors who meet income eligibility requirements for social housing and have lived in the same home for more than 10 years.

The NDP has previously tabled legislation that would create a $500 tax credit for renters and tie rent control to housing units instead of the individual.

Earlier this week landlords defended the use of the contentious fixed-term leases, saying they need to have the option to raise rent higher than five per cent to maintain their properties and recoup costs. Landlord Yarviv Gadish, who manages three properties in the Halifax area, called the use of fixed-term leases “absolutely essential” in order to keep his apartments presentable and to get a return on his investment.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 18, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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