MILFORD: The leader of the NDP spoke about a safe return to school; speeding on Hwy 2 in the Corridor and Fall River/Wellington areas; affordable housing; and East Hants healthcare during questioning from The Laker News.
Gary Burrill was campaigning with Hants East NDP candidate Abby Cameron on Aug. 6 in Milford and Shubenacadie. During a supper break at The Full Nelson in Milford, Burrill took some time to chat with The Laker News.
BACK-TO-SCHOOL PLAN WITH COVID LINGERING
With education and a safe return-to-school plan having not been discussed by any of the leaders, we asked Burrill if elected as premier, what would an NDP plan look like for a safe back to school return with COVID-19 still in our midst and if he would mandate that school staff get vaccinated.
“The first thing to say about this is that we have in Nova Scotia been very well served by our public health authorities, and this is a matter where we need to take guidance from them,” said Burrill. “So that’s where we have our epidemiologists and immunologists and virologists. These are people who have a proven track record over a year-and-a-half of understanding what’s needed in Nova Scotia and the kind of guidance that we should be given.”
He said an NDP government would rely on the guidance of public health, but he does think parents and educators need time to know what is taking place.
“I would also say I think that it would be very important to make sure that whatever path is going to be followed, that both parents and students have lots of lead time and lots of information ahead of time,” said Burrill. “This is an area where the Liberal Party has fallen some short through Covid.
“Lots of information, lots of lead time, no last-minute turns, but relying completely on public health.”
LOWERING SPEED LIMITS
Burrill said the NDP have introduced legislation that would give municipalities across the province the right to regulate speed limits for themselves.
“We think that that’s something that municipalities shouldn’t have to turn to the provincial government to do every time they want to do that,” he said. “That if a municipality wants to, for example, bring in a 40 or 45, 35 speed limit, that they ought to have that authority to make that kind of a decision.
“That’s how we look at it.”
VIDEO interview edited by DAGLEY MEDIA.
EAST HANTS FAMILY DOCTORS
Burrill said the Liberals have “failed spectacularly” in regard to families losing doctors and almost 70,000 Nova Scotians not having one.
“We think about the fact that they came into office eight years ago with the primary commitment that they would provide a doctor for everybody in the province,” he said. “Yet, we see in the last couple of days that the needed family doctor registry has gone up to just over 70,000 people. So, this matter has been neglected over these eight years, particularly in the early years of the Liberal mandate when they concentrated so much effort on creating a consolidated health authority, when really there were many other issues that needed to be attended to, including providing doctors and primary care.”
He said the fix won’t happen overnight, either, so Nova Scotians should be aware of that and not expect as much.
“It’s a complex matter. I certainly will acknowledge that. But we do need to understand it. It is a problem,” said Burrill. “The doctor shortage, the primary care shortage that is amenable to solution. One of the main solutions is to do like many other jurisdictions, which are similar to Nova Scotia, and that is to bring in the position of physician assistants like in the United States.”
He said physician assistants are usually called physician extenders. They take up to about 30 percent of the doctors more routine responsibilities so that the doctor is able, in fact, to have a caseload of 30 percent more than they might otherwise.
“It’s really a matter of working in primary care to make sure all primary care providers, doctors are family practice nurses, pharmacists and others are able to work to the full scope of their practice.
“But in particular, we don’t have physician assistants working to any scope of practice at all. And that’s a step we need to take.”
HEALTHCARE IN EAST HANTS, WAVERLEY-FALL RIVER-BEAVER BANK
Cameron said at the doorstep she’s been hearing about lifelong residents that have been along the shore in the more rural areas of East Hants learning they no longer have a family doctor.
“All of a sudden they find themselves without a doctor,” she said. “They’re concerned about where they go next and what they’re going to do to get their health care and just having to go out of the community to find that. That’s a little inaccessible to a lot of them that don’t want to go to too far.”
She said young families moving into the corridor are now also finding themselves in the same predicament because of the Liberal governments inaction.
Interview with Abby Cameron. Edited by Dagley Media
AFFORDABLE HOUSING
Both Burrill and Cameron say affordable housing has also been a topic they’re hearing a lot on as they canvassed.
“The first thing that people need to understand is that the housing crisis is not an urban problem,” said Burrill. “It’s not even an economic and security problem. It’s not a city problem. There are lower vacancy rates in big parts of the South Shore, the Valley, and Hants County than there are in Halifax today.”
He said this is having this tremendous upward pressure on rents in an unregulated environment.
“We believe in permanent rent control,” he said. “We think that this is a system for regulating sudden, dramatic, unsubstantiated rent increases that a majority of Canadians have the benefit of. And we ought to have it here in Nova Scotia.>’
It was something N.S. had until the middle 90s when a previous Liberal government did away with it, said Burrill.
“If we’re able to be successful in this election, we’re going to bring it back,” he said.
