#gary burrill

[allthecanadianpolitics]

NS NDP pledges 10 paid sick days for every worker

Temporary sick leave program from Liberal government expired July 31

It's Day 16 of Nova Scotia's 31-day provincial election campaign.

NDP Leader Gary Burrill says his party, if elected, would require all employers to pay for 10 days of sick leave for Nova Scotia workers.

Burrill highlighted the election pledge, which is part of the platform document the NDP released on the second day of the campaign, at an event Saturday morning.

The promise is a familiar one for watchers of the New Democrats, as Burrill's party has long advocated for universal paid sick leave and tabled legislation to that end last year.

Burrill said COVID-19 underscored the importance of paid sick leave, but he said paid sick leave should not be limited to pandemic times.

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[tepkunset]

To think that there is $4.5 billion floating around that the Justin Trudeau Liberals are able to invest in this project in B.C., when we are left in Nova Scotia in a chronically deepening health-care crisis because they ostensibly did not have the resources to invest in it, is from my point of view an outrage

Gary Burrill, leader of the Nova Scotia NDP

[allthecanadianpolitics]

Nova Scotia NDP promises free NSCC tuition starting this fall if they form government

Free tuition for all NSCC students would cost $30M a year, says NDP

An NDP government would provide free tuition for all Nova Scotia Community College students starting this September, party Leader Gary Burrill said Friday at a campaign announcement at the school's Dartmouth campus.

The $30-million annual commitment would mean free schooling for 11,000 full-time students and 11,000 part-time students at NSCC campuses across Nova Scotia, regardless of which province the students come from. The NDP is also promising a 10 per cent reduction in university tuition over the next four years, which it says will cost the government $9.5 million a year.

"For us, this is not a matter of one thing on a list of things, this is absolutely core to the viability of our province — that we open up the doors of opportunity to a generation who have largely had them shut," Burrill told reporters.

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[allthecanadianpolitics]

Nova Scotia NDP promises to expand midwifery program if elected

Burrill government has committed to invest $6 million over four years

Nova Scotia NDP Leader Gary Burrill says if he's elected, his government will invest $6 million over four years to give more expectant mothers access to midwives.

The investment would allow the province to double its number of practising midwives and create a training program for people who want to become midwives, the NDP said in a news release on Mother's Day.

"We know more and more families in Nova Scotia are looking for a midwife to be part of their pregnancy and delivery," Burrill said in the statement.

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[allthecanadianpolitics]

Plan includes reversing Liberal cuts, reducing wait times

SYDNEY- NDP candidate for Sydney-Whitney Pier Madonna Doucette says for nearly four years the McNeil Liberals have made the crisis in mental health care worse and now people in Cape Breton have some of the longest wait times for help.

“People in Cape Breton are struggling to get the help they need because the McNeil Liberals have been so focused on building a Halifax-centric health authority instead of helping people get mental health supports,” said Doucette. “The NDP will reverse the cuts in mental health and make sure people get the care they need. Families can’t afford to wait any longer.”

An NDP government will:

Open a pilot mental health hub at the emergency department in Sydney to take pressure off of emergency rooms, help people in crisis, and connect them to long-term, community-based care

Reverse the $600,000 in cuts to community based care groups and invest an additional $150,000

Double the initial investment in the Mental Health and Addictions strategy

“Wait times for mental health services have increased under the Liberals, and their cuts have only made the situation worse,” said Doucette. “The NDP will make sure people in Cape Breton living with mental illness and addictions receive the care they deserve.”

[allthecanadianpolitics]

Nova Scotia NDP unveils plan to raise minimum wage to $15 per hour

Plan would be phased in over 3 years and affect 130,000 people, says party

Liam Crouse knows how challenging it is to make ends meet while making minimum wage in Nova Scotia.

The NDP candidate for Hants East watched his family's small tea room in Elmsdale go under in 2007 during the economic collapse. Both his parents had to take on minimum-wage jobs. His dad worked 16 hours a day, but it still wasn't enough to support the family of six.

Crouse's dad eventually went West seeking work, but their struggle continued.

"In 2014, my family for the first time had to use a food bank because we could not afford to put food on our table," Crouse said Thursday during a media event in Halifax.

Today, Crouse earns minimum wage as a security guard, and his mom and two of his siblings work minumum-wage jobs. They still struggle to pay off the debt from when the business collapsed.

It's stories such as Crouse's that inspire one of the NDP's central campaign planks: raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour within three years.

Nova Scotia's minimum wage increased by 15 cents in April and now stands at $10.85 per hour, the third-lowest rate in the country.

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[allthecanadianpolitics]

What’s next for the NDP? (Nova Scotia)

Gary Burrill and the New Democrats want to invest in the future, while learning lessons from the past.

So it’s the homestretch of the provincial election and a guy, a proud NDP supporter, asks Gary Burrill how it’s all going. 
“We’re going to put our head down and give her all we’ve got,” the party leader replies. 

The guy, Burrill later recalls, wasn’t too impressed with that answer. “Oh no, Gary,” he says. “That won’t do. You’ve got to give it more than everything you’ve got.” Four years ago the NDP government was demolished, it’s supporters decimated, the party left clinging to life. But what’s past is prologue. The implosion, and a lengthy leadership race, forced some very serious self-examination, says Burrill. Through that crucible, the NDP emerged with a renewed purpose–to invest in the province, and its people. Four years later the question isn’t what happened. It’s what comes next? This is a rare moment for the province, says Burrill. One that “calls for the opposite of the cutting back, and pruning back and taking away” that’s been the flavour of the Liberals. The Darrell Dexter’s government doesn’t come up when knocking doors, not because people have forgotten—or forgiven—but because it’s just not the issue of the moment. “There have been these great betrayals,” says Burrill. “A tidal wave of opportunism has washed away whatever Liberal principles may have at one time existed in that party.”

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[allthecanadianpolitics]

Nova Scotia NDP promises $15-a-day child care plan

Leader Gary Burrill said his party would also provide free child care to families whose net income is less than $30,000 annually.

Nova Scotia New Democrats are promising to bring in $15-a-day child care beginning next year if they win the May 30 provincial election, a pledge the other parties quickly dismissed as likely beyond the province's means.

Party leader Gary Burrill also said Tuesday that his party would provide free child care to families whose net income is less than $30,000 annually and create 400 new spaces across the province.

Burrill says average monthly fees for licensed care currently are in the range of $825 for a toddler and $781 for a pre-schooler, and parents need more assistance.

"We know that parents face few struggles as widespread and difficult as the struggle to find affordable, quality child care for their kids," he said.

He says the program would lead to the creation of about 800 jobs either as a result of the direct hiring of child care workers or as a result of parents being able to work.

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