By Avery Mullen
- Travelling Nurse Program Among Houston’s Healthcare Proposals, Bridge Tolls to Help with “Whack-a-Mole” Traffic Woes
This week, Nova Scotia Progressive Conservative leader Tim Houston campaigned for promises of tax cuts and a new team of travelling nurses for rural communities, though the tax relief proposed by the PCs is less than that suggested by the Liberal Party.
The team of travelling nurses would replace external contractors and be employed directly by Nova Scotia Health, the Tories said in a statement Thursday. After winning his first election as premier via a near single-issue campaign focused on healthcare, Houston has this time around faced attacks from Liberal Party leader Zach Churchill and NDP leader Claudia Chender for not making enough progress. The PCs, in turn, have accused the other two parties of “breaking healthcare.”
In keeping with a campaign that has thus far been heavily focused on the cost of living, Houston also promised to remove tolls from the two bridges spanning Halifax Harbour, the Macdonald and the MacKay, which he said he hopes will also help alleviate traffic congestion around the Bedford Basin. The bridges are operated by a provincial government organization.
“I think there are lots of moving parts in the traffic situation,” said Houston in a press conference. “In many ways, it’s a bit like playing whack-a-mole, but we’ll keep whacking the ones.
“But I’ve certainly been stuck behind people at those tolls who don’t have the right change or whatever. I’ve seen how that backs things up pretty quickly, so I think the focus on moving at least that (traffic) freely through will help.”
Houston has on several occasions told audiences of businesspeople about his intent to cut taxes, citing the need to fund extensive reforms to Nova Scotia’s healthcare system as the main reason why his government could not do so immediately. Now, though, the PCs have promised a one per cent reduction in the harmonized sales tax rate, which would decrease it from 15 to 14 per cent. He has also said he would increase the personal income tax exemption to $11,744 and raise the minimum wage to $16.50 per hour.
The Liberal Party, for its part, has pledged to cut the HST by two per cent, raise the personal income tax exemption to $15,705 and double the basic personal income adjustment for people making less than $75,000.
“Certainly people are struggling. We’ve recognized that with our commitment to cut HST across the board, and of course yesterday with our announcement on personal income tax”, said Houston.
Tim Houston is a Conservative running for re-election on Nov 26th, 2024. (The Notebook)
The travelling nurse team, for its part, would start with a pilot program focused on emergency room nurses, beginning by the end of this year. The pilot team will include 30 nurses, and in a statement, the PCs said the Houston government will budget $5.3 million, while it estimates it would cost $8.2 million to hire the same nurses through contractors.
“When it comes to health care, previous Liberal and NDP Governments did not just kick the can down the road, they kicked it into the next county,” said Houston. “Today Nova Scotia finally has a plan that is working. Cape Bretoners and Nova Scotians deserve to see more doctors and finally have a government that will do what it takes to make it happen.”
Liberal leader Churchill has accused Houston of working at counter purposes with fixing the healthcare system by persisting with his goal to double the provincial population by 2060 despite a shortage of healthcare workers. Other statistics, like the number of new doctors arriving in the province per year and long-term care wait times, have trended in more positive directions since the PCs formed government in 2021.
Houston also hit back this week at criticism he has received about his government’s support of plans to export clean energy products, such as green hydrogen, which is hydrogen fuel manufactured using clean energy, such as wind farms. Green Nova Scotia First, an activist group, has lobbied Houston to require that such hydrogen be used to power Nova Scotia’s own energy transition before selling it for use in other jurisdictions. The province has a goal of reducing emissions by 53 per cent compared to 2003 levels by 2030 and achieving carbon neutrality by 2050.
He added that the economic opportunities offered by exporting hydrogen are too significant to pass up. Two such projects have won environmental approval in Nova Scotia in recent years: the Everwind Fuels plant in Debert and Bear Head Energy’s Point Tupper facility. Everwind plans to eventually produce an annual output of one million tonnes of ammonia, the form in which hydrogen in transported while Bear Head plans to produce 350,000 tonnes of hydrogen and two million tonnes of ammonia.
“I think when we really get to hitting our stride on the energy generation, we will be exporting energy as well. There is lots of potential for that to benefit Nova Scotians — not just in jobs in our community through the buildout, but … imagine if we were a worldwide powerhouse in green hydrogen production. That could be how these (projects) benefit Nova Scotians,” said Houston.
PC Leader Tim Houston at a campaign whistlestop in Bedford West on Sunday, the day he called the NS election for Nov 26th, 2024. (The Notebook).
