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Stephen Schneider's      Candidate Blog

A brief summary of my activities as the NDP candidate for Kings-Hants, including events I have attended.

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Meet with the Annapolis Valley Labour Council, May 27

5/30/2019

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On Monday, May 27 I met with the Annapolis Valley Labour Council, one of five regional councils in the province that is affiliated with the Nova Scotia Federation of Labour.

After being introduced by Council President Wayne Kelly, I spoke about my commitment to the labour movement and collective bargaining rights. I talked about how I grew up in a union household - my father was in the Operating Engineers for 35 years, and was the shop steward for many of those years. It wasn't until I was a little older that I realized that whatever middle class prosperity we enjoyed it was due to a combination of my father's hard work (and long hours) and his union wage. After being retired for more than 20 years, my father still collects a generous union pension.

I have also been involved in the union movement; when I worked in the fishing industry on the west coast during my teenage years and now as a university professor. Indeed, I am a member of two unions: the Saint Mary's Faculty Union (where i have served on the executive) and the Acadia University Faculty Association.

My meeting with the Labour Council was the first step in building whatever ties I can between my campaign and organized labour in Kings Hants and to use the campaign to highlight the importance of unions in Canada (and how critical they are to helping ensure a prosperous middle class). Of course, being in campaign mode I made a plea for volunteers, donations and sign locations.

Ultimately, one of the goals of my campaign is to build a coalition of and solidarity with like-minded progressive groups and individuals in the riding, including organized labour, environmental groups, anti-poverty groups, women's groups, the LGBTQ2+ community, etc.

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Redevelopment of Historic Windsor Textiles Building

5/15/2019

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An article in the Hants Journal entitled "‘High hopes’ for historic landmark: Redevelopment of Nova Scotia Textiles plant could serve as catalyst for Windsor’s growth" is of great interest to me as the NDP candidate for King-Hants in the federal election.

If I am elected the Member of Parliament, I would advocate for federal funding (via the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency) to help redevelop and repurpose the building as part of a broader economic development plan for the town. In addition to the federal government, other key partners in this redevelopment should include provincial and town governments, the Annapolis Valley Chamber of commerce as well as our local post-secondary institutions, to name just a few.

Government involvement in the redevelopment of the Windsor site is essential given that reclaiming, flood-hardening and decontaminating the building will not be cheap.

The ultimate goal of this partnership would be to foster economic innovation through start-ups or existing private sector firms, cooperatives or social enterprises. This innovation should be geared towards future growth industries (e.g., robotics, health care, green technology, etc.).
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My thinking about the Windsor textile mill is very much informed by my time in Philadelphia where I helped to rejuvenate and re-populate old (brick) light industrial buildings as a graduate student in community development at the University of Pennsylvania.

Ultimately, the success we enjoyed in Philadelphia was the result of a partnership approach that involved numerous stakeholders: landowners, municipal, state, and federal governments; the local chamber of commerce; local and national companies; the university; as well as community groups that represented the poor neighbourhoods living close to the furloughed industrial parks.

Each partner had a key role to play in the re-development, but all shared a common vision: redevelop the buildings to maintain their historic character while repurposing them for innovation in the future economy that can also cater to the economic and employment needs of the local community.

As Antoine van Agtmael and Fred Bakker write in their book, "The Smartest Places on Earth," towns that have been successful in revitalizing their economies have done so through "a process of innovation and the creation of products that involved collegial collaboration, open exchange of information, partnerships between the worlds of business and academia, multidisciplinary initiatives, and ecosystems composed of an array of important players, all working closely together."

The Windsor textile building and Kings-Hants as a whole can become one of the smartest places on earth. As your MP, I will work to make this type of innovative, partnership-based, sustainable economic development a reality.
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Kings-Hants NDP Annual General Meeting, May 5

5/11/2019

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On Sunday, May 5, I was the keynote speaker at the Kings-Hants NDP Annual General Meeting. In my speech, I noted that our party has some wind at its back - both locally and nationally - in the run-up to the federal election in October. Due to the resignation of Liberal MP Scott Brison, this election will be the first time in many years there is no incumbent running in  Kings Hants. I also touched on the slide in the popularity of the Liberal Party and the Prime Minister  nationally and in Atlantic Canada due to scandals of their own making (giving me the opportunity to use one of my  favourite Tommy Douglas quotes). 

"The Liberals talk about a stable government but we don't know how bad the stable is going to  smell."
​- Tommy Douglas

The shift to the right of the Conservative Party under Stephen Harper and now Andrew Scheer has meant they have lost support among many in Kings-Hants who have traditionally voted for the Progressive Conservative Party (there is not much progressive about the current Conservative Party). Since the Conservative Party shifted their main locus of support to Alberta, it has become clear that they are in the back pocket of big oil. This is on full display with their calls to expand oil production, build more pipelines, and oppose a carbon tax. Equally distressing is the prospect of electing yet another right-wing reactionary conservative government in this country (joining the far-right United Conservative Party in Alberta and the Conservatives in Ontario). 

The increased popularity of the Green Party (a party I respect) no doubt poses a threat to the NDP at the ballot box, but at least in Atlantic Canada their poll numbers seem to have stagnated while the NDP's numbers have increased.

I ended my talk by calling for the NDP to be the party that must put forth bold, innovative, progressive policies in the upcoming federal election. We must be the party that: 
  • embraces the tenets of the Green New Deal; 
  • is truly committed to a national Pharmacare plan while guarding against the creeping privatization of our healthcare system; 
  • get fully behind a policy of basic income guarantees to address poverty and income inequality; 
  • gives First Nations the self-determination they deserve and where we can work on a government-to-government basis; 
  • ensure the one percent and big corporations pay their fair share of taxes and do not undermine our democracy through their power;
  • promotes equality in this country whether it is for women,  people of colour, Indigenous peoples, and the LBGTQ2 community; and 
  • stands up to neo-conservatives (alt-right) whether that is the Conservative Party of Canada or the crypto-fascist Republican cult under Donald Trump.
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Road to Recovery Walk, May 4, 2019

5/7/2019

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Thanks Ed for inviting me to participate in the annual Road To Recovery Walk, sponsored by the Kings County Schizophrenia Society. I agree we need to do more to erase the stigma associated with Schizophrenia and other mental health disorders. There is a looming national crisis in the scope of mental health problems especially among our young people. I sense this with my students at SMU and this is prevalent among the at-risk and court-ordered youth I work with. More money must be invested into programs that help PREVENT mental health problems from occurring during adolescence, such as Friends for Life, a curriculum I have used with success in my work with kids from high-risk environments.
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    Stephen Schneider

    Kings Hants NDP Candidate Blog

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