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This page provides a forum for posts from the Kings Hants NDP executive, members and supporters.

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For the Record: My Approach to the Climate Crisis

9/17/2021

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Climate change is the gravest existential crisis we face today.  
 
Just this summer alone we have witnessed epic droughts, record temperatures, massive forest fires, stronger and more frequent hurricanes leading to immense flooding, and the accelerated melting of the polar ice caps.

The consequences of climate change that were predicted to occur 20 or 30 years in the future are happening now. Extreme weather patterns that are supposed to happen once every 500 years are occurring every year.

These are all linked to climate change and some of effects are already irreversible.

The 2021 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change makes it clear once-and-for-all that we are at a turning point and we must act decisively now.
 
More information on the NDP’s strategy to address the climate crisis can be found here. 
 
As an MP, addressing the climate crisis and lowering greenhouse gas emissions will be my number one priority, including:
  • pushing for significant investments into renewable energy and zero emission vehicles, buildings, manufacturing, and farming, and
  • the complete elimination of both fossil fuel consumption and production in Canada. 

As the MP for Kings-Hants, I would take a lead role in ensuring the riding helps stabilize the global temperature increase at 1.5 degrees by 2030.

In keeping with the NDP platform, our local goal would be a 50% reduction in GHG emissions below 2005 levels by 2030 and net-zero emissions by 2050.

I would begin by putting together a working group of all key stakeholders in the riding to develop an ambitious local climate action plan.

To reach these goals I would emphasize the following measures:
  • transition away from coal as an energy source; the goal would be to make sure the riding has net carbon-free electricity by 2030
  • green our electricity grids by having businesses, cooperatives, First Nations, and individual landowners harness wind and solar power and other renewable energy, which can then be connected to our electricity grid
  • ensure all existing and new homes and other buildings are carbon neutral
  • ensure 100% of local new vehicle sales will be zero emission vehicles by 2035 while installing more charging stations
  • electrify our public transit fleets and other municipal government vehicles
  • hold heavy polluters accountable to reduce emissions by adhering to the industrial carbon pricing scheme is in place
  • work with the agricultural sector to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and
  • embark on ambitious tree planting program.
I would also take a lead role in promoting a local green economy by supporting community-owned and Indigenous-owned clean energy projects which includes helping them find financing and expertise.

I would promote greater research at our post-secondary institutions to advance technological innovation in renewable energy.

I will be a strong voice for environmental justice by advocating for Indigenous peoples, addressing environmental racism, reducing poverty and inequality, and promoting good union jobs in the new green economy. 

My priorities for safeguarding our ecosystems and biodiversity would be to ensure 30 percent of our local lands and freshwater are protected by 2030, which includes opposing the sale of Owls Head, and to make our logging more sustainable, which includes eliminating clear cutting.

- Steve Schneider
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For the Record: My Stance on Lake Pisiquid and the Fish Passageway in Windsor

9/16/2021

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The issue concerning Lake Pisiquid and the fish passageway in Windsor is a complex one and has been very divisive among those living in Kings-Hants and West Hants in particular.
It is also a personal issue for me in that my family has used the lake on a number of occasions to canoe, swim and have parties in the boathouse.

With that said, I support the position of the Mi'kmaq of Nova Scotia who made it clear that free-flowing fish passage is required at the mouth of the Avon River.

Of the three options presented by the provincial government that appear to be on the table, I would support what is called the “brackish option" which includes: keeping the fishways open almost all of the time, maintaining the level or the reservoir, allowing a tide of about half a metre, and permitting some sediment and salinity into the reservoir by allowing the gates to control tidal flows.

My support for this option and the position of Mi'kmaq is premised on two fundamental reasons.
First, the “lake” is in fact a human-made reservoir, and we must return to respecting our environment the way Mother Nature intended. Free tidal flow is the best environmental option with a brackish reservoir that rises and falls with the (world famous) tides and would create a more natural or dynamic ecosystem.

I understand the stance of those who want to maintain a freshwater lake for recreational reasons; however, I strongly believe we all must make sacrifices given the environmental destruction we have wrought and the climate change crisis we are engulfed in.
Having visited and enjoyed the lake on numerous occasions myself I feel this is a personal sacrifice I am willing to make.

Second, I strongly believe it is time we listen to Indigenous voices and their preferences. The Mi'kmaq culture and community understand and are passionate about the value of preserving nature. I have had the honour and pleasure of meeting the fish and water protectors at the Treaty Truckhouse # 2 in Windsor, and I also strongly support their right to control the gates and fish passage.

I also understand the concerns of those who feel the loss of a freshwater lake will have detrimental economic consequences for Windsor.

One of my highest priorities as an MP would help the community move past any negative consequences stemming from federal and provincial governments’ decision regarding the lake and the fish passageway. This would include helping to spearhead an ambitious economic development plan that would dwarf the economic, recreational, and aesthetic contributions made by lake Pisiquid.

​For me, this would entail making a Windsor area a tourist mecca for the province, Atlantic Canada and beyond. Given the Ski Martock itself is threatened by the climate crisis (rising temperatures and shorten winters), I envision Martock as a summer tourist destination that would rival Magnetic Hill in New Brunswick (including, for example, a theme park, amphitheater,  other tourist and recreational amenities, camping, hiking, etc.) .

- Steve Schneider

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For the Record: The Housing Crisis

9/15/2021

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Nova Scotia is in the midst of a housing crisis, which is being fueled by the lack of affordable housing. 

I agree with the United Nations when it identifies adequate housing as a fundamental human right, including the right to a security of tenure, adequate conditions, protection against forced evictions and access to affordable housing.

But for too many families in Canada, safe and affordable housing is increasingly out of reach, thanks to ballooning home prices, skyrocketing rents. 

Average rents rose in every single province last year, and far too many households spend more than 30 per cent of their income on housing. 

In some parts of the country there are 10 to 15 year wait lists for affordable social housing.

The national housing crisis is impacting every area of the country, and this must be a priority for the federal government. It will be one of my top priorities if elected as the M.P. for Kings-Hants.

Renters

One in three Canadians is a renter so there needs to be much more focus on creating rental housing stock, particularly for low and middle-income Canadians. The NDP’s pledge is to create at least 500,000 units of quality, affordable housing in the next ten years, with half of that done within five years.  An NDP government would also make it easier for families to pay rent by providing help of up to $5,000 a year while they are waiting for more affordable housing.

The fundamental difference between the NDP platform and those of the other two major parties is that our focus is on affordable alternatives to market housing: non-profit housing, government-subsidized social housing, co-operative housing, and co-housing. 

One of the reasons we are in this housing crisis is that there has been far too much reliance on market housing. However, not enough developers are building rental housing and governments are not financing enough social housing. In some parts of the country there are 10 to 15 year wait lists for affordable social housing.

It is within this context that I strongly support inclusionary zoning and other proven municipal housing incentives to encourage more alternatives to market housing. I would also support any municipal tax on those companies that are buying up rental housing and turning them into short-term rentals (e.g., “Air B&Bs”) and using the tax revenue to fund more social housing.

Co-operative Housing

A key part of the NDP’s housing platform is provide resources to promote co-operative housing. To kick-start the construction of co-ops, social and non-profit housing the NDP promises to set up a dedicated fund of investment capital and to streamline the process and help communities get the expertise and assistance they need to get co-op projects off the ground as soon as possible. It typically takes around 10 years from when a co-operative is organized until construction begins. I would like to see that halved to five years. To save even more time, I would like to organize tenants of market-rental housing into co-operatives with the long-term goal of transitioning towards a co-operative housing development.

Social Housing 

The federal government must become more directly involved in funding social housing – that is helping to create more government-subsidized public housing. The NDP plan calls for increasing federal resources to finance and build more government-subsidized housing for those who cannot afford market housing.

First Nations Housing

The housing crisis is most acute in First Nations communities. Statistics Canada indicates that one in five Indigenous people lived in a dwelling that is in need of major repairs and/or lives in over-crowded conditions. I support the Assembly of First Nations resolution that calls “for a comprehensive approach that includes all aspects of housing, from social housing and the care and control of band-owned housing to individual home ownership” and for a “balanced Housing Framework that maintains the ability of First Nations communities to move forward with local, territorial and regional housing strategies.” The federal government must respect this resolution while providing more dedicated funding to support new construction and repairs to First Nations housing on reserves.

In short, a major focus of the NDP is increasing affordable, safe, and suitable housing for renters, low and middle-income people, Indigenous peoples, and others who cannot buy a home. It is essential that the federal government play a larger role in providing alternatives to market housing in collaboration between federal, provincial, municipal and First Nations governments.

​- Steve Schneider

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For the Record...My stance on Indigenous Fishing Rights in Canada

9/14/2021

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For the record: I am a very strong supporter of Indigenous fishing rights here in Nova Scotia and throughout Canada!

We must respect the constitutional right (as confirmed by the Supreme Court) of Indigenous peoples to make a modest living from fishing.

I strongly support Chief Sack from the Sipekne'katik First Nation and his calls for self-regulation of commercial fishing by Indigenous peoples. 

Indigenous peoples have been careful conservators of fish and lobster stock for hundreds of years and have shown to be responsible in guarding against overfishing. Of course, it  has been the settler population -  represented by greedy corporate fishing interests and mismanaged by government agencies like DFO - that has led to overfishing and the depletion of fish stocks.

I also condemn the arrest of Chief Sack, the pulling up of lobster traps by DFO, and the violence that has been directed towards indigenous commercial fishers and their boats.  (I do support the recent decision by DFO to remove federal fisheries officers from areas where a Mi’kmaq fleet is harvesting lobster). 

In short, you can count on me as the NDP candidate to continuously and vocally express my support for the rights of Indigenous fishers and the efforts of Chief Sack specifically. I would most certainly continue this work as an MP to ensure that the issue of "modest living" is finally defined and to help the Indigenous fisheries move toward greater self-regulation.

- Steve Schneider
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An untitled poem (from Ross Hermiston, one of our more literary supporters!)

8/27/2021

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​I’m so free, I joined the NDP

I’m hale and hearty

With the New Democratic Party

To make a change come along with me.


We are aware that our climate is changing

Electricity made by Solar, wind and hydro power

Will produce more than enough kilowatt hour

From fossil fuels it is a matter of exchanging


We’re living in a multicultural world

And our leader  Jagmeet Singh an example

A most impressive representative sample

Ridiculous racism completely unfurled


Electric cars, heat and all machines

Will provide jobs galore for the population

And will improve our respiration

And clean our air by all means

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OP-ED: It’s time to rethink how we deal with crime

12/30/2020

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Originally Published on Saltwire Network, July 20, 2020 by Stephen Schneider

HALIFAX, N.S. — In recent weeks, calls to “defund” police agencies have grown throughout the U.S. and Canada as disturbing images of police brutality against African-Americans and Indigenous people continue to receive high-profile attention.

The term defund is an ambiguously provocative moniker. Even if it is taken literally, there is little chance that any resulting policies will lead to the abandonment of big-city police agencies or the discarding of traditional law enforcement approaches to crime.

Indeed, most of the immediate reforms contemplated in such cities as New York, Los Angeles and Toronto in recent weeks entail only a modicum of budget cuts to their police agencies.

To be sure, some advocate for the abolition of police forces, in part because of the historical and systemic racism that persists in policing and law enforcement cultures, policies, and programs.

Calls to defund branches of the criminal justice system (CJS) are not limited to police; a prison abolition movement has grown in North America and Europe as critics demand a wholesale move away from state-imposed institutionalization and punishment and toward community-based corrections, rehabilitation, and social reintegration. Solitary confinement has become a lightning rod for prison abolitionists who cite research and high-profile cases exposing how its use constitutes a human rights violation.

Calls to defund and abolish the police and the broader carceral structure of criminal “justice” are the result of an increased understanding of the inherent limitations, misuses, and injustices of the CJS that put the sanctity of the entire system beyond even the most meaningful reforms. The traditional cops, courts, and corrections approach is insufficient to unilaterally control, prevent, or deter acts that threaten public safety; the CJS is unable to cope with the actual quantity of crime, fails to identify most criminal offenders and bring them to justice, fails to rehabilitate offenders, and fails to address the underlying factors that contribute to crime and criminality.

There is scant theoretical justification for the traditional CJS approach to controlling crime. Deterrence theory — which assumes that crime results from a rational calculation of the costs and benefits of criminal activity and therefore potential offenders can be swayed from such behaviour through the threat of punishment — rests on the false premise that altering criminal penalties will alter behaviour. In fact, research and statistics generally conclude that increasing the severity of penalties has only a negligible effect on crime and recidivism, especially among serious and chronic offenders (although this body of knowledge did little to influence the Harper Government’s tough-on-crime agenda).

Critics of the CJS also point to its enormous costs, the high rate of incarceration generally and of nonviolent offenders specifically, and the negative impact that a criminal record and incarceration can have on people.

Perhaps the most damning critique of the CJS is that it is fraught with systemic injustices perpetrated against the innocent, victims, those from lower socio-economic backgrounds, and those with mental illnesses. The most frequent injustices of the CJS in North America are committed against people of African or Indigenous heritage, who are arrested, punished, incarcerated, abused, and killed by the system at a rate far greater than Caucasian offenders. The criminal justice system in Nova Scotia has long been plagued by racism, the latest evidence of which is documented in a 2019 report on racial profiling by Halifax-area police showing that black people were “carded” at a rate six times higher than that of white people.

Another fundamental criticism of the CJS is that it is almost entirely reactive when addressing crime and disorder issues and, as a result, only addresses the symptoms of much deeper social problems. What makes this particularly troubling is that police and the CJS have increasingly become the main state institution in dealing with a broad range of social problems that have nothing to do with crime, such as family breakdown, mental health illnesses, homelessness, poverty, inequality, and racism.

The intrinsic faults and unfairness of the CJS underscore the importance of the defund and abolition movements. It should be noted, however, that many activists and intellectuals behind the calls for defunding are not endorsing the abolition of law enforcement agencies necessarily; instead, they are arguing that funding and other resources be shifted to policies, programs, agencies, and institutions that can more effectively and fundamentally address the root causes of crime and other social problems while avoiding the abuses and injustices wrought by the CJS.

For years, criminologists such as myself have called for a massive shift in resources away from the CJS towards crime prevention and, more specifically, problem-solving solutions that emphasize social and community development. This alternative approach is inherently proactive in that it focuses on the social (root) causes of criminality by strengthening such institutions as the family, housing, schools, health care, social welfare systems, and local communities and economies.

Central to this philosophy is the belief that many social problems currently being dealt with through the CJS should be treated as public health issues and addressed accordingly. A proactive, preventative, public health approach to crime and violence emphasizes such alternatives to policing, law enforcement and the CJS as social workers (to work with troubled families), outreach workers (for at-risk youth and homeless populations), conflict mediators (to prevent violence), community-based psychiatric nurses (to deal with mental health emergencies), supervised group homes (for those with complex needs), restorative justice (as an alternative to courts), as well as addictions treatment centres and safe injection sites.

The American criminologist Peter Greenwood distinguishes between the ultimate goals of the CJS and that of social problem-solving crime prevention. He asserts that the main role of the CJS in helping to produce a civil and orderly society is the control of individuals and groups. In contrast, crime prevention through social and community development is ultimately geared toward the improved functioning of the individual and society.

While disagreements may exist over the definition and extent of “defunding,” there is a growing need to fundamentally re-think how we deal with crime in society. At the very least, less emphasis should be placed on the use of policing, law enforcement, and the broader CJS as the front-line institutions in dealing with social problems. Concomitantly, resources need to be shifted towards those policies, programs, organizations, and institutions that truly address the root causes of crime through proactive, community development, social welfare, and public health interventions, especially ones that serve those who are most marginalized and discriminated against in our society.

Stephen Schneider, a resident of Wolfville, is a professor with St. Mary’s University’s Department of Criminology.

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RUSSELL ELLIOTT IN CONVERSATION WITH CAROL HARRIS

10/26/2020

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Some of you may know that Russell Elliot passed away on October 2, 2020. Born in 1917, Russell was a great advocate for social justice and a strong supporter of the NDP. More information on the life and times of Russell can be found in his obituary.

Back in 2013, Carol Harris had the privilege of interviewing Russell, which was published in one of our newsletters (which you can read by clicking on the link below).
bio_russell_elliot_.pdf
File Size: 335 kb
File Type: pdf
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McNeil Government's Failure/Refusal to Reduce Poverty

2/3/2020

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https://www.pressreader.com/canada/valley-journal-advertiser/20200211/

In January of this year, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives’ released its 2019 Report Card on Child and Family Poverty in Nova Scotia and there is little good news in the report for Nova Scotia or the Annapolis Valley specifically.

The report indicates that 24.2 percent of children in Nova Scotia were living in poverty in 2017 – the highest rate of child poverty in Atlantic Canada and the third-highest rate in Canada as a whole.

In the Annapolis Valley, the child poverty rate was estimated to be even higher - 34 percent! The only region in the province that had a higher rate was Cape Breton at 34.9 percent.

Even in my hometown of Wolfville – with its well-educated and professional population and a vibrant local economy – the child poverty rate is greater than the national and provincial averages.

An equally disconcerting fact is how high the child poverty rate is among Indigenous children; the study says that 75 percent of children in the Sipekne’katik First Nations were living below the poverty line. Seventy-five percent!

The report also notes that 53.1 percent of children in lone-parent families in Nova Scotia were living below the poverty line.
Despite Parliament’s vow to eliminate poverty by the year 2000, the most recent report card demonstrates our abject failure to do so in this province; the proportion of children living below the poverty in Nova Scotia has decreased by a measly 0.82% since 1989, the year this promise was made.

And while the McNeil government inherited the province’s high poverty rate, it has the ignominious record of presiding over the only province that saw its child poverty rate increase between 2015 and 2017.

As a Nova Scotian, and as a social democrat, I am both appalled and saddened by the lack of political will to address poverty at the provincial level.

While Stephen McNeil is quick to congratulate his government for balancing the provincial budget, thousands of children go hungry in this province.

To ignore the plight of children living in poverty is not only heartless, it is bad governance. Poverty is a social evil for moral reasons, but it also contributes to and exacerbates other social ills. Children and young people living in poverty are at greater risk of academic failure, conduct disorders, physical and mental health problems, homelessness, as well as delinquent and criminal behaviour.

By failing to address underlying social problems like poverty, governments must confront a diverse range of other resulting complications that respectively require an array of government agencies, policies, and programs that are costly, reactive, and which only addresses the symptoms of deeper social problems.

Instead of reacting to the consequences of poverty through under-funded government agencies and porous social welfare or criminal justice systems, the provincial government must shift its resources towards more proactive, effective, and cost-effective ways in addressing poverty.

The causes of poverty are complex and multifaceted; as such, resulting policies must be equally comprehensive, while also reflective of the unique situation of different populations and communities that most intensely suffer from this social affliction.

A comprehensive poverty-reduction program for Nova Scotia would include such measures as better early learning and child-care systems, increasing graduation rates and access to post-secondary education, providing more affordable housing, ensuring a livable minimum wage, enhancing income supports, indexing the provincial child tax benefits to inflation, expanding universal health care to cover dental care, mental health care and prescription drugs, addressing racism and discrimination that concentrates poverty in indigenous and African-Nova Scotia communities, committing to reconciliation with and supporting self-determination among First Nations, and empowering women and ensuring equal pay to overcome the feminization of poverty.

We have already seen other provinces undertake much-needed initiatives to address poverty. The NDP government in British Columbia has pledged to increase the minimum wage to more than $15 an hour by 2021. 

The Canada Child Benefit introduced by the federal Liberal government has lifted around 300,000 children out of poverty, according to Statistics Canada. (As columnist Jim  Vibert points out in his scathing indictment of the McNeil government’s record on social welfare, “Nova Scotia is the only province where the three-year-old federal Canada Child Benefit didn’t cut into the child and family poverty rates.”)

A universal basic income – in which all Canadians are guaranteed a livable income – have been touted as an effective way to reduce poverty. The strategy has been endorsed by both the Canadian Medical Association, in part because poverty is a major determinant of ill health and unequal access to health care.

No doubt, we all have a responsibility to help those who are in need and we can always do more in the Valley to address poverty and its repercussions, such as food insecurity, poor health, and inadequate housing.

Raising awareness of the problem is a start. Giving to local charities, including food banks, also helps. Volunteering with local organizations that serve disadvantaged children, such as Big Brothers / Big Sisters, has shown to offset the deleterious effects that poverty has on children.

However, as positive as these local charitable measures may be in checking some of the symptoms of poverty, it is only through the commitment, policies, and programs of government can the various causes of poverty be eradicated. 

The extent to which a government demonstrates the political will to truly eradicate poverty is a moral decision. The McNeil government has refused to effectively deal with the problem, in part because of its neo-conservative orientation that stresses austerity, balanced budgets, and pro-corporate policies (including maintaining one of the lowest minimum wages in the country).

Hopefully, the latest statistics will finally spur this government and future governments to truly tackle this problem through meaningful actions.
 
Stephen Schneider
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