Nova Scotia NDP releases election platform focused on affordability, housing, health

HALIFAX — Promises to build 30,000 affordable rental homes, make Halifax ferries free and temporarily remove the provincial tax on gasoline were centrepieces of the Nova Scotia NDP election platform released Wednesday.

Party leader Claudia Chender said the party’s planned gas tax “holiday” would save drivers 15.5 cents per litre at the pump, but she did not say at what point the tax would be reintroduced.

“We see this as a temporary measure while (gas) prices are high, while inflation is high, while people are pinched to afford the cost of a commute,” she told reporters, adding that improving public transit with new rapid bus routes is also among NDP priorities.

When asked if Nova Scotia can afford to spend the extra $2 billion the NDP says its promises would cost between 2025 and 2027, Chender said inaction would carry too great a cost.

“Nova Scotia can’t afford not to fix the housing crisis, can’t afford not to fix our access to primary care, can’t afford not to make sure that everyone can pay the bills each month,” she said.

Chender said that, if elected, the NDP would increase income assistance rates and remove the provincial tax on phone bills, internet and groceries that are not already tax-free.

Her party would also address the high cost of home heating by removing the HST from the purchase and installation of heat pumps, and would go ahead with a task force recommendation to create a 50 per cent discount on electricity and fuel oil for low-income Nova Scotians.

To tackle health-care access, the NDP says it would open 15 new collaborative family doctor clinics in its first year in power, with 15 additional clinics added in each of the next two years.

The NDP’s many housing-related promises had been announced before the release of the full platform. Those pledges include capping rent increases at 2.5 per cent and giving households that earn less than $70,000 a rebate averaging $900. “We hear everywhere we go that people cannot afford to live, and that is absolutely our focus,” Chender said. “We know that if people can’t afford housing, they can’t be healthy. They can’t afford their groceries and other necessities.”

New polling numbers from Abacus Data released Wednesday puts the NDP in third place, just behind the Liberals and well behind the incumbent Progressive Conservatives with less than two weeks to go before the Nov. 26 election.

The Tories registered 47 per cent support among committed, eligible voters, the Liberals 25 per cent, the NDP 23 per cent, and the Green Party four per cent.

This new survey was conducted Nov. 7-10 with 600 eligible voters drawn from a random sample of panellists. It cannot be assigned a margin of error, but Abacus says a comparable probability-based random sample of the same size has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

Meanwhile, Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Houston held a news conference Wednesday to discuss his party’s plan to address school violence by bringing in a beefed-up code of conduct for students.

Houston also responded to the Liberal party’s call for the resignation of Susan Corkum-Greek as the Tory candidate in the riding of Lunenburg, after her constituency campaign manager admitted to handing out about $51 worth of Tim Hortons gift cards at a local drive-thru.

The campaign manager has resigned, but the Liberals are arguing that since Corkum-Greek was at the coffee shop greeting voters as they departed the drive-thru, she should step down as well.

Houston said the person responsible is a party volunteer and “if they made a mistake, they made a mistake. It was just a mistake. There was no malicious intent, there was no covert operation.”

The Liberal party is claiming the distribution of gift cards is a “potential vote-buying activity” and has filed a petition seeking a declaration by the Nova Scotia Supreme Court that the incident constitutes corrupt practices under the Elections Act. However, the court has said it will not hear the matter before the election.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 13, 2024.

Lyndsay Armstrong and Michael Tutton, The Canadian Press