Affordability
Food costs
Liberal's promises
"Currently, consumers do not pay HST on basic groceries like fruit, flour, and milk. However, many foods that families rely on are still subject to a 15% HST. These include foods like granola bars, pre- made salads, and sandwiches at the grocery store. A Nova Scotia Liberal government would remove the provincial sales tax from all food in grocery stores." — Better Deal for Nova Scotians, retrieved 2024-11-09
"Ban restrictive covenants that determine where grocery stores can be built. This will increase competition and improve availability of grocery stores across the province, especially in rural areas" — Better Deal for Nova Scotians, retrieved 2024-11-09
"Invest in independent grocery stores by providing grants and loans so they can expand to better serve their communities and compete against large grocery stores." — Better Deal for Nova Scotians, retrieved 2024-11-09
"A Nova Scotia Liberal government will immediately halt all payments to Sobeys for the Nova Scotia Loyal program, and instead invest that money in developing a comprehensive marketing and growth plan for local products." — Better Deal for Nova Scotians, retrieved 2024-11-09
"We will invest $10M to expand affordable food programs across the province by building new food hubs, expanding programs that buy excess food from farmers to sell directly to Nova Scotians, and investing in mobile food markets." — Better Deal for Nova Scotians, retrieved 2024-11-09
Fuel and transportation costs
Liberal's promise
"A Nova Scotia Liberal government will make public transit free across Nova Scotia, eliminating barriers to transportation and providing up to $5,000 per year in savings for those who switch from driving to commuting by public transit." — Better Deal for Nova Scotians, retrieved 2024-11-09
Poverty
Liberal's promise
"Our current social safety net is trapping Nova Scotians in intergenerational poverty, requires significant bureaucratic overhead, and often disincentivizes working. Together, we can transform the various social assistance programs to ensure that people who are struggling can afford the basic necessities and not find themselves on the streets. We will reform these systems so they work for everyone. To do that, we will spearhead an all-party committee to overhaul our social assistance model and examine alternatives, including a guaranteed basic income." — Better Deal for Nova Scotians, retrieved 2024-11-09
Public transit
Liberal's promises
"A Nova Scotia Liberal government will make public transit free across Nova Scotia, eliminating barriers to transportation and providing up to $5,000 per year in savings for those who switch from driving to commuting by public transit." — Better Deal for Nova Scotians, retrieved 2024-11-09
"We will also invest to increase public transit capacity to account for the expected growth in ridership, ensure system efficiency, and support more accessible transit options." — Better Deal for Nova Scotians, retrieved 2024-11-09
"We’ll make the largest investment in rural community transport in Nova Scotia’s history, ensuring that community transportation organizations can lower costs and increase services." — Better Deal for Nova Scotians, retrieved 2024-11-09
Tax measures and rebates
Liberal's promises
"Currently, consumers do not pay HST on basic groceries like fruit, flour, and milk. However, many foods that families rely on are still subject to a 15% HST. These include foods like granola bars, pre- made salads, and sandwiches at the grocery store. A Nova Scotia Liberal government would remove the provincial sales tax from all food in grocery stores." — Better Deal for Nova Scotians, retrieved 2024-11-09
Utility costs
Liberal's promises
"We will expand the Heating Assistance Rebate Program to help low-income Nova Scotians with their energy bills, saving them $1,000 a year." — Better Deal for Nova Scotians, retrieved 2024-11-09
Climate Change & the Environment
Carbon price
Liberal's promise
"A Nova Scotia Liberal government will get rid of the carbon tax. To ensure we are still doing our part to lower pollution, we will work with other Atlantic Provinces to establish a Cap and Trade program that will reduce large industrial pollution without punishing consumers at the gas pumps." — Better Deal for Nova Scotians, retrieved 2024-11-09
Green construction and retrofits
Liberal's promises
"Eliminate the fee for the Home Energy Assessment for all Nova Scotians" — Better Deal for Nova Scotians, retrieved 2024-11-09
"Increase rebates for heat efficiency programs such as the heat system rebates" — Better Deal for Nova Scotians, retrieved 2024-11-09
Power generation
Liberal's promises
- "Investing substantially in renewable generation with in-province wind, solar, and battery farms, and
- Ensure that the sites in Nova Scotia with the best wind power generating potential are being used for projects to get our province off coal power and lower power bills."
— Better Deal for Nova Scotians, retrieved 2024-11-09
"Further, all renewable energy projects would be required to either put electricity into our grid or pay into a fund that will be used to lower power rates for consumers." — Better Deal for Nova Scotians, retrieved 2024-11-09
"We’ll strongly regulate land leasing, water access, and generation capacity to ensure that all Nova Scotians are benefitting from our natural resources." — Better Deal for Nova Scotians, retrieved 2024-11-09
Public transit
Liberal's promises
"A Nova Scotia Liberal government will make public transit free across Nova Scotia, eliminating barriers to transportation and providing up to $5,000 per year in savings for those who switch from driving to commuting by public transit." — Better Deal for Nova Scotians, retrieved 2024-11-09
"We will also invest to increase public transit capacity to account for the expected growth in ridership, ensure system efficiency, and support more accessible transit options." — Better Deal for Nova Scotians, retrieved 2024-11-09
"We’ll make the largest investment in rural community transport in Nova Scotia’s history, ensuring that community transportation organizations can lower costs and increase services." — Better Deal for Nova Scotians, retrieved 2024-11-09
Health & Healthcare
Seniors
Liberal's promise
"A Nova Scotia Liberal government will provide dedicated support to seniors by doubling the tax-free seniors care grant to $1,500 each year to help them stay in their homes longer, stay healthy, and live better lives. We will also increase program eligibility so that households with up to $50,000 in annual income are eligible." — Better Deal for Nova Scotians, retrieved 2024-11-09
Housing & Homelessness
Home construction and supply
Liberal's promises
"Set a goal of building 80,000 new homes by 2032 to eliminate the housing shortfall, aiming for a rate of 11,000 new homes per year—enough to accommodate Nova Scotia’s growth" — Better Deal for Nova Scotians, retrieved 2024-11-09
"Establish increased minimum density standards across our province that take into account proximity to transportation and services" — Better Deal for Nova Scotians, retrieved 2024-11-09
"Ensure appropriate zoning to encourage density near our province’s universities so students have a place to live" — Better Deal for Nova Scotians, retrieved 2024-11-09
"A Nova Scotia Liberal government will work to accelerate the homebuilding innovation happening here in Nova Scotia. We’ll invest in new ways of building, like tilt-up construction, modular housing, mass timber, factory built housing, and other innovations that will enable our province to build more homes, reduce prices, and improve our province’s climate resilience." — Better Deal for Nova Scotians, retrieved 2024-11-09
"The current government is playing favourites by choosing where new homes can go. We can’t afford that. We need a rules-based system across the province that will encourage new housing. A Nova Scotia Liberal government will modernize housing legislation to encourage broader and more innovative housing solutions." — Better Deal for Nova Scotians, retrieved 2024-11-09
- "Streamline construction of condo developments,
- Encourage more innovative housing solutions such as building rent communities that allow for a mix of ownership and rental units within the same developments
- Establish a fast track approval process for developments that build rental communities."
— Better Deal for Nova Scotians, retrieved 2024-11-09
"Invest $20M in additional grant funding streams to build new co-ops, expand existing co-ops, and fund co-op repairs." — Better Deal for Nova Scotians, retrieved 2024-11-09
Home purchases and ownership
Liberal's promises
"Lower property taxes, especially in highly-taxed areas like the CBRM" — Better Deal for Nova Scotians, retrieved 2024-11-09
"Remove arbitrary and unfair penalties from our property tax system, like the drastic increase in taxes Hammonds Plains residents experienced after they lost their houses to wildfires" — Better Deal for Nova Scotians, retrieved 2024-11-09
"Ensure our property tax system incentivizes housing being built, which currently isn’t always the case. Currently, if you add more housing to your property whether by building or renovating, your assessment goes up and so do your taxes. For the next five years we’ll reduce or eliminate tax increases on properties that build more housing. This will incentivize more housing where it’s needed in Nova Scotia, and help bring down housing prices." — Better Deal for Nova Scotians, retrieved 2024-11-09
"Increase taxes on large vacant lots in our urban areas so that it is not profitable for developers to hold onto large, empty lots that are zoned for housing without building" — Better Deal for Nova Scotians, retrieved 2024-11-09
"Eliminate the residential deed transfer tax (except for the 5% provincial out-of-province tax) to help downsizing seniors, growing families, and those looking to buy their first home by lowering costs and easing bottlenecks in the housing market." — Better Deal for Nova Scotians, retrieved 2024-11-09
Homeless services
Liberal's promise
"A Nova Scotia Liberal government will address the immediate encampment issue by procuring 500 mini-home shelters, saving lives. We estimate that we can do this at a cost of $10M because, instead of purchasing these homes from Pallett— an American company charging the current government $37,000 per unit—we will put out a tender to Nova Scotian companies who can build better shelters at lower costs.
We will also be transparent with communities about the locations of these emergency shelters and ensure that those housed there will have access to wraparound supports, transit, and community services." — Better Deal for Nova Scotians, retrieved 2024-11-09
Poverty
Liberal's promise
"Our current social safety net is trapping Nova Scotians in intergenerational poverty, requires significant bureaucratic overhead, and often disincentivizes working. Together, we can transform the various social assistance programs to ensure that people who are struggling can afford the basic necessities and not find themselves on the streets. We will reform these systems so they work for everyone. To do that, we will spearhead an all-party committee to overhaul our social assistance model and examine alternatives, including a guaranteed basic income." — Better Deal for Nova Scotians, retrieved 2024-11-09
Public and affordable housing
Liberal's promises
"The province is currently a funding partner for 110 organisations that control over 3,000 housing units. We will build more units in order to more than double the existing stock, building 4,000 additional units by 2032, being sure to include wraparound supports for residents. We’ll do this by investing in non-profit organizations, and creating a trusted non-profit developer program that will fast track applications from organizations who have experience building housing. The non-profit sector has the capacity and the knowledge to manage deeply affordable housing properly, and the government can assist by building new units and acquiring underutilized housing." — Better Deal for Nova Scotians, retrieved 2024-11-09
Rental housing
Liberal's promises
"Current rent protections are hurting those they’re supposed to help. Right now, Tim Houston can change the rent cap on a whim—and that’s bad for everyone. We will implement a fairer system where the cap is based on inflation, market conditions, and vacancy rates on a regional basis until adequate housing supply is reached and there is a healthy vacancy rate of 3%. This will provide much needed consistency, stability, and predictability to our rental market." — Better Deal for Nova Scotians, retrieved 2024-11-09
"Everyone experiences emergencies—and that shouldn’t cause you to worry about losing your home. A Nova Scotia Liberal government will establish a Rent Bank, a low-cost, high-value program that can provide quick turnaround, zero- interest loans to renters that find themselves stuck." — Better Deal for Nova Scotians, retrieved 2024-11-09
"We will end fixed-term lease abuse by ensuring that landlords cannot offer tenants fixed term leases longer than one year. Extensions beyond the fixed term would automatically transition the lease to month-to-month." — Better Deal for Nova Scotians, retrieved 2024-11-09
Jobs, Businesses, & Labour
Poverty
Liberal's promise
"Our current social safety net is trapping Nova Scotians in intergenerational poverty, requires significant bureaucratic overhead, and often disincentivizes working. Together, we can transform the various social assistance programs to ensure that people who are struggling can afford the basic necessities and not find themselves on the streets. We will reform these systems so they work for everyone. To do that, we will spearhead an all-party committee to overhaul our social assistance model and examine alternatives, including a guaranteed basic income." — Better Deal for Nova Scotians, retrieved 2024-11-09
Misc. topics
Non-profits
Liberal's promise
"Non-profit and service delivery organizations are not able to appropriately deliver for their communities or plan for the long term when they must apply for provincial funding on an annual basis. Not only do they not know what funding is coming from year to year but, once approved, the delivery of funding is often delayed by as much as 9-10 months into the fiscal year, leaving organizations in the lurch. We will prioritize multi-year funding agreements for successful organizations that have a proven track record of providing core programming for their communities." — Better Deal for Nova Scotians, retrieved 2024-11-09
They may still in the future!
Biography
Mabou, Inverness County is my home. I have travelled to many places and nothing can compare to the spirit and beauty of Cape Breton Island.
I made the choice to run as the Inverness Liberal candidate because I have always had an interest in local issues. I graduated from Carleton university with a degree in political science, and always knew I would come back home and get involved. I moved back to Cape Breton in 2019 with a promise to myself that if the opportunity arose, I would run.
I have 20 years of experience working in government, in areas of social services and public housing. I feel this has equipped me with the knowledge and experience to serve the constituents of Inverness well.
I have a deep commitment to the arts and the film and television industry, and feel there’s so much vibrancy on this island that it is an industry that could flourish here. We want to keep are youth at home, we want more housing affordability, better grocery prices, and better healthcare, and I value all of those things. I Know that I can bring a lot to the table if the Liberal party is given the mandate to lead government in Nova Scotia.
Reason for running
Inverness is a large riding with complex and competing needs. Staying on top of that will be what constituents say their top priorities are. We can make progress together, I just need to hear from you!