People's Alliance Fredericton-York

Unacceptable !!

Isolation rules for rotational workers, truckers and travellers are unreasonable and unnecessary

Provincial Budget Falls Short in Many Areas FREDERICTON People’s Alliance March 26, 2021... People’s Alliance Leader Kris Austin said there are many areas of the 20212022 budget which received royal assent Friday which are sadly lacking. Mr. Austin is disappointed that only $7 million has been added to the health budget to address mental health issues in the province, including among young people. We have a crisis in this province. The number of additional dollars being spent on mental health is equivalent to placing a Band-Aid on a gushing wound. There are many avenues to helping the problem which the government isn’t taking advantage of, Mr. Austin said. He pointed to the help that could come through the virtual care model where psychologists and other mental health experts in the province could be connected to help those in crisis immediately without seeing people waiting hours without help in emergency rooms. Mr. Austin noted that virtual visits to doctors increased to 85% during the pandemic with positive response from patients; yet the government has failed to expand the program and cut fees to doctors who use the system. I was disappointed to see that this budget made virtual care nothing more than a footnote. If used to its fullest potential, virtual care could reduce the backlog in emergency rooms and help many of the more than 70,000 people in this province without a family doctor, he said. The budget also does little to help seniors who continue to wait in hospital beds for placements in nursing homes. Thirty percent of people in hospital are seniors waiting to go to an alternate level of care. Government is not addressing this adequately with the $10.3 million that is allotted to this in the budget. The province is also facing a significant housing shortage which is now at a crisis level with people who can’t afford skyrocketing rents. This hurts companies who are trying to recruit workers. As well, a shortage of day care spaces hurts recruitment in more rural areas. More money needs to be invested in daycare spaces, and the double tax needs to be eliminated to promote housing development, Mr. Austin said. The government is very quick to state how great this budget is to reinvent New Brunswick. However, if you look closely at this budget, it is lacking in many areas. There also appears to be reductions in certain areas which will impact some of our province’s most vulnerable such as seniors and youth. MLA Michelle Conroy and I weren’t able to support this budget. However, now that it has been passed, we will continue to work with government to ensure the allocated funds are properly disbursed to ensure taxpayers received the reasonable service they expect and deserve, Mr. Austin said.

The Peoples Alliance are asking why $108 million more was spent on education in the Francophone system than in the anglophone system. Education Minister Dominic Cardy doesnt like the question.

Why is the Minister of Education insisting teachers perform mental health assessments on students? Is Dominic Cardy qualified to do electrical repairs at the Le...gislature? No, he's not but to him it doesn't matter whether you're qualified using his logic for suggesting teachers should do this psychology work. See more