Poverty, Affordable Housing and Food Security – Issue #2

Why is Bill MacDonald seeking the Liberal nomination for Annapolis? Tackling Poverty, Affordable Housing and Food Security?

Nova Scotia has the third-highest provincial child poverty rate in Canada – with Annapolis having the second-highest rate of child poverty in the province. A study by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives says that more than 41,000 children in Nova Scotia are living in poverty; with those numbers rising. Bill experienced poverty as a child – raised by a single mother who, despite working long hours to provide for five boys, still had to rely on relief from the local church. Food banks may have replaced churches for the most part in providing relief, but the need hasn’t changed. It’s only gotten worse. Bill has been told that more than seventy families are served by the Food Bank in Annapolis Royal alone. 

When he was mayor, and the town was repurposing a portion of the old regional high school into a Community Hub, he took a personal interest in ensuring that the Food Bank was involved in the planning and provided an expanded and upgraded space for their operations. We need to do everything we can to remove the stigma around poverty; however, that doesn’t mean normalizing it. 

Annapolis is blessed with a lot of community-minded people – as well as a lot of under-utilized lands. Providing opportunities for our district to help reduce food insecurity through better use of the resources we already possess is critical. With the pandemic highlighting our fragile supply chains, the province needs to be proactive and partner with local food producers and growers to ensure that more of the food we need is produced locally and affordably. 

With recent reports highlighting troubling levels of homelessness in rural Nova Scotia, the province also needs to proactively partner with municipalities in building safe, accessible, and affordable housing in Annapolis – which would contribute as well to our economic recovery and growth. Even before the pandemic, we were in dire need of more affordable rental housing; with many employers struggling to fill job vacancies because there are simply not enough affordable places for workers to rent within a reasonable distance from those jobs. 

Bill knows we can do more to tackle poverty and homelessness in Annapolis – and with your support for his nomination to be the Nova Scotia Liberal Party candidate for MLA, he will help us do better! Join Team MacDonald to support Bill