Issues That Matter to All of Us

There is absolutely no doubt that we need more healthcare providers in the Annapolis district, but it’s also clear that the solution is not simply throwing money at the problem. It’s also about making sure that there are opportunities for the healthcare professional’s whole family - and ensuring that our communities are attractive and welcoming to these prospective new residents. There is a global shortage of healthcare professionals – so we have to stand out. This includes investments in our healthcare in creative and innovative ways - like the new Middleton Collaborative Practice in the Town Of Middleton or the interesting ideas proposed by the Village of Lawrencetown. The pandemic has shown us that we can potentially do more with what we already have, but we definitely know we must do better. Bill has been involved in the recruitment of healthcare professionals since before he became mayor of Annapolis Royal. He has had some success, as your Liberal nominee for MLA he believes he could build on that substantially.

Nova Scotia has the third-highest provincial child poverty rate in Canada and the highest rate in Atlantic Canada. Annapolis has the second-highest poverty rate in all of Nova Scotia. And yet, we are blessed with a lot of community-minded people and a lot of land in our area. A lot of that land is under-used. Bill sees an opportunity for some solutions to affordable house and to food insecurity through better use of the resources we already have. We need the province to partner more proactively with our municipalities to build housing where it is most needed. Housing that is accessible, affordable, and safe. And partnering with local food producers and growers so that more of the food we need is produced locally and more affordably.

The issue of affordable housing also affects our economic recovery and growth – even before the pandemic we were in dire need of more rental housing. We have many employers in the Annapolis area struggling to fill their jobs because there are simply no affordable places for workers to rent within a reasonable distance to their jobs. Developers need to be encouraged and supported to build housing that is truly useful for our communities.

We have some incredible programs in our area schools – like the Royal Robots of the First Lego League in Annapolis Royal or the Junior Achievement program in Middleton. We have amazing facilities like the brand new regional sports fields in Bridgetown and the Innovation Lab at the Community Hub in Annapolis Royal. We need to ensure that our children have access to everything they need for successful learning and that they are afforded the opportunities they really want. We also need to support teachers so they can do their jobs well and with all the tools they need, too.

Not every student is off to university, many will go into the trades (which are in desperate need of people!)  and they need just as much support for those options, too. We need more satellite programs in the Annapolis district from Nova Scotia's world-class post-secondary institutions. Why not a post-secondary satellite campus hub in our area that offers courses from ALL post-secondary educational institutes in Nova Scotia offered in a supportive learning environment? Thinking creatively about solutions for the issues that matter to our community is critical to our success.

Our last census was in 2016 – our next census is in May and we’ll see some results by the end of this year. We haven't seen a hotter real estate market in the Annapolis district than in the past few years. And we’ve heard from many new young families in the area that they’re seeing new kids transferring into our local schools.

What does this mean? It means that people are discovering that Annapolis is a good place to live, work, and play.  Bill's wife, Adele, is heavily involved in economic development in Annapolis Royal and Annapolis County through AIRO (Annapolis Investments in Rural Opportunity) and she tells us that in the five years that AIRO has been operating they’ve helped more than 60 new businesses start or existing business expand, with those business owners creating over 170 jobs. That doesn’t count all of the other new businesses and the jobs created that didn’t go through AIRO. In many ways, our community is leading its own economic recovery! But, we still have work to do.

Thoughtful growth and development that reflects who we are as a community and what we want from our lives here, is still needed. It’s not growth at all costs, it’s growth that reflects our values and quality of life. It’s finding the right investments for the right projects – whether those are new businesses or helping existing businesses grow. Bill has had the pleasure of meeting with several of our local business owners and they have been generous with sharing their concerns and their needs with him. They’re telling Bill exactly how our provincial government has helped them and how they can help them achieve even more success in the future. We have some tremendously successful entrepreneurs in Annapolis – they have a lot of knowledge to share with us about how to keep our rural economy healthy and Bill wants to make sure their voices are heard in Halifax!

Many of the issues that impact seniors directly in our community are related to healthcare. We need to do better for this large group of our population. We need access to better and more consistent healthcare that meets the unique needs of seniors. For example, right now if you need an outpatient procedure in Halifax what will take an HRM resident one day, will take an Annapolis district resident three days – arrive a day ahead for your 6:30AM start time, stay that evening so that you remain within 50km of the hospital, and then head out the next day for your 2-hour drive back home and much (if not all) of that round trip out of your own pocket. There has to be a better way.

We also need to recognize the incredible resources our senior Nova Scotians bring to the table. Their wealth of experience and knowledge is critical to our success – we need to be sure there are good opportunities for all of us to engage and be connected with one another. In the Annapolis district, we are fortunate to have CORAH (Center of Rural Aging & Health) operating out of the NSCC Annapolis Valley Campus & COGS campus – CORAH is a new community hub funded through the Department of Health & Wellness as a 1 Stop Resource Shop for people for 50 to 105! This is a prototype for future centers all throughout Nova Scotia. We need more of this type of creative thinking. Seniors are a broad age group with a wide range of needs - solutions are not one size fits all - and their voice needs stronger representation in Halifax.

Bill's work with Greenpeace in Victoria, BC, in its early days helped shape his views on the environment and our ecological well-being. Nova Scotia has long been a source of resource extraction like mining and forestry. Those industries have, over the centuries, helped build this province but often at the cost of our environment. It does not need to be that way.

A rule of thumb Bill stands by is, “Once we know better, we do better.”

We know that there are better ways to conduct forestry in our province. With more care for our species at risk and for the forests, they call home. We know that there are ways to cause less damage to our forests while increasing the value of what we do log.

There is a sound starting point for the betterment of our environment with the Lahey Report and the Biodiversity Act, but it doesn’t stop there. We need to focus on climate change adaptation – as we are unfortunately find ourselves at a stage where mitigation is, for the most part, no longer going to have enough impact. Much of Nova Scotia’s coastline is in danger of being below the annual average flood level by 2030, with some areas are at risk of inundation by 2050. Annapolis will be dramatically impacted by these issues, with the potential loss of some of our communities and farms if nothing is done. Bill has been working on projects to address these issues for years. Currently, he's involved with the ACERC Coalition (Annapolis Climate and Ecological Research Centre) with the hopes that we can attract the best and brightest minds to Annapolis - to help us find solutions to the sea level rise that threatens our towns and farms and for the remediation of the Annapolis River.

Systemic racism exists. Recognizing that systemic racism exists doesn’t mean that you are racist. It means that the system in which we live works better for some than for others, based solely on the colour of their skin. That is not acceptable. It doesn’t mean that you have not had challenges or unfairness in your life. It means that those things didn’t happen to you because of the colour of your skin.

Social and racial justice is critical to all of the other issues on which he focused and campaigning. Addressing inequity in our community helps improve healthcare, helps support our seniors, helps reduce poverty and improves economic prospects for everyone. We all benefit from helping our society move past the systemic injustice that many of our friends and neighbours face. Although Bill grew up poor, he knows he had a distinct advantage his whole life by virtue of his gender and his skin colour. He can’t begin to know what it feels like to have the deck stacked against you.

Ensuring that our communities are inclusive is critical to the health and well-being of us all. While the mayor of the Town of Annapolis Royal, Bill addressed a number of social and racial injustices – even when it was uncomfortable and even when some people would have preferred he did not.  Bill doesn’t shy away from difficult conversations. There are still many more difficult conversations to be had. Change has been happening, change is still coming, more change is still needed. 

When you travel through Annapolis what do you see? You see fields, farms, orchards, fishing boats, and greenhouses; you see old houses side-by-side with new houses, you see family farms next to vineyards, and you see towns and villages serving them all. In the decade since Bill returned home to this community what he hasn’t seen is a lot of support for these enterprises to encourage them to expand, become more efficient, modernize, or simplify as needed. He has not heard a lot of discussion about agriculture  in our region amongst the municipalities that make up our area and he's not heard a great deal from our provincial or federal governments either. This isn’t acceptable to Bill.

Local food producers and farmers have been sharing the issues that impact them most. Bill wants to make sure that their issues are heard – that these people who support our food security, who provide jobs, whose business keeps other local businesses going are getting what they need from all levels of government. He's also exploring what might be missing from our area. What crops could we be producing to make the most of the resources we have in this area? What kinds of production facilities are we missing or do we need more of? What issues do our fishers have that need to be addressed? Bill is talking to farmers, fishers, and food and beverage producers to bring their concerns into focus. The people running these businesses are the lifeblood of our communities and they need more support.

No matter which party is governing, there are always those who didn’t vote for them and it’s important to Bill that they don’t feel unrepresented.

Yes, each party has its own ideology, and the one he most closely identifies with is Liberal. It’s the party in which Bill believes he could be most effective. What it does not mean is that he can’t or won’t work with his colleagues or representatives in other parties. Bill is tired of the pettiness and he stands for doing politics in a different way – he stands for working together to accomplish the best possible outcomes for our communities.

Whether you choose Bill to be your Liberal nominee or not, what is important is that the person representing the Liberals in Annapolis be able to set aside their differences and work with anyone who is willing to come to the table.

As the pandemic has shown us, we are so much better when we pull together. And, Bill believes that as a community, we are so much stronger when we lift one another up and focus on our similarities while still respecting our differences.