For N.S. welfare recipients, budget freeze by Tories in inflationary times hurts

CITYnews halifax \ By Michael Tutton The Canadian Press

HALIFAX – Sandra Page wonders how the Nova Scotia government expects her to remain healthy after its recent budget froze welfare payments despite more than a year of high inflation.

“I sometimes go to ask for help out on the street — panhandling — which I shouldn’t have to do,” she said during a recent interview when asked how she manages to pay her monthly costs.

The 59-year-old Halifax resident said a hand injury prevents her from working and that she relies on monthly income assistance of $950 — along with a special payment of about $220 to cover medical and dietary needs for a thyroid condition. But after rent is paid, there’s not enough to buy the healthy food her condition requires, she said.

The Progressive Conservative government has emphasized fixing health care as its prime focus, and its March budget for the 2023-24 fiscal year kept welfare rates at 2021 levels. But cases like Page’s are raising criticisms that the government is too harsh on the province’s poorest citizens.

Lori Turnbull, director of the school of public administration at Dalhousie University, said she understands that the focus of Premier Tim Houston is on recruiting doctors and nurses, but is “baffled” his government isn’t seeing how leaving welfare rates unchanged may send more people to seek medical care.

“It seems an obvious thing for the government to do (increase the income assistance rates). Why it’s not a priority, I don’t know … I just don’t get it,” she said in a recent interview.

In his annual budget analysis, Vince Calderhead — a human rights lawyer with Pink Larkin — says the decision against increasing the income assistance rates during high inflation is one of the harshest moves he’s seen in 11 years of tracking the issue.

He said that since welfare rates last went up in May 2021 — under the prior Liberal government — overall inflation in Nova Scotia increased by about 11 per cent, a figure the Atlantic Provinces Economic Council confirms.

“The failure to increase rates at all means the provincial cabinet has effectively chosen to significantly increase food insecurity,” Calderhead wrote in an email.

He’s calculated how much further people like Page are falling below the poverty line of $27,631 — a figure based on the ability to pay for a basic mix of goods and services like food, footwear, transport and shelter. She and other single adults with disabilities have incomes about half that amount, and Calderhead’s calculations estimate that with 3.7 per cent inflation in 2023-24, their monthly income would fall another $37.50 per month in purchasing power.

For Page, inflation and a freeze in her welfare payments have forced her to buy cheaper food. “I buy canned food now sometimes. But canned meat is not as good as hamburger.”

Less fresh food effects her health and sends her to the doctor’s office more often, she said. “I can’t even afford a can of fruit.”

The Maytree Foundation, a Toronto-based anti-poverty group, estimated that in 2021 there were on average almost 28,000 cases, including families and single adults, and almost 42,800 beneficiaries, receiving Nova Scotia’s employment support and income assistance programs.

The foundation has said that New Brunswick and Nova Scotia had the lowest social assistance rates in the country in 2021.

Mohy Tabbara, a policy adviser at Maytree, said in an interview Monday that while New Brunswick made small income assistance increases in its recent budget, “Nova Scotia is falling behind the rest of the country.”

Tabbara noted there were a number of one-time supports introduced last year by the Nova Scotia government, such as a payment of $150 per household to help recover from post-tropical storm Fiona. “But these were one-time payments and people lost them this year.”

The government also points to certain targeted programs, such as an investment of $8 million to increase the monthly Nova Scotia child benefits, and $100 million to provide home-heating rebates.

When asked about the welfare payment freeze, Community Services Minister Karla MacFarlane mentioned the government’s targeted programs, and repeated its message that health care is the number 1 priority.

“I think this government has been very clear we were presenting a budget that was based on health care, and we have made significant investments in health care,” she said Friday.

Turnbull said she wonders about this communications strategy, adding that there’s little evidence that letting the poorest citizens fall victim to inflation solidifies the party’s base.

“They’ve got a communications line about being focused on health care,” she said. “Yes, yes, we heard that. But you’re also the government, and that means keeping multiple balls in the air at one time.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 24, 2023.