Global News’ Paul Brothers sat down with Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston for a year-end review to talk about two of the province’s greatest challenges: health care and housing. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Q: Two years ago you had a mandate to fix health-care, but in 2023 a lot of our big issues had to deal with homelessness, a lack of affordable housing, and affordability. How do you address some of these urgent issues while remaining focused on the task at hand?
A: I have a very good team. I rely on them. I’m blessed with a very strong caucus, a very strong cabinet, and great people working in government and surrounding myself with people that are problem solvers. We’ve made significant progress on health care.
The YourHealthNS app is a significant moment in health care. It’s helping people, with almost 140,000 downloads in just over a month and a very high satisfaction rate — 4.6 out of five. So people are using the app, that’s a big thing, and we’ll continue to build on the app.
The Patient Access to Care Act that we passed last spring is a significant moment in the delivery of health care — not just in Nova Scotia, but I think we’ll look back and say, nationally, that was a turning point.
And common-sense credentialing. A doctor in good standing in the U.K., if they’re good enough for the U.K., they’re good enough for us. We’ve really seen the nurses’ college step up on that, identify a bunch of jurisdictions where we can accept their credentials, accept their experience. We passed that act in May. We had 1,500 nursing vacancies. Right now, they’re processing 19,000 applications of nurses who are saying, “We want to come to Nova Scotia.”
There’s also expansion of scope: letting people do what they’re trained to do. I always say, Imagine being a plumber and not being able to fix a sink. Well, that’s what we were saying to our nurse practitioners and to our pharmacists.
I think we’re moving the needle. We have lots of work to do for sure in health care, and we’re focused on lots of issues around homelessness and housing as well.
Q: In the immediate term, we still have long wait lists for those needing a family doctor, we still have ERs that are closing, and we still have issues with recruitment and retention. In the here and now when it comes to health care, Nova Scotians are still struggling.
A: There’s work to do. We’ve opened up a lot of access channels by letting pharmacists do what they’re trained to do. Just over the fall, I think 17,000 people went to the pharmacy for a strep test. I know where they would have gone before we allowed them to go to a pharmacist.
So that’s helping, the mobile clinics are helping, virtual care. It’s not for everything, but it’s just what is needed for a lot of things.
The world’s changing, the delivery of health care is changing. I want everyone to be able to have a doctor and consistent care through a nurse practitioner, but also the access channels are changing as well.
Q: There’s been a 21 per cent increase in health care spending. Is this sustainable or not?
A: We’re trying to catch up. There was neglect in the system for a long time. So we’re investing in the people delivering health care, investing in the technologies, and we’ve got to get to a spot where we can clear some of the backlogs that have been there.
We’re making progress. Across the system this year, we performed something in the range of a thousand more surgeries that we did in what we call the baseline year: the year before COVID.
So things are happening. They are expensive. I was always honest with Nova Scotians that fixing health care would cost money, and it would take time. But it’s really important that we get health care to a good place and get it fixed, because healthy people drive economies.
Q: When I told people I was interviewing you, and what would you ask the premier if you had five minutes with him, one question was: What is he doing to fix homelessness, especially in Halifax with the encampments? That’s a real concern right now in our province.
A: Housing in general is a big, big issue. We’ve been taking a lot of steps to make sure that we’re building housing. The solution to a housing crisis is more housing, so we know we need people to build, we need the labour force. That’s why we’ve come up with a pretty innovative program called MOST — More Opportunity for Skilled Trades. Under that program, people working skilled trades that are under the age of 30 don’t pay any provincial income tax on their first $50,000. It’s attracting people to come here and help us build.
We’ve also made investments of nearly $100 million in the apprentice program to get people trained to work. On the labour side, this is actual government policy designed to get more housing.
In affordable housing, we’re building the first affordable housing this province has seen in almost (30) years.
Q: Is it enough to alleviate the number of people sleeping rough, as those numbers go up?
A: Nobody wants to see people sleeping rough. It’s heartbreaking. I feel that as premier when I see them and when I walk past the encampments. I always say we’ll do what we can as a government. We’ll always want it to be more, but we’ll do what we can and maybe a little bit more. That’s how we see deficit budgets.
In Halifax here, we opened up a new shelter. It had 50 beds, that’s going to be up to 100 beds now. There is capacity often in the shelter system, so we’re working with people who are living rough, and getting those wraparound supports, letting them talk to social workers, encouraging them to take those opportunities where there is space in a shelter.
They don’t always want to. People have individual circumstances for sure, and these are complex issues, but as a government we will make the investments into innovative programs like the pallet homes and tiny homes.
We always want it to be more and we always want it to be faster, but we’ll do what we can.
Q: I want to talk a bit about Bill 329 (which allows the province to insert itself into the process of approving residential developments in Halifax, which the mayor spoke out against) and the relationship between the province and the city of Halifax right now. How do you see that relationship as we head into 2024?
A: Everybody’s trying to govern, for sure. The municipalities have their responsibilities, the province has its responsibilities, the federal government does, but they all have a common starting place. They all want the best things for their friends, their neighbours, their communities.
Sometimes, we have different views as to how that can happen. But we always have to go back to, we’re just trying to do what’s right. So when you talk about housing, we’re pretty insistent that we have to make quick decisions. I believe as a government, we should get to a yes or get to a no. If it’s appropriate for a development or a project to go forward, it’s a yes. If not it’s a no. Too often in government we see “maybe.”
What we’re doing as a province is trying to work with municipalities, but also encourage the municipalities to get to a yes or get to a no. We need housing, we need to get going on this stuff so hopefully we can find a common ground.
Q: Those opposed to Bill 329 would say, “What does it do for interest rates? Shortages of skilled labour?” Some pundits would also say that it’s basically a fast-track for developers that your government knows to do what they want.
A: I don’t completely disagree with that. There are certain developers where those decisions will be up to the municipalities. There are developers that are building a lot and know the system, they can cross all the Ts and dot all the Is and we should recognize that.
We can’t do anything about interest rates. We’re a growing province, but we’re a small province. As a government, we’re taking steps to tackle the labour shortage. So let’s focus on what we can control and do it. Those projects that should go forward, should go forward.
We need the housing, and we should feel that urgency.
— with files from Alex Cooke
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