Welfare recipients to receive one-time $150 cheque
Nova Scotia’s Conservative government may be keeping welfare rates frozen for another year.
Community Services Minister Brendan Maguire recently announced people on income assistance will get a one-time $150 payment. The news arrived shortly before the province was to release its budget.
In a recent surprising move, the former Liberal Halifax Atlantic MLA crossed the floor to become Premier Tim Houston’s Minister of Community Services.
It came only two months after he criticized the Houston government for ignoring the homeless crisis and called on them to increase income assistance to track inflation. It had been frozen for two years.
At press time, Maguire wouldn’t say whether he still believes rates should be tied to inflation or whether the budget would include rate increases.
"We want to put money in people’s hand right now,” he said. “We know that people are struggling right now whether it’s food or clothing. This is just the beginning. I’m not taking my foot off the gas,” he said.
“There’s more to come. “Maguire wouldn’t say who came up with the idea of the one-time payment.
NDP Leader Claudia Chender said the announcement is “woefully insufficient” and doesn’t bode well for the budget.
“What we need is a systemic change to income assistance,” she said.
“What we need is an increase and we need to index that increase to inflation. Period. We’re talking about people who need enough to find a place to live, who need enough to eat.”
A one-time payment doesn’t do that.
“It might help for one month; it’s certainly not going to help beyond a month.”
Last year, poverty advocates criticized the government’s decision to freeze welfare rates again.
Human rights lawyer Vince Calderhead said Houston and his cabinet chose to make the poor poorer.
His calculation showed that, factoring in the province’ rise in the cost of living, a single adult who rents will lose $27 a month. Their total income for the year would be $9,312.
Another change will allow people on income assistance who also work to keep an extra $100 in earnings that normally would be clawed back.
Liberal Leader Zach Churchill said the announcement is a quick way for the government to get the political pressure off, while not dealing with a systemic issue.
“We have poverty rates on the rise. A one-time top up in a period of significant inflation is not going to be enough, Churchill said.
“We have called for assistance rates to be indexed to inflation so that we don’t have a generation of Nova Scotians that are going to fall behind financially and never being able to catch up.”