FREDERICTON – Statistics just released by Statistics Canada reveal that the average cost of rent in New Brunswick has increased by 7.2% over the past year, compared with the national average of 1.6%. This, says NB Green Party leader and MLA for Fredericton South David Coon, is further proof that the province must adopt strong rent controls, including an annual cap on rent increases.

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FREDERICTON – NB Green Party leader and MLA for Fredericton South David Coon has been hearing concerns from New Brunswickers about their mental health as the lockdown takes hold – a stark reminder that the provincial government has been slow to implement its commitments from the mental health and addictions strategy it announced last year.

“Last February, the government committed to opening 13 mental health walk-in clinics around the province based on the successful pilot project in Campbellton,” said Coon. “And they committed to adding addiction and mental health resources to address increased demand for services resulting from COVID-19. These are needed now.”

It has been over two years since the Legislature unanimously adopted a motion to create a mental health advocate for the Province, but no one has been appointed. And almost a year has gone by since the circumstances surrounding Lexi Daken’s suicide exposed gaping holes in emergency mental health care services, but the ensuing recommendations remain largely unimplemented.

“The Premier often talks of living with COVID-19, so his upcoming budget must support a properly funded healthcare system so we can live with COVID-19 and the restrictions it imposes on our lives,” said Coon. “Neither medical nor mental health services should fall by the wayside during a pandemic, but that is precisely what is happening.”  

FREDERICTON – With the announcement that the province will go to Level 3 COVID restrictions this week, NB Green Party leader and MLA for Fredericton South David Coon says that the government must immediately offer financial support for the people and businesses who will be hardest hit by the move, including small businesses, the hospitality sector, artists and their performance venues, and those who will lose their income.

“While this is a necessary public health measure to try to slow the spread of Omicron and ease the pressure on  our healthcare system, it will have a significant negative effect on both businesses and workers in those sectors that will be closed over the next few weeks,” said Coon. “The Premier must loosen the purse strings to support those in need, to reduce the hardship they will face.”

Kevin Arseneau, the Green Caucus Advocate on matters of Developing and Strengthening Communities, has been meeting with, and hearing from, families, people in the arts & culture community, as well as small business owners about how dire their situation is.

“We are going on two years that these sectors have been negatively affected by the pandemic, and for two years Premier Higgs has completely ignored their needs.” said Arseneau. “Now is the time for him to step up and begrudgingly support those who are most in need.”

The world’s use of gasoline, natural gas, oil, and coal has thrown our climate into crisis.  The resulting damage to homes, property, and health has been evident in New Brunswick for over a decade now.  Beginning Thursday, an all-party committee of New Brunswick MLAs will hold five days of public hearings on the renewal of New Brunswick’s 2016 plan to transition to a low carbon economy. 

New Brunswick’s Green MLAs are eager to hear the recommendations from experts on what specific actions should be taken over the next five years to free our society from fossil fuels, and to protect our communities and infrastructure from the ravages of a destabilizing climate.

“The science is telling us that during this decade we must make the most profound transformation in our housing, transportation, and energy supplies that the world has ever known,” said Green Party leader David Coon, an original member of the Legislature’s 2016 Climate Change Committee.  “The hearings will be video streamed, so I hope New Brunswickers will tune in because what we decide to do over the next five years will determine the state of the province we hand over to our children.”

 

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New Brunswick’s Green MLAs say that the government needs to take immediate steps to reduce the transmission of COVID in the province’s hardest hit communities so students can go back to school, while also ensuring that healthcare workers are better protected. 

“The government should implement the Level 3 measures to limit public gatherings to slow the spread of COVID in communities with major outbreaks,” says David Coon, Green Party leader and MLA for Fredericton South. “This will reduce community spread and should ease the pressure on our hospitals, enabling students to return to school more quickly.”

The Saint John region has 3,176 active cases with 40 of the Saint John Regional Hospital’s 43 ICU beds filled, while Moncton has 2,152 active cases with 11 out of 14 ICU beds occupied at the Georges Dumont Regional Hospital.

“We know that what happens in the schools is reflective of the extent of transmission in the community,” said Megan Mitton, the Green critic for Education and Early Childhood Development and MLA for Memramcook-Tantramar.  “The government needs to be proactive to reduce community transmission so students can return to the classroom.”

Many workers in New Brunswick do not have access to paid sick days; however will be required to stay home to isolate after contracting COVID-19, or being the close contact of a family member who has.

“More needs to be done to protect healthcare workers, and all of those on the front-lines,” said Kevin Arseneau, the Green advocate for strengthening communities and MLA for Kent North. “This includes providing paid sick days for all workers, distributing N-95 masks to reduce the risks of front-line workers contracting the virus, and making investments in our healthcare system to make it more resilient.”

FREDERICTON – Green Party leader and MLA for Fredericton South David Coon urges Premier Higgs to accept the recommendations from the Commissioners of the Official Languages Act and move to fully implement them.

“I am happy that Commissioners Finn and McLaughlin have recognized many of the improvements that my Caucus colleagues and I have been calling for,” said Coon. “Now it is incumbent upon Premier Higgs, who is the Minister in charge of Official Languages, to accept these recommendations and implement them with sufficient resources.”

The first recommendation in the report is to establish a Standing Committee of the Legislative Assembly on Official Languages. The creation of such a committee was first called for by Kent North MLA Kevin Arseneau in the Legislature on June 6, 2019.

“For over two years I have been trying to convince the Premier and all Members of the House, with the support of my caucus colleagues, of the necessity of a Standing Committee on Official Languages to facilitate further discussion of official languages by MLAs,” said Arseneau. “Premier Higgs needs to accept this recommendation from his commissioners and bring a motion for its creation to the Legislative Assembly this week, so the new committee can get to work in the New Year.”

“We are glad to have had the opportunity to send a submission to and meet with the commissioners,” added Arseneau. “We thank them for their work. It is now up to legislators to take action. Our caucus is impatient to move in the direction of substantive equality.”

FREDERICTON – Green Party leader and MLA for Fredericton South David Coon tabled a bill in the Legislative Assembly today to improve working conditions for New Brunswick workers. The bill will provide ten paid sick days to all workers in New Brunswick.

“The pandemic has shown us just how important paid sick days are to public health,” said Coon. “People who are being asked to help the common good by staying home because they have COVID symptoms, or were a close contact of a confirmed case, need to be supported in doing so.”

New Brunswick’s minimum wage is just $11.75 per hour, the lowest of any province. Coon’s bill will also raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour, bringing it in line with British Columbia, Alberta, and Ontario.

“In order to address the labour shortage, the minimum wage must be raised closer to a living wage,” said Coon. “This will help businesses find the employees they need and make New Brunswick a more attractive place to live and work.”

Small and medium businesses have many challenges during this pandemic, so Coon’s bill would have the government establish a fund to ensure the costs of paid sick days and an increased minimum wage do not cause additional hardship as they adapt to the new requirements.

“For years the government has subsidized large corporations for millions of dollars. Meanwhile small and medium businesses are having difficulty attracting and retaining employees,” said Kevin Arseneau, Green Caucus critic for Economic Development and Small Business. “The government should step up to support them with subsidies for wages and sick days, rather than expect employees to continue to subsidize businesses with low wages, perpetuating the labour shortage.”

The bill will be brought for second reading debate during opposition day this Thursday afternoon.

FREDERICTON – Green Party leader and MLA for Fredericton South David Coon says that the government’s bill to amend the Electricity Act will allow NB Power to establish private companies to sell products and services, without any public oversight.  The bill will create a holding company to own NB Power itself but will be controlled by NB Power management, who will be able to launch private business interests backed by taxpayers.  

“I was flabbergasted when I first saw this bill, because it fundamentally changes the mandate of NB Power as a public utility,” said Coon. “The bill enables NB Power to set up a corporate structure that will allow it to pursue business ventures or invest in the business ventures of others, like JOI Scientific’s hydrogen project, without any public accountability.”

The bill, which will also allow NB Power to transfer staff, property, and other assets into newly created private business ventures, is currently being debated by the Legislature’ Economic Policy Committee, which does not have the mandate to call for expert witnesses. At the second reading debate, Coon tried to have the bill sent to the Law Amendments Committee in order to hear from expert witnesses, but government members defeated his motion.

“Why is the Higgs government using their majority to ram this bill through the Legislature without an adequate review?” asked Coon.  “It fundamentally changes the mandate of NB Power as a public utility, launching it into the world of venture capitalism at the taxpayer’s risk.”

FREDERICTON - The flooding that has cut off parts of British Columbia from the rest of Canada in the past week is a reminder, according to Green Party leader and MLA for Fredericton South David Coon, that the New Brunswick government is failing to protect New Brunswickers from the climate crisis despite a string of climate disasters dating back to the December floods of 2010 in Charlotte County.

“A major overhaul of community infrastructure is needed to protect homes, buildings, coastal communities, roads, bridges and rail lines,” said Coon. “Whether it be inland flooding caused by rapid snowmelt in our clear cut forests or a failure in the dikes that keep the Bay of Fundy out of towns and farmland, the Premier must ensure the necessary investments are made. We have had plenty of warnings, but successive governments have not heeded them.”

There have been studies, but they have gone nowhere. The governments of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, along with the federal government, commissioned a study in 2019 to recommend how to prevent the Bay of Fundy from flooding the Chignecto Isthmus, the low-lying land which connects New Brunswick to Nova Scotia.  It has yet to see the light of day.

“People in my riding are one major storm away from disastrous flooding that would put us underwater,” said Memramcook-Tantramar MLA and Green Party Transportation & Infrastructure critic Megan Mitton. “This study needs to be released so the government can finally begin taking the actions necessary to protect people in the Sackville area. There is no more time to waste.”

“The recent announcement of how the Higgs government intends to spend the $34 million in its climate action fund illustrates how little urgency the Premier attaches to climate action,” said Coon. “The biggest slice, $10 million, is going to research a pie in the sky nuclear technology, rather than making our infrastructure climate-ready and decarbonizing our society.”