FREDERICTON – With gas prices nearing $2 per litre, Green Party leader and MLA for Fredericton South David Coon says it’s time for the Higgs government to recognize public transportation as an essential public service and invest carbon tax revenue to ensure it is widely accessible.

FREDERICTON - New Brunswick Green Party Leader and MLA for Fredericton South David Coon says the 18,000 hectares of forest and rivers of the former Tracadie Firing Range should be co-managed by the local community in partnership with the M’ikmaq Nation.  

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.”  

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.”

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.”