CTV Senior Anchor Todd Battis will be hosting an all-party roundtable on October 16th, just in time for the New Brunswick Elections!
CTV wants questions from the NB population and this is the time to make ourselves heard! Let’s flood their mailbox with questions surrounding disability! Email your questions to atlanticnewscomments@bellmedia.ca.
Here are some samples of questions you can send their way. These are just examples. Ask about what’s important to you and what you know to be important to the community of people with disabilities.
The 2021 Census saw an 8.6% increase in persons with disabilities in NB. Now, 35.3% of those 15 and over in NB have a disability, which is 2nd highest in Canada. Yet we have the lowest assistance payments. People can’t live on $918 per month. Could you?
What will you do both in the first 90 days in office, as well as over your term, to improve the lives so that we can become active, independent contributors to our communities?
Policy 6.1, aka Household Income Policy: Would you essentially make me the property of my partner or spouse? It is discriminatory! Are you willing to state publicly that you will eliminate this policy? Let’s move out of the 1960s please!
Why was the NB Accessibility Act rammed through in the last few days of the legislature? In February, during hearings it was clearly stated (NBCPD Chair Shelley Petit can provide you a copy of the clip) that there would be a white paper and time for open communication with the 35.3% of the NB residents with a disability. This didn’t happen. This is not “nothing about us without us”, it is systemic ableism at work. What will your party do to immediately rectify this and the numerous oversights that exist in this Act?