Poverty was the focus as New Brunswick’s NDP leader made a campaign stop in Saint John on Monday.
Jennifer McKenzie said the city has one of the highest rates of child poverty in New Brunswick at 23 per cent.
McKenzie told our newsroom an NDP government would fix social assistance rates to keep people from falling deeper into poverty.
“People who are living on social assistance need to be able to get themselves out, find a job, and support themselves,” McKenzie said. “The NDP will raise social assistance rates by 10 per cent across the board.”
Here on Albert Street in the north end for an announcement from NDP leader Jennifer McKenzie. pic.twitter.com/R79Zna4VFp
— Brad Perry (@BradMPerry) September 17, 2018
McKenzie also referenced her party’s previous commitments to bring in $15 minimum wage and $10 a day childcare.
She said an NDP government would also adopt a “Housing First” strategy to end homelessness and expand municipal powers over social housing if elected.
“We’ll give the cities the powers and resources they need to enforce housing standards,” McKenzie said, “we’ll emphasize the public management of social housing and reduce the practice of giving subsidies and grants to landlords who don’t provide high enough standards of housing.”
McKenzie, who was there with Portland-Simonds candidate Kim Blue, said poverty is a real problem in our province and it is time to fix it.
(Photo: Brad Perry/Acadian News)