Natalie Chiasson

Many from across Nova Scotia stood in solidarity with the Mi’kmaq in Halifax to protest after hundreds of cuts were tabled in the spring budget. 

When Acadia News arrived Tuesday afternoon, Police cars were blocking traffic around parts of Granville Street where crowds had gathered. People were holding signs and chanting alongside Indigenous land protector and speaker Michelle Paul.

“I feel the sense of uncertainty. All these thousands of jobs that are being cut. When we first designed and created this rally, it was at first for the Crown Lands Act and the attack on the environment. But this last week has been a doozy,” says Paul. “Since then, there’s been more cuts to our arts and culture, the very root of who we are as Nova Scotian’s.”

This is the second Shoulder to Shoulder rally that Paul has helped organize. The outrage was sparked by rippling negative feelings throughout the province since last weeks provincial budget was addressed. She says the Mi’kmaq community wants people to know that collective action can spark real change.

An example Paul used was their rally against Alton Gas, a company widely known in the province for their plan to develop an area around the Shubenacadie River that’s sacred to the Mi’kmaq. She reminds people that the proposal fell through because Nova Scotian’s, Indigenous or not, stood together in solidarity like they are.

“I don’t know if you guys remember about Alton Gas, but look that up too, because that was an eight-year long solidarity action that was successful!” Paul yells as the crowd cheers. “And the reason why it was successful is because we stood shoulder to shoulder in unity!”

Paul tells people to throw away their fear and to “let this moment be a sign of hope”, reaffirming their commitment to ongoing advocacy and public awareness across Mi’kma’ki.

Premier Tim Houston was in Toronto Tuesday, for an announcement alongside federal Minister Tim Hodgson. Protester’s plan to be back at Province House Wednesday at noon and various other locations around Nova Scotia for their next rally: Arts, Heritage, and Culture Under Threat.

The official opposition met with a handful of women from across the province to push for action from the Houston government for better health care.

It was Monday at Province House in Halifax where the four of them stood alongside NDP Leader Claudia Chender to share their stories.

Right now, more than 15,000 women are waiting for routine care, and Chender says the women she’s talked to aren’t surprised, but they are angry. On average, it’s expected these women will be waiting three years just to see a doctor.

It took nearly 20 years for Cairista MacIsaac to get her endometriosis diagnosis.

“Because I couldn’t get adequate care, in the process I lost my ability to work. I worked a government position, and I ended up on income assistance, which reduced my annual income by roughly $34,000. I had to raise $28,000 for treatment and travel outside of the country, and endometriosis affected my physical, emotional, and mental health, my confidence, my identity, my social life, and my ability to show up for my friends, family, and community,” MacIsaac explains.

In a media release, the NDP says despite a commitment to fix health care, the Houston government still hasn’t delivered on lifechanging treatment centres they had previously promised, including mammograms at the IWK Health Centre.

Shauna Brousseau who also suffers from endometriosis says she would visit the ER with debilitating abdominal pain “until someone could do something to help.”

She says when doctors finally took her seriously, they said she was stage four and had a 15cm cyst that resulted in her losing an ovary and fallopian tube.

“If it had been caught and acted on years before, I wouldn’t have lost those organs, and since then, before and after surgery, it’s night and day,” says Brousseau. “I have control over my life, and I’m here to say it shouldn’t take 10 years for women to get that help. Women lacking in our province and without a family doctor, women are left navigating a complicated system, and we deserve care.”

Erin Hoth is a mother who wants to see midwifery care expanded in our province.

In 2024, Hoth was in the small 4% of pregnant Nova Scotian’s who was supported by a midwife, but it took nearly her entire first trimester to hear back after initially applying. To make matters worse, she tells reporters she didn’t have access to a family doctor until after her son’s first birthday.

“It became very clear I was struggling, and just lack of sleep. I had depression, postpartum depression, and anxiety. My Stitches had not even come out yet, and the midwives were not permitted to stay and help,” Hoth says after explaining that midwifery care is cut off after just 6 weeks. “I felt alone, anxious, and unsupported.”

Jane Archibald had just come from chemotherapy.

Despite getting annual mammograms, Archibald was diagnosed with stage three breast cancer in her late 40s because her extremely dense breast tissue hid the tumor. She says that in other provinces, like B.C., Ontario, and The Northwest Territories, women with dense breasts have access to MRI or ultrasound screening.

Archibald says if she had access to these tests, her cancer could have been caught sooner.

“Tests, double mastectomy, Lymph Node Surgery, radiation, and my current chemotherapy, which alone is costing Nova Scotia Health over $100,000. I lost a full year of income, and likely a lifetime of anxiety. I now have 10 years of endocrine therapy ahead, which probably means a decade of joint pain and severe hot flashes,” Archibald says, concerned about what future care will look like now that there’s even more pressure on the health system.

NDP Critic for the Office of the Status of Women, Susan Leblanc, says, “When women don’t get the care they need, it affects our families, our communities, and our economy.”