2009-06-01 06:19:43
Liberals in Lunenburg West are challenging a statement by Conservative Candidate Carolyn Bolivar-Getson. Mark Furey is speaking out against a statement she made at a debate in Bridgewater this week. Bolivar-Getson made the claim her Conservative government had produced eight consecutive balanced budgets. Furey adamantely denies that. He says the only way they could have balanced the spring budget was if they broke the rules. A proposed amendment to the Finance Act had to pass for the Conservative financial plan to balance. That change would have allowed them to spend extra money on programs instead of putting it on the province's 12-billion dollar debt. Furey says it's time for the Conservative government to be accountable for their actions and realize Nova Scotians are smarter than that.
Political rhetoric, or a pledge to set the record straight? Pam Birdsall has paid for a print ad to refute what she says are untrue statements by Premier Rodney MacDonald. The NDP candidate in Lunenburg says the premier claimed publicly the Firefighter tax credit would be cancelled if the government changed. Birdsall says the $500 credit for 2009 is law and was approved in the Legislature in 2007 with the NDP fully supporting the measure. She says the election makes no difference to the law or the ammendment extending it to ground search and rescue along with firefighters.
Judy Streatch is calling on the South Shore Region School board to keep Big Tancook Elementary school open. The facility is one of the last one-room schools in the country and it sits on an island in the waters of Mahone Bay. Declining enrollments at the school in recent years have lead board members to order an impact assessment report. Streatch says Big Tancook Elementary has a long standing history of educating the children who call the islands home. She adds it is a wonderful school in a unique situation and she says that has to be remembered in any move forward plan for the P-5 facility. It's thought there will be an enrollment of between five and ten students over the next five years. Streatch says she does not support closing Big Tancook Elementary and will work to make sure parents have input on where their kids are educated.
It's a political challenge of a different sort. Rick Welsford, the Liberal candidate in the riding of Lunenburg has challenged the other candidates to remove their signs from the Towns lawns and gardens. Welsford issued his challenge during his closing remarks of a candidates debate in Lunenburg last night. He planned to remove his signs immediately after leaving the debate.
