For Immediate Release
24 October, 2023
NDP Leader, Jim Dinn (St. John’s Centre), is publicly publishing the following questions to the Liberal Government after he was notified he will not be able to speak in the House of Assembly.
“While the housing crisis continues across the province, I was not able to ask the following questions to the Liberal Government today in the House of Assembly:”
1. Speaker, the people who were living in tents were promised clean, decent places to live where they could be with their friends, could cook their own meals, wash their own laundry. I visited three of the people this morning. Substandard conditions, rodent feces mixed with poison, stoves that do not work, and the absence of a washer and dryer was what he found. The people felt betrayed. I ask the Premier, why would his Minister promise one thing to people already traumatized by homelessness and then break that promise?
2. Speaker, some people were led to believe they would have their own place as a result of their own mental health needs. Instead, they were placed in shelters that will undermine their mental health recovery. I ask the Minister, how does he explain such an egregious breakdown in communication and what does he plan to do to fix the problem?
3. Some of the people we spoke to are already planning to return to the tent city or sleep in the woods rather than stay in the shelters they have been assigned. How does the minister plan to restore the trust of those who believed they were going to have a decent place in which to live?
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For further information, contact Eddy St. Coeur, Director of Communications, NDP Caucus at 729-2137 (o), or eddystcoeur@gov.nl.ca