Again, there really needs to be more support in rural areas of Nova Scotia. The challenges are equally crucial and critical. Housing, yes, of course, that is an issue in rural Nova Scotia. So is transportation. There is no metro transit in the valley or in Cumberland County. There is a great program that is starting up a bus service right now, running from town to town.
Before I started working at Stepping Stone I worked at the women's centres for a year doing a project where I travelled across the province. I met with 95 women, from Cape Breton down to Yarmouth, about income assistance and ways they wanted to see the system transformed, based on their own realities and their recommendations.
I heard a lot of things in rural Nova Scotia. I heard about the complete lack of supportive programs. I heard about transportation issues. I heard about child care issues. This is also true for Halifax, but it's really severe in rural Nova Scotia. I heard about health care. Poverty encompasses everything. As I said earlier, if I were in Springhill and something happened, I would have to find my way to get transportation to the hospital when the ER is closed at home.
I would again go back to the approach that we need to look at the different challenges that the geography within our province presents, really keep in mind the challenges in the urban cores and the challenges in the rural cores. We need to come up with a strategy that is going to work for all Nova Scotians, because there are a lot of people in rural Nova Scotia right now who are living in poverty, and they feel isolated, secluded. I know women who, because of the strict welfare-to-work policies, are forced into work before they have adequate child care, and they are spending hours upon hours on a bus going from one town to the next town, and they hardly see their children anymore. So I do think all of these issues need to be addressed, especially for people living in poverty in rural areas in Nova Scotia.