New nurses uniforms coming from New Brunswick, home oxygen from Manitoba and Newfoundland

January 26, 2012
For immediate release

HALIFAX, NS – Progressive Conservative Economic Development critic Eddie Orrell says the NDP’s high taxes and the special interests they support are costing jobs at Nova Scotia companies.

The Nova Scotia Nurses Union voted last year to adopt a common uniform at a cost to taxpayers of about $500,000. In the past, nurses sourced and paid for their own uniforms.

HENS Uniforms, a small Windsor company, sells hospital garb. The NDP government’s new adherence to single-sourced black and white uniforms has cost two employees their jobs, and owner Heather Donohue says it is doubly hurtful because the contract for the new uniforms was just awarded to a New Brunswick company.

“What bothers me as a taxpayer is that I am now paying for uniforms that I never paid for before and the profits from the sales will benefit a New Brunswick company,” Donohue said.

In New Minas, a family-owned medical oxygen company has been shut out of work in their own area, after serving the community for 25 years.

The NDP changed the ground rules for companies supplying oxygen. In the Annapolis Valley, the winning bids came from companies in Manitoba and Newfoundland. Both provinces have lower taxes and lower costs for power than Nova Scotia.

“The government is making it impossible for Nova Scotia companies to compete in our own province,” said Family 1st Medical general manager Kimberley Monette. Family 1st Medical has gone from 30 employees to 25, and some of those had their hours cut as a result of the lost contract with the Annapolis Valley DHA.

While the NDP government is killing Nova Scotia jobs, they are maintaining the healthcare superstructure.

“Nova Scotian companies are over-taxed and disadvantaged from competing for work in their own backyard,” said Orrell. “The jobs and profits are going out of our province and the so-called savings are going to the big salaries at the top of the healthcare system.”

There is no evidence the NDP’s ‘jobsHere’ program, at a cost of $200 million to taxpayers, is creating any jobs. Statistics Canada reports 8,900 jobs have been lost in rural Nova Scotia in the past two years.

Orrell says a PC government will encourage job creation by getting the fundamentals right: balancing the budget, lowering taxes, eliminating unnecessary regulation and adopting an energy plan that integrates economic and environmental goals.

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