As the provincial legislature reconvenes, many Nova Scotians are still struggling to recover in the aftermath of Hurricane Fiona while also dealing with the current crises of healthcare and affordability. Today, Nova Scotia Liberals will be introducing a suite of bills aimed at emergency readiness in the province.

An Act Respecting Power Outages in Long-Term Care will amend the Homes for Special Care Act to ensure residential facilities such as long-term care homes are equipped with generators that can provide power for a minimum of four days in the event of an outage. By adopting this legislation, Nova Scotia would be in line with Florida where extreme weather events are frequent.

An Act to Create a Registry of Vulnerable Persons will ensure the Emergency Management Office creates a registry of vulnerable persons, which would include personal information and a designated emergency plan to ensure first responders are prepared to assist these individuals in emergency situations.

An Act to Create the Hurricane Fiona Salvage Assistance Program will require the government to establish a $5 million fund to assist woodlot-owners with cleanup efforts, similar to the province’s disaster financial assistance arrangement created after Hurricane Juan in 2003.

An Act to Require Backup Power at Petrol Stations will ensure gas stations maintain sufficient backup power to allow them to continue normal operations at their businesses for a minimum of 24 hours.