NDP MLAs Speak for Excluded CUPE School Support Staff at Public Accounts Committee Meeting

HALIFAX-KJIPUKTUK, Nova Scotia--(BUSINESS WIRE)--At today’s meeting of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, committee members Susan Leblanc and Lisa Lachance of the New Democratic Party will show their support for school support workers across the province by using their time to ask questions on behalf of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), whose representatives have been excluded from testifying at the meeting.

MEETING DETAILS:

• 9:00 am - 11:00 am, Wednesday, June 19, 2024
  Committee Room, Granville Level, One Government Place
  1700 Granville Street, Halifax

Committee members will be discussing the recently released report from Auditor General Kim Adair, “Preventing and Addressing Violence in Nova Scotia Public Schools”. Representatives from the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development, Nova Scotia Teachers Union, and the Public School Administrators Association of Nova Scotia are slated to testify at the meeting.

Despite attempts to share data on the subject, and requests to participate in conversations addressing it, as well as the fact that CUPE members are facing the brunt of the crisis of violence in public schools, CUPE has been excluded from testifying in today’s meeting.

In an important gesture of support and solidarity with thousands of school support workers across Nova Scotia, the NDP committee members will raise questions and concerns for CUPE members whose voices have been silenced and recognize CUPE representatives and members of the Nova Scotia School Board Council of Unions (NSSBCU), who will attend the meeting as members of the public.

Recent statements from CUPE Nova Scotia:

• CUPE Nova Scotia renews call for all unions to be involved in addressing violence in schools – June 12, 2024
• Nova Scotia government cannot exclude workers from conversations about their own safety – March 26, 2024

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