Cuts to benefits for caregivers in N.S. will hurt people with disabilities: advocates

HALIFAX — Kari Robertson spends every night with a monitor next to her bed in case her 44-year-old son, Graham, has a seizure and stops breathing.

Robertson said she had a normal pregnancy and was blessed with a baby boy with blond hair and blue eyes. But when he turned four, Graham was diagnosed with refractory epilepsy, a drug-resistant version of the brain disorder.

He’s had two surgeries since then, one of which Robertson says basically cut his brain in half in a bid to stop the seizures. It didn’t work, and Robertson said her son’s condition and quality of life have only become worse. He’s taking six different seizure medications a day, and can’t be given higher doses.

Robertson said she’s concerned and angry that the Progressive Conservative government is reducing funding for the provincial caregivers benefit by 20 per cent as part of $130 million in cuts to grants announced in last week’s budget.

Dealing with a $1.2-deficit, the Houston government has chosen to cut more than 280 grants, including scholarships, Indigenous and Black programs and arts funding.

The caregiver benefit provides $400 per month that Robertson said Wednesday has helped her family make ends meet for 16 years.

“I had to give up my career in order to look after Graham,” Robertson told reporters at a Nova Scotia legislature event hosted by NDP Leader Claudia Chender.

“No job I would have had would have allowed me to take the time that I needed to be with Graham…. (The benefit) made a huge difference to the essentials of our lives. More than that, it told me that the government actually cared and valued what I was doing.”

The amount of the caregiver benefit hasn’t increased since Robertson started receiving it, and Chender, who is calling for the government to reverse the cut, has introduced a bill to double the amount to $800 a month.

“As long as we can breathe and walk and care for him, (Graham) will be in our home,” said Robertson. “But it’s getting harder and harder and much more expensive to do all of that.”

Caregivers Nova Scotia said the organization’s grant has also been cut by 20 per cent. More than a week after the budget was introduced, executive director Jenny Theriault said the organization still doesn’t have clarity on whether the monthly benefit will be reduced, or if it will serve fewer people overall.

“If this program is reduced, caregivers will feel it immediately and when caregivers struggle or burn out, the impact ripples outward increasing pressure on home care, hospitals and long-term care,” Theriault said.

The Department of Seniors and Long-term Care said in an email that it’s working to ensure the smallest impact possible. It did not say what direct impact the cut would have.

“Any changes to the benefit would be communicated to those who receive it first,” spokesperson Kristen Rector said in an email.

Caregivers for about 3,000 people get the benefit.

The budget also includes a $1.6-million cut to special needs dental and bus pass programs, multiple cuts to the province’s disability support program, a $164,000 reduction in the hearing aid assistance program and a $404,000 reduction to a program designed to help people with disabilities enter the workforce.

Barbara Adams, the minister responsible for both seniors and social development, said during question period Wednesday that the government is spending an additional $41 million on disability and support programs in the new budget.

“There are a whole suite of supports that Nova Scotians with disabilities can take advantage of, Madam Speaker, and the budget itself (has) $787 million for those with disabilities in the province of Nova Scotia, Madam Speaker, and we’re going to continue to support them,” Adams said.

Henk van Leeuwen, president of the Directions Council, which represents 34 organizations providing employment, recreation and community day programs to people with intellectual disabilities, said most of his members are seeing provincial funding cuts of about 10 per cent in the new budget.

He said some of those organizations, including the Dartmouth Adult Service Centre (DASC), where he is executive director, have been tasked with helping the government implement a court-ordered human rights remedy.

The ruling found that the province had participated in “systemic discrimination” by housing people with disabilities in institutions like long-term care homes instead of supported homes in their communities. In August, an independent monitor said the province had notable delays in delivering new programs and services, two years into the process.

On one hand, van Leeuwen said the province is inviting the groups to be part of unprecedented changes under the remedy, but on the other hand it’s impairing their ability to do so with a budget cut. Along with providing more disability supports, the remedy calls on the government to remove people with disabilities from institutions and place them in supported housing within their communities.

“It’s illogical, it’s counterintuitive. This budget punches down and it’s going to hit the most vulnerable people in our community,” he said.

“We’re on your team, Province of Nova Scotia.… But cutting our budgets at a time when we’re trying to reimagine, redesign (and) recalibrate the services that we’re trying to build so that you can fulfil your mandate and live up to the court order of the remedy, it doesn’t make any sense.”

Adams told the legislature that there is $110 million more in the budget for the Opportunities and Social Development Department, and $57 million in new funding for the human rights remedy.

“We are going to be moving, for the first time in our province’s history, Madam Speaker, the disabled who are living in our institutions into (the) community,” said Adams.

“There is a cost associated with that, Madam Speaker. And all of the wraparound support that they are going to need to survive, we are absolutely committed to ensuring that that happens.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 4, 2026.

Devin Stevens, The Canadian Press