[Transcribed] Let me start off by saying that I relate quite strongly to this question because as an employee of VIA Rail, which was my summer job for three summer straight. This was a unionized position and rail really workers have been part of a union for a long time and I see this unionization as absolutely essential for a job that has quite difficult working conditions sometimes It's essential for maintaining kind of protection of workers and allowing workers to Advocate and speak out against, you know, either unjust working conditions or dangerous working conditions without fear of of having ramifications this having ramifications on their employment or on their reputation or their potential reference for for the future. So I feel like I can understand why some people would see it see Physicians unionizing not not making any sense because Physicians are seen as being quite privileged members of society where they have, you know, a high salary and they have Prestige and respect from the community. But I think unionizing, but I think Physicians have still been quite vocal about the difficulties of their work and it's important to have a union to recognize that and to speak for Physicians. I think in particular one thing I want to link this to is the culture and Medicine of and I think the starts with admitting applicants to medical school who are quite driven and quite selfless and want to do everything that they can for their patients. I think this contributes to a culture of burnout frankly amongst Physicians and we see this in suicide statistics for Physicians being far superior to those of the general population. I think it might be difficult for individual Physicians to speak out about burnout again because they're seen as they're seen by some members of society is having these privileges. Even with some Physicians switching to part-time work. This is actually has been criticized by other members of their profession particularly because taxpayers kind of contribute to the education of Physicians. So in any case, I think there are some clear issues here. That unions can be helpful for so work protections creating unity in a profession and I think this is a beneficial thing. Although there needs to be kind of probably clear communication to the public about why doctors are unionizing what they hope to accomplish.

[Transcribed] So in this case, I think it makes sense to have Universal and consistent regulations put out by the federal government, but then leaving some freedom to provinces and to municipalities to apply those regulations in their local contexts in a way that makes sense to them considering that Canada has a really big country and we are quite diverse. I think it's in good faith to give to allow some freedom for provinces to Apply regulations set out by the federal government. What I'd like to get into for my response is some of the concerns that have happened at a local level in Halifax as that's what I'm most familiar with so after cannabis was legalized in Halifax. There was a response first of all from local dispensaries for a couple reasons. So local dispensaries. That contribute jobs to the local economy. We're concerned about the loss of those jobs and they also felt that they'd invested quite a lot of time and their own experience into providing education and building relationships with their customers and their argument was that that relationship allowed for greater safety and cannabis use because they were able to share their expertise and then I think another concern that came up or in any case that I'm wondering about is both the cost of acquiring license and the process of going through that. I'm unsure what that looks like and I can see how some dispensaries might want to be regulated and sorry licensed. But if that process is unnecessarily difficult or not even difficult, but just has not been communicated. Well between the government and dispensaries that could cause problems Ones and good kind of cause animosity so I just want to reiterate that I think regulation is has been a great thing in the sense that you're getting consistent information about things like the age requirement for purchasing marijuana to make sure that products sold are safe and that it's clear what they contain particularly for people who are purchasing marijuana. New or different compounds for using them for specific purposes that's been a great benefit. I think having regulation in place ensures compliance with those guidelines that are essential for maintaining safety similar to what we see with regulation around liquor consumption and purchase. So another issue that came up in Halifax is kind of a social justice perspective on this because When cannabis was legalized here the city also decided to create a smoking band so that you could only smoke in designated areas in the city and this applied to both it applied to both cannabis and cigarettes because the argument was that maybe it would be difficult to tell what people were smoking so it's better to just and it all together in public spaces. And the problem with this is that there was the concerned That it was going to disproportionately affect people of lower socioeconomic status who might not have, you know, a private property to kind of retire to to smoke. So if they're renting and their apartment building doesn't allow smoking where they supposed to go smoke and considering that And he was considering that nicotine is a real addiction that could be quite difficult for some people. And then one more issue all are one more concerned. I think that legalization of cannabis brought up was what do we do with the population of people who have been incarcerated for a cannabis possession or for selling it do we retroactively release people from jail, I think yes, so that was just a concern of making sure that people didn't fall through the cracks especially people who are incarcerated for cannabis are just Fortunately black so that's just a summary I think of some of the local concerns. But again, that's the benefit of allowing some freedom to provinces and municipalities to kind of apply regulations around cannabis because they're able to Grapple with local problems that arise for them. Thank you so much.

[Transcribed] So recently I've gotten to actually be quite passionate about providing care for the elders in our population. I think this is especially a problem in Nova Scotia. It's a problem in Canada and kind of globally is, you know pop as our population in Canada gets older but at this is especially going to be accentuated in Nova Scotia. I believe we have one of the oldest populations in Canada. So through covid I think we've seen that that is those kind of the cracks in our long-term care system. And this has been a problem that's been brewing for a long time. I acknowledge that. It's I know Care Homes often refer to staffing issues and funding is also probably an issue. And I think it says something about kind of our priorities as a society as well. For instance like even in I even in like when it comes to medical school we have I think about 300 geriatric specialists in Canada compared to 3,000 Pediatric Specialists, even though the proportion of our population that is older is has surpassed the population of our population. Sorry the proportion of our population. And that is Young younger. So I think this is going to start to be a key priority in Nova Scotia specifically. I'm quite passionate about this as well because I'm a sociology student and I'm the TA in a class called gender and health at Dalhousie and recently we just talked about aging and body projects and how our view of Aging the idea that there's a certain way to age. Well, alright, so like engaging in healthy behaviors and kind of traveling or picking up hobbies and staying active like all those things that are very dependent on class depending on class and depending on being kind of like able-bodied and all those things what I was trying to get at there is that there's like there's this kind of inherent ageism and how we look at aging and so that feeds into why I'm interested in the directions that we're going to go in and providing care for older folks I think one thing to work on for instance is that and I think this is something that could actually probably bring different politicians and constituents together is that I think a lot of older folks would like to stay at home for as long as possible and so between staying at home if your only options are going into a long-term care home where the problems with those have already been exposed no poor sanitary conditions So if it's either that or kind of getting Acute Care in a hospital bed, which you know, our hospital system is not really set up for to provide kind of Extended Stays for older folks that don't really have anywhere else to go. I think getting people to stay at home for longer would be an ideal solution here and it's going to be it's going to be you know up to Canadians to decide that end up to Nova scotians to decide that that that is going to be a priority frankly. I just think there's a moral duty here to care for our older Nova scotians, you know, they have contributed throughout their entire life. To their province into our society and they really deserve kind of dignity in care. And and to bring this back to kind of the culture that we have around older folks. That's just what I was trying to get at. The start is that we aren't going to see enough of kind of an impetus to change our system until we have kind of a shift in the culture and realizing that we need to prioritize older folks just as much as we talk about providing care to other people in our society. I also want to address kind of the language that's It's used around, you know, the silver tsunami and how this aging population is going to put a huge strain on our Healthcare System. I think it's important to remember that we're seeing increased Healthcare use in all segments of our population. And I think again this is feeding into a culture of kind of blame on older folks that is going to really impede thinking of Creative Solutions to care for them. So Rawls is clearly something. I'm pretty passionate about and I really hope that it's Something that would be addressed in med school if I attended school at Dalhousie. Thank you so much.