Lack of new money in N.S. budget for domestic abuse fails survivors, advocates say – Halifax [Video]

Nova Scotia’s new budget fails to adequately address the crisis of gender-based violence, advocates and opposition parties say.

The Progressive Conservatives introduced a $17.6-billion budget on Tuesday for the 2025-26 fiscal year, which made note of $100 million in previously announced funding for intimate-partner and gender-based violence.

Since October, six women in Nova Scotia have been killed by their male partners.

Carrie Low, a survivor of gender-based violence and an advocate, said in an interview Wednesday she feels let down by the budget because it doesn’t include substantial new funding to prevent domestic abuse or support survivors. “The lack of support, it says that we’re not important enough. That our lives don’t matter,” Low said.

“The message, again, is that this is not a priority.”

Kristina Fifield, a trauma therapist who works with survivors of intimate-partner violence, says the budget fails to give victim advocacy groups “core funding” to provide …