Christmas Comes Late for Medical Residents

Last Monday the NS Legislature started a special winter sitting to talk about Bill 117, a bill that would change the rules on campaign financing. Of course, media coverage of this controversial bill has been all but non-existent with the constant front page stories of Minister Fage's pre-Christmas fender-bender.

Bill 117 limits contributions to political parties from unions and corporations to $5000, something that the NDP claims disproportionately benefits the Conservatives, and it allows the ethically murky trust fund of the NS Liberals to be used for certain purposes. When the bill was introduced in the fall, the NDP filibustered it calling it a Liberal-Conservative attack, and questioned the timing of the bill, coming only a few months after the NDP had their most successful election year ever.

I am sure you are wondering what this has to do with medical students doing their residency. Well, last night the NDP agreed to cut their filibustering short and allow a vote on Bill 117 as long as the Conservatives agreed to pass a bill during the spring sitting of the legislature that would exempt medical students from having to pay back their student loans during their residency.

This is a huge victory for the Dalhousie Medical Student Society (DMSS), the Alliance of Nova Scotia Student Associations (ANSSA), and the DSU, and the most amazing thing about it is that out of all the things the NDP could have chosen to negotiate on they chose this one. Thank you for putting students ahead of politics.