Ahead of the legislature sitting later this week, NDP leader Claudia Chender says her party will focus on health care, housing, affordability, gender-based violence, and how the province will deal with U.S. President Trump’s tariff threats.

They are focused on making Nova Scotia a place where everyone can live “no matter what Donald Trump does tomorrow,” she told reporters Wednesday morning.

That means all parties have to work together, and she says hers is ready, but she isn’t sure about the Progressive Conservatives.

“What we have seen from this government is a desire to steamroll their own agenda through this house as quickly as possible and get us out the other side. I think that does a disservice to Nova Scotians, and I think that the legislation that comes out suffers for it,” she says.

In response to tariff threats, Premier Tim Houston recently said removing bans on uranium mining and fracking could boost the economy, making the province more independent.

Chender says they want to support traditional industries, and agriculture, fishing, forestry, and mining will always have a future for Nova Scotia’s economy.

She said Houston’s desire for fracking and uranium would get “widespread public questioning and disapproval,” and lifting those bans would need a lot of scientific research and input from communities.

With the Progressive Conservative’s new supermajority, which they won in the fall election, Chender says it’s up to the opposition to everyday Nova Scotians to “be clear about what kind of province they want.”

The province will likely present a budget in the legislature on Friday.

After the auditor general’s recent report highlighting massive sums of money being spent outside the budget, Chender says it’s even more important to hold Houston’s government accountable.

“We are seeing, across the country, around the world, certainly to the south of us, that there is increasingly a move away from democratic norms, citizen engagement and good governance.