SHERBROOKE – Just days after announcing it would close, the Sherbrooke Opportunities Society (SHOPS) has confirmed it will remain open for at least another year following the province’s reversal of proposed cuts to the Disability Support Program.
“Today, SHOPS received the wonderful confirmation that we will receive funding for the coming year as a result of the reversal of the proposed provincial cuts,” Director of Operations Vickie Bruce said in a statement Tuesday. “We thank everyone who advocated for us. Everyone is truly a champion of those who need our voice.”
The confirmation follows Tuesday’s announcement that the provincial government would reinstate $53.6 million in grants and funding for programs supporting seniors, people with disabilities and educational initiatives – funding that had been eliminated in the 2026-27 budget.
Bruce had formally announced the eight-year-old day program would shut down April 1. At a special council meeting of the Municipality of the District of St. Mary’s on March 4, she described the funding elimination as “devastating,” warning it would leave “the most vulnerable in our society with no place to go, and no plan in sight.”
She said the consequences of the cuts would be “immediate and profound.”
“Programs like this quietly release the pressure families live under every day,” Bruce told councillors and more than 50 residents in attendance. Many caregivers, she said, were already “at a breaking point after years of COVID, job scarcity, isolation or lack of help, challenging behaviours, and the rising cost of simply putting food on the table.”
“These are not cuts; they are an amputation.”
Families echoed those concerns.
Laurie Milmine’s 35-year-old son Dale had attended SHOPS since October. The family moved to Nova Scotia from Ontario when similar programs there closed.
“Dale’s diagnosis is autism with acute brain injury due to atypical seizures,” she said at the March 4 meeting. “That has left him functioning on the level of a five-year-old,” enjoying activities such as sitting on the floor and playing with toys.
A former nurse, Milmine said she had spent three of her four years in Nova Scotia searching for a suitable program. “And now it’s going to be gone.”
She said finding another placement would be unlikely.
Established in August 2018, SHOPS is a day program for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities operating out of the community entrance at St. Mary’s Education Centre/Academy. The program provides individualized life skills development, recreation and health and wellness programming.
Nova Scotia is operating under a human rights directive known as the Remedy, stemming from the Disability Rights Coalition case, which requires the province to transition away from institutional models of care and expand inclusive, community-based supports by 2028.
At the meeting, Bruce said eliminating community-based day program funding appears inconsistent with the spirit of that directive. “Meaningful choice cannot exist if accessible community options are removed,” she said.
SHOPS has received annual funding since its inception through the Department of Opportunities and Social Development under the one-time initiative umbrella. Because the department was not accepting applications for new core-funded programs at the time, SHOPS operated “under unique and challenging conditions,” Bruce had said, with funding that was not permanent, restricted to wages and required the organization to independently raise money for insurance, materials, training and administration.
For seven years, she said, SHOPS covered those additional expenses through social enterprise, community fundraising, partnerships and volunteer support, including partnerships with the Strait Regional Centre for Education and the Municipality of the District of St. Mary’s.
Even though wage funding did not fully cover staffing costs, “SHOPS absorbed an annual wage deficit, while continuing to deliver meaningful programming to adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities in rural Nova Scotia,” Bruce said.
During the special council meeting, Derek Elsworth, minister at St. John’s United Church in Sherbrooke and chair of the local food bank, spoke about the broader impact of the approximately $130 million in cuts to arts, culture, social, tourism and community programs.
“It’s time for citizens to speak back and to say that, yes, we realize our financial restraints, that there are cuts that need to be made, but you don’t do it to the people who are most vulnerable – you start with the people who are already most privileged,” he said.
“And so when cuts are so wide-spread, wide-sweeping, and come without any warning or engagement with the communities or the people that they will directly affect, it’s simply unacceptable. It’s unacceptable for any government [to do this,] with or without a majority.
In an email interview with The Journal prior to the funding’s reinstatement, Guysborough-Tracadie MLA Greg Morrow said the Sherbrooke Opportunities Society “does incredible work. I’ve seen that work first-hand, and I know the value they bring to our community.”
He said Nova Scotia is moving toward a human rights-based approach to disability support guided by the Remedy.
“The Remedy is very clear on this point: government funding is provided to individual Disability Support Program participants,” he said, noting individualized funding is one of the directive’s key directions. “It will be up to individuals to choose how their funds are directed – and what a good life in the community looks like to them,” Morrow said.
He noted the province has invested more than $200 million in disability support transformation and committed $180 million in the 2026-27 budget.
“I’m committed to working with all those involved,” he said.
