Why do the Liberals continue to get it so wrong even when they seem to be trying to get it right? Early last month, for example, Justice Minister Mark Furey introduced legislation to have expert review committees examine deaths resulting from domestic violence as well as unexpected deaths involving children in the care of the...
Stephen McNeil and the Crowns: Magic realism meets reality
After a crazy week of blind-siding legislation, insults, distortions, bluster, meaningless committee hearings and more fact-free moments than you'd find in a Trumpian White House, the province and its Crown attorneys are right back where they began — at the bargaining table. Well, not exactly as illustrated...
So let us review. On Mar. 31, 2019, the collective agreement between Crown prosecutors and the Nova Scotia government expired. As part of the previous contract, signed in June 2016, the prosecutors had agreed to accept a draconian wage package the government was imposing on all other public servants. At the same time, however, the...
Stephen McNeil’s Collective Bargaining Game
The thing about this game — as the government demonstrated last week when it changed the law to take away Crown prosecutors' collective bargaining rights — is that McNeil always wins. That's the way the game works. Always.
Let’s play a game. A shell game. You say it’s not a game to you. I say it’s always a game, and I always win. That’s the game. You say no one told you we were even playing. That’s part of the game too. I get to decide when it’s game on. So take that...
The curtain falls on this year’s ferry follies… but there’s always next year
Transportation Minister Lloyd Hines had to sort-of admit his ferry universe hadn’t unfolded exactly as planned, or… well, at all. “We're really disappointed on behalf of the operators that we haven't been able to mount a season…” On behalf of the operators?! The operators are making out like bandits. What about the rest of us?
So it’s finally, Thanksgiving-ly, over. For now. We hope. But don’t hold your breath. And do hold on to your wallet. Tightly. “There will not be any commercial crossings in 2019,” Mark MacDonald, the CEO of Bay Ferries, emailed a CBC reporter Friday in response to his question about whether the Yarmouth-Bar Harbor ferry would...
The perils of being progressive
Thanks to our first past the post system — thanks, Justin — progressives in Halifax still face a Hobson's choice when it comes to the federal election.
I get it. I even sympathize. You have only one vote and you don’t want to waste it. But how to choose? That is the question without easy answer this federal election. Let’s assume for the moment you see yourself as a moderate political progressive, likely more progressive than partisan. You know what you don’t...
If we build it, will they come?
The stadium that refuses to die has returned. Last week, HRM released most of its private sector proposer's pitch for public sector funding to make its dream of a CFL team reality. But it's worth asking ourselves: what else could/should we spend that $180 million over the next 30 years on?
“Premier Stephen McNeil reiterated Thursday that no money from general revenue will go toward a stadium.” Uh-oh. Not “uh-oh” that our premier told the Chronicle Herald he didn’t intend to pluck any money out of our general revenue and dump it into the latest $110-million stadium-in-the-sky scheme, but “uh-oh” that he qualified his no with...
What to do about Justin?
Last week's Blackface/Brownface controversy raises the complicated question of how we navigate our way through all the competing, compelling, often contradictory private and public actions of our politicians to determine who — if anyone — deserves our vote.
Voting is easy. Choosing who to vote for? Not so much… In our federal parliamentary, first-past-the-post system, we each get just one vote to elect our local member of parliament who is supposed to both represent our personal views and also be a puzzle piece in a national numbers game that will ultimately determine which...
The Great Dorian Disconnect of 2019
Why weren't phone, cell and data companies 'in the room' at the Emergency Management Office during last week's hurricane? Why is Nova Scotia Power still burying its head in its profits instead of burying its overhead cables? And other tales from an OMG week.
“When the last downed branches are shredded, I trust NSP’s and Eastlink’s senior managements will review their inadequate phone systems. The rage caused by endless busy signals, or the if-you-want-to-go-to-voice-mail-hell-press-one ‘automatic’ phone systems, is still widespread throughout the community.” Brian Flemming Halifax Daily News columnist Oct. 8, 2003 “Some Nova Scotia mobile phone users are questioning...
Politicians criticizing Israel: When 2019 becomes 1984 all over again
We've already begun another wild modern election ride during which outrageous old social media posts have and will come back to haunt candidates and the political parties that nominate them. But what happens when the outrage is misplaced and the goal seems to be to shut down legitimate differences of opinion?
Let’s begin with a pop quiz. During the 2015 Canadian federal election, how many candidates for the highest offices in our land were hoist by the petard of their own social media posts before voters could say yay or nay to them at the ballot box? On a roll? Then let’s go international. And get...
Lloyd ‘I-know-nothing’ Hines knows nothing… still
Four years and $60-million later, the only real question is whether the Yarmouth ferry fandango resembles a Monty Python skit or an episode of Hogan's Heroes. Oh, yes, and when will this show finally be cancelled?
Monty Python was funnier. No. Check that. Monty Python is funny. Lloyd Hines? Not so much. Still, one can understand Tory MLA Tom Halman’s description of the latest twists, turns, twirls and top-this folly from the ongoing, never-ending Yarmouth-to-somewhere-in-Maine ferry fandango as “like a skit out of Monty Python.” Personally, I prefer to think...
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