“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...
Who’s Tory now?
So there are now three Tories — one official, two unofficial — running in next week's provincial byelection in Cape Breton's Northside-Westmount riding. Could this entire mess have been avoided if the PC brain-trust had not reacted in its usual over-reacting way to its first would-be candidate's supposedly controversial social media posts?
Quick now. Who’s the real Tory candidate in the Cape Breton Northside-Westmount provincial byelection? Yes, it is a trick question. And, yes, the answer is complicated. Best to start chronologically. Earlier this year, the Progressive Conservative Party recruited Sydney Mines musician Andrew Doyle to seek its nomination in the traditionally Tory riding for the next...
When a healthcare crisis is an opportunity… for an “important milestone” moment photo-op
While our healthcare crises multiply, our leaders stage photo opportunities that resemble trying to slap Band-Aids on the backsides of rampaging elephants. Whatever happened to political leadership?
So last week, 10 out of 37 hospital emergency departments in Nova Scotia were closed for at least some part of the week. The Musquodoboit Valley Memorial Hospital won in the best-in-worst category: its emergency department was scheduled to be closed for a total of five days last week, only finally reopening its doors on...
What went wrong with MyHealthNS?
We thought you'd never ask. We can't tell you. But thanks for asking. Your health care matters to your government...
The provincial government’s news release last Wednesday was succinct, if not desert-dry. “MyHealthNS,” it began, “the province’s secure online service that allows patients to access their health information and securely communicate with their doctor, is moving to a new software vendor.” Which new software vendor? When? The release didn’t say. Why? What happened? Well, the...
The Assoun and the Furey
Will Justice Minister Mark Furey do right by wronged Glen Assoun, or will he join the likes of Len Pace in the crowded dark pantheon of Nova Scotia’s injustice system?
Justice Minister Mark Furey is about to assume his own dishonourable place in the dark pantheon of Nova Scotia’s injustice system. He joins many unworthy worthies. Consider Leonard Pace, a former Liberal justice minister from the 1970s who had been Nova Scotia’s attorney general during Donald Marshall, Jr.’s infamous 1971 murder trial and then went […]
Can we talk about Israel and the Palestinians? No?
Between Rana Zaman’s nomination as a federal NDP candidate in May and the end of June, someone dredged up a number of her impassioned social media posts, which focused on Israel and its treatment of Palestinians. The NDP almost instantly dumped her. But what had she said that was so awful?
Canada’s New Democrats made a mistake. Not with their nomination last week of Emma Norton, a 28-year-old climate change activist and Ecology Action Centre staffer who decided to seek elective office this spring because she felt betrayed by Justin Trudeau’s “market-based, incrementalist” approach to climate change. I’m certain she will be a fine candidate in […]
The McNeil government is going for the secrecy gold medal
Is Nova Scotia Canada’s most secretive jurisdiction? Or does it just act that way? Consider a few especially egregious, not-at-all-transparent episodes from just the last week.
Is Nova Scotia Canada’s most secretive jurisdiction? Or does it just act that way? Consider a few especially egregious, not-at-all-transparent episodes from just the last week. Let’s start with the latest on plans to build a new 126,000-sq. ft. community outpatient healthcare facility in Bayers Lake Business Park. Though the facility is ostensibly going to...
Who’s not telling the truth? Bay Ferries? The Nova Scotia government? US Border Services? All of the above?
You would think — given the circumstances and the season of the sun — that government officials would do almost anything to avoid ending up naked, deer-in-the-headlights, in front of microphones where they might be asked impertinent questions about ferries that don’t ferry and related matters. You would be mistaken.
No! Really? Couldn’t be. But there it was. In virtual black and white. “If Yarmouth ferry sailed even once this year, it would be productive: official,” read the headline over CBC reporter Jean Laroche’s piece last week about the latest twisty turn in the long since careened-off-the-rails story of the Yarmouth ferry. You would think...
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