I have more than once described the Liberal members of the standing committee on public accounts — Vice Chair Gordon Wilson and MLAs Brendan Maguire, Suzanne Lohnes-Croft, Hugh MacKay and Ben Jessome — as the “Fangless Five” for their unfailingly fearless failure to do their job of holding the government to account. Someone on social...
Encounter re-encountered, with lessons for today
In 1970, a dozen outside experts came to Halifax for a week to turn the city 'upside down.' This week, you can see excerpts from 'Encounter on Urban Environment,' the NFB's documentary on that cataclysmic week in Halifax, and discuss whether it's time for another upside-downing.
I must admit I was surprised — and delighted — to Facebook-find a group I’d never heard of that is staging an event this Thursday to sit around, watch excerpts from a 50-year-old NFB documentary and then discuss, with Councillor Lindell Smith, HRM planners, and others, “parallels between the development happening in the 1970s and the...
Health minister promises to fix long-term care, but offers no money to actually fix it
Last week’s expert-panel report into the province’s flat-lining long-term care system offered a clarion call for the government to finally fix our ailing long-term care system. But the panel didn’t provide a clear, costed pathway to do that, in part because the government didn’t provide it with enough useful data about the existing problems and in part because the government wrote the panel’s job description precisely to make it difficult for them to talk about the only issue that will ultimately matter: money.
Health Minister Randy Delorey says his government “will pursue and act upon” the five recommendations and 22 action items in last week’s expert-panel report into the province’s flat-lining long-term care system. The backdrop: in September, a woman with untreated, infected bedsores died in a long-term care facility. She wasn’t the first. And questionable patient deaths...
The Fang-less Five, the McNeil government, and (un)accountability
In his own Trumpian, alternate-fact world, MLA Gordon Wilson wants us to believe the Public Accounts Committee can’t venture beyond the narrow confines of published auditor general’s reports when examining public spending because… well, that would be against the law. Time for Wilson to re-read the "law."
Stephen McNeil’s Fang-less Five, also known as the Craven Cabal of Liberal Nobodies, are up to their usual tricks. Still. Again. Let’s recap. Last April, a 19-year-old student, innocently looking for government information releases relating to an ongoing dispute between the provincial government and its teachers (you may remember that), was accidentally able to download...
Hard conversations: Why was “fantastic principal” Lamar Eason suspended from his job?
“People don’t like to talk about race, culture, bias,” Bayview Community School principal Lamar Eason explains, adding elliptically: “Doing your job can lead to questioning the people employing you. Understandably, people get defensive. But [race relations officers] are not there just to support schools; we’re also there to support students and their families. There can be some hard conversations.”
Just as the school day was winding down on Monday, Nov. 5, 2018, the human resources director of the South Shore Regional Centre for Education (SSRCE) showed up, unannounced, at Mahone Bay’s Bayview Community School. Brian Bonia proceeded directly to the office of the school’s principal, Lamar Eason, where he delivered a copy of an […]
Gerald Regan and the legacy of our #MeToo moment
It isn't the jury's verdict from 1998 we should be remembering today, but the fact the RCMP and prosecutors finally chose to believe women over one of the country's most powerful political men. And, more important, that women — lots of them — stood up for other women, and said #MeToo.
“Members of the jury, have you agreed upon your verdicts?” The court clerk asked her rote question with a wavering, tell-me-don’t-tell-me tone that seemed to capture perfectly the nervous, nerve-wracked mood among the more than three dozen men and women sitting in the Halifax Law Court’s Courtroom 3-1 on the blustery afternoon of December 18,...
Shrubsall: Andy Fillmore’s challenge and opportunity
Is Halifax Liberal MP Andy Fillmore just one more mindlessly reliable yes-vote for whatever Justin Trudeau’s Liberals propose or oppose? Or could he fill what is now a political void and champion a non-partisan attempt to make sure our parole system helps those who deserve it while protecting the rest of us from dangerous offenders like William Shrubsall? T.C. — and the rest of us — are waiting.
It is not just a done deal. The deal, in fact, is almost certainly already past the point of reconsideration. But that shouldn’t stop the rest of us from demanding answers from those who made the deal, or accountability from those responsible for allowing it to happen. On Nov. 7, the Parole Board of Canada...
Race in Nova Scotia: one small step forward, another giant leap into the past
Back in the fall of 1968, Stokely Carmichael’s mere presence scared the hell out of Halifax. Are there lessons for today?
Last month, the Bank of Canada released its new $10-banknote featuring an image of Viola Desmond, the iconic Canadian civil rights pioneer who refused to give up her seat in the whites-only section of the Roseland Theatre in New Glasgow in 1946, and touched off this country’s modern civil rights era nine years before Rosa...
William Shrubsall: gambling on American justice, gambling on public safety
The parole board agrees dangerous offender William Shrubsall is still a danger. So why grant him full parole? Good question. Bad answer.
“After considering the following information, the Board has decided to take no action on your day parole and to grant full parole for deportation. The Board explains its reasons below…” Start with this. When considering 47-year-old Ethan Simon Templar MacLeod’s request for parole earlier this month, the Parole Board of Canada already had plenty of...
Catherine Tully’s power to persuade vs government’s power to ignore
If you’re denied access to information even after the information and privacy commissioner has reviewed your request and deemed it legitimate, your only recourse is to take the government to court. At your own expense, of course. It doesn't have to be that way. It is because it's in the government's interest to keep you from knowing.
Nova Scotians deserve modern access and privacy protections including effective oversight of their rights. Our current laws are no longer up to the task. Consistent with my recommendations last year, I once again recommend that the laws be modernized to ensure that Nova Scotia and Nova Scotians are ready and able to meet the challenges...
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