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...
Don’t worry. Be happy. That’s only your tax dollars you see sinking
Nova Scotia Transportation Minister Lloyd returned from Washington last week bubbling over with optimism for a summer season — albeit much, much shorter — for the Yarmouth-Bar Harbor tourist ferry. Don't hold your breath. But do hold on to your wallet.
So Lloyd “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” Hines has returned from his airplane flight-of-fancy to Washington — the ferry portion of his trip having been unavoidably delayed/canceled/“soon” to be resumed — bubbling over with optimism. Perhaps it was just the summer humidity. During three, pre-July-4th-holiday days in the US capital — in the long foreshadow of...
Shelburne School for Boys: Good intentions gone wrong? Or…?
Was the government's compensation program crafted out of a well-intentioned desire to allow victims to tell their story “without a public spectacle” that would re-victimize them? Or in a desperate attempt to keep the public from ever learning the real story behind the abuse of children in care?
While pursuing something else entirely yesterday, I was reading through back copies of The 4th Estate, the lefty Halifax newspaper of the 1970s, and stumbled upon repeated references to the Shelburne School for Boys. —Tim Bousquet “Morning File” June 27, 2019 I was a reporter then. And there. But I’d forgotten — forgotten that...
The Sackville-Cobequid byelection: seeking meaning in the meaningless
It is way too early to read anything of significance from a single constituency byelection in the muddling middle of any government’s mandate. But let's give it a shot...
“Steve Craig won the byelection for MLA in Sackville-Cobequid… The district has long been solidly NDP, so a PC victory is notable, but I wouldn’t read too much into it.” —Tim Bousquet June 19, 2019 Tim is right, of course. It is way too early to read anything of significance from the political leavings in...
What if we just gave Americans cash to come to Nova Scotia?
Crazy? Is it any crazier than pouring more millions of dollars into an American ferry, American docking facilities, American customs officers...?
Say, here’s an idea. My idea isn’t quite the Chase-the-Ace, get-us-on-national-TV, fun-and-games scheme Tim suggested a few months back. “Simply toss 20 dollar bills from a helicopter above downtown Yarmouth,” he proposed as his own common sense alternative to pouring still more millions of our tax dollars into that bottomless ocean that is our from-nowhere-to-no-way-not-now...
And promises to break…
Stephen McNeil promised us the most open and transparent government ever. He lied. Now as our information and privacy commissioner retires, the premier's wannabe replacements will talk a good game. Should we believe them?
I have no reason to doubt Catherine Tully when she told the subscriber-based business website allnovascotia.com last week she would have retired from her job as the province’s information and privacy commissioner this summer even if Premier Stephen McNeil had offered to extend her five-year term. She didn’t ask his plans before announcing her own....
Crisis? What crisis? Just a(nother) ‘new (lack of) direction’ for healthcare
Last week's "mutual" firing of the province's deputy health minister shows just how unwilling our premier is to acknowledge our healthcare crisis — let alone do something about it.
Last week, when Premier Stephen McNeil “mutually” agreed to fire Denise Perret — the deputy minister of health he’d hired just two-and-a-half years ago — he explained it was because “we’re now re-setting and moving in a new direction.” He did not explain what he was re-setting from or to, or in what new yellow-brick-road...
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