“Last week the government issued a tender for a system-design review of Emergency Health Services. The minister said after 25 years in its current form he thought it was time for a review to ensure the system continues to follow best practices…” CBC News Aug 8, 2018 “Helping improve emergency services for over three decades....
The Climate Emergency
Part 4: Our current economy can't address the crisis; what are we going to do about it?
Previously in this series: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. It’s not often that I root for the anti-hero in a book, but it seems that as I neared the end of Jeremy Lent’s latest book, The Patterning Instinct: A Cultural History of Humanity’s Search for Meaning — perhaps the longest book I’ve ever read at...
Maritime Launch Services and its private/public servants
One government bureaucrat sent a nasty email to a CBC reporter. Others had rude things to say about the Halifax Examiner. And Stephen McNeil met with MLS and it Ukrainian "partners" even though they aren't registered as lobbyists.
It’s not the first time I’ve waded through many hundreds of pages of correspondence released by a government under a FOIPOP (Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy) request, but it is the first time that reading the correspondence made me feel slightly queasy, like a voyeur witnessing unhealthy relationships developing between uncritical and subservient...
Whose deaths matter?
The Nova Scotia government has brought in legislation to create expert review panels to look into the deaths of those who die as a result of domestic violence as well as children who die in provincial care. The goal is to "turn tragedy into lessons learned and lives saved into the future." But Justice Minister Mark Furey refuses to extend the new law to include another vulnerable group: adults who die in provincial custody. Why not?
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...
Tidal power update: new legislation clears way for three new projects, but a tidal power industry is still “decades” away
The dream of commercializing renewable energy from the world’s largest tides got a new lease on life last week. The Nova Scotia government amended a law to give three tidal developers permission to pursue the goal. The first project to test the powerful tidal waters of the Bay of Fundy, a $20 million-plus venture between...
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...
Nova Scotia government doubles down on gold mining
There were moments during last week’s “Water Not Gold” rally outside the Alt Hotel at the Halifax airport where the “Gold Show” was in progress, when I was reminded of a video from 2011 during Occupy Wall Street. That footage shows protestors marching along Wall Street, calling out money barons, greed, and the neoliberal system...
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...
Nova Scotia Power wants 1.5% rate increases for each of the next three years
Nova Scotia Power (NSP) was before the Utility and Review Board yesterday asking for a rate increase that will see residential customers pay 1.5% more on their power bill in each of the next three years. Businesses and large industrial users could see their bills go up between 2 and 4% each year. NSP blames...
Gold fever is coming to Halifax
Mineral exploration companies have staked claims next to the Halifax and Dartmouth lakes that are the source of our drinking water
Cover photo: Touquoy open pit gold mine at Moose River. Photo courtesy Raymond Plourde On October 17 and 18, mining industry representatives and between five and 10 government officials will gather at the Alt Hotel at the Halifax Airport for the province’s first-ever “gold show.” The gold show is being organized by the Mining Association...
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