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...
The Archaeology of Loss
How industrial logging in the Mi’kmaq heartland is destroying a lot more than trees
“We were in wonderful moose country now.” At least this is how Albert Bigelow Paine described the Nova Scotia landscape he and three others journeyed through in his 1908 book The Tent Dwellers. The book tells the true story of a June trout fishing trip led by two guides, Charlie Charlton and Del Thomas, who...
EfficiencyOne loses battle with Nova Scotia Power for more spending on energy efficiency
EfficiencyOne has lost a battle with Nova Scotia Power to spend more of ratepayers’ money on energy conservation programs. Nova Scotia’s EfficiencyOne (E1) utility is the country’s first dedicated to helping people and businesses use less energy. E1’s budget is provided by NS Power. Until 2010, the Public Utilities Act required Nova Scotia Power “to...
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....
The Innovation Hub of Nova Scotia: the “biomass” company you’ve probably never heard of
The Innovation Hub of Nova Scotia (branded as the Nova Scotia Innovation Hub) is a non-profit corporation which includes a mix of the largest private companies in the province as well as participation by provincial and federal governments. You have probably never heard of it. Its mission is find and financially assist companies interested in...
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...
Northwest Arm ferry to launch on Tuesday
UPDATED to include actual launch times: Tuesday, June 4, 7am After a month of waiting with boat ready to go, a new ferry service across the Northwest Arm is set to begin service on Tuesday, June 4th, at 7am. David Backman will be running his new 22-foot saltwater pontoon boat from the dock near the...
City Hall tried to crawl through a loophole on gender discrimination
When last week's human rights commission hearing on gender discrimination in Halifax's fire service began, lawyers for HRM tried to get the complaint tossed on a technicality. The good news is that they lost. The bad news is that they tried.
In lawyer terms, it probably made sense. Scrounge in the legal underbrush for a technicality, a loophole to crawl through to derail potential litigation against your client. Save your client some unwanted publicity, maybe even a little — or a big — cash settlement. All good, all standard-issue Litigation 101. Unless, of course, your client...
Health Authority opens the door a crack
For the first time since the McNeil government dismantled nine regional health authorities and created one provincial agency to run hospitals four and a half years ago, the Nova Scotia Health Authority opened a portion of one of its Board meetings to the public. Yesterday’s meeting took place in the town of Liverpool. Doors opened...
Ka-ching. Ka-ching. Your tax dollars at work covering government butt
As Justice David Farrar summed up the appeal court ruling in the Alex Cameron case: “It would be manifestly unfair to allow the province to hide behind solicitor-client privilege while at the same time impugning the conduct of its solicitor.” But that didn't stop the McNeil government from trying. And trying.
Last week, the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal instructed the McNeil government to stop hiding behind the skirts of solicitor-client privilege in order to hobble a lawsuit brought against it by a former government lawyer who claims the government impugned his conduct and attacked his character and reputation. Alex Cameron, a 26-year veteran of the...
- 1
- 2
- 3
- …
- 53
- Next Page »