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You are here: Home / Featured / Examineradio, episode #142: The Auditor General

Examineradio, episode #142: The Auditor General

January 12, 2018 By Terra Tailleur 1 Comment

Auditor General Michael Pickup. Photo: Jessica Flower / UNews

In November, Auditor General Michael Pickup was accused of overstepping his authority.  His report chastised the province for doing a “poor” job of communicating its strategies on doctor recruitment and primary health care. In turn, the premier chastised  the auditor general, saying Pickup should run for elected office if he wanted to criticize policy matters.

It did raise questions about the role of the auditor general. Did the premier have a point?

This week, Tim sat down with Pickup to talk about it.

Nowhere will you find when I write these reports to the legislature do I say ‘debt bad, debt good’ … That is for others to judge.

Plus, we talk about the case of Abdoul Abdi, the 23-year-old man who spent most of his childhood as a ward of the province and now faces deportation to Somalia, a country he fled when he was only six years old. Abdi was convicted of a violent crime in Canada and served his time. He doesn’t have Canadian citizenship because the people who were responsible for him — the province — never filed for it. He’s currently in an immigration detention centre in Toronto.

Check out this piece by El Jones to learn about others facing this very same situation.

Also, Tim and I talk about what he found when he searched for Nova Scotia connections in the Paradise Papers.

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Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: Abdoul Abdi, Auditor General Michael Pickup, Examineradio 142, Paradise Papers, podcast, Terra Tailleur

Comments

  1. Colin May says

    January 13, 2018 at 1:03 pm

    “He’s from Regina and obviously a big fan of the CFL,” LeBlanc said. “We thought, ‘Where do we start?’ I called Bobby Smith, he owns the (Quebec Major Junior Hockey League’s Halifax) Mooseheads and is a former GM of the Coyotes. We got together. I wanted to make sure he was cool with it. I didn’t want to do anything that was offensive to the Mooseheads operation. He said, ‘No, this would be great for the region.’

    “I asked if he’d be interested, he said, ‘Probably not, but you should talk to my cousin.’ It turns out his cousin, Richard Butts, was the city manager for Halifax. Richard put together a bunch of meetings for me to fly into Halifax. I met with the chamber of commerce, the local economic development group and the mayor (Mike Savage). The mayor said, ‘We’ve had a lot of people come through our doors over the years and they just don’t seem to understand that we can’t just go out and build a stadium. We want to be part of it, but we can’t lead it.’ ”

    The mayor hooked LeBlanc up with another businessman, AMJ Campbell Van Lines CEO Bruce Bowser, who had also shown interest in a CFL team in Atlantic Canada.

    “We met with the mayor, we met with the premier,” LeBlanc said. “We were pretty successful with keeping it quiet for four months or so. In that period of time, we probably met with the Halifax regional municipality 10 times, the province a handful of times. We met with a bunch of local organizations, we met with the league multiple times, presented to the board of governors. We did a lot of legwork before it became public. It’s just kind of developed its own inertia. There’s still a lot of work to do. The elephant in the room is the stadium. But we seem to have everything coming together.”
    http://ottawacitizen.com/sports/football/cfl/bidder-for-halifax-franchise-in-the-cfl-says-2018-will-be-a-big-year-for-the-group

    I especially like the 4th last sentence.

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The Tideline, with Tara Thorne

Phyllis Rising — Rebecca Falvey (left) and Meg Hubley. Photo submitted

Episode #19 of The Tideline, with Tara Thorne is published.

Meg Hubley and Rebecca Falvey met as theatre kids at Neptune and have been friends ever since. As Phyllis Rising — that’s right, Mary Tyler Moore hive — they’re making films, plays, and are in production on The Crevice, a three-part sitcom streaming live from the Bus Stop in March. They stop by to talk with Tara about its development, their shared love of classic SNL and 90s sitcoms, and the power of close friendship. Plus: A new song from a new band.

This episode is available today only for premium subscribers; to become a premium subscriber, click here, and join the select group of arts and entertainment supporters for just $5/month. Everyone else will have to wait until tomorrow to listen to it.

Please subscribe to The Tideline.

Uncover: Dead Wrong

In 1995, Brenda Way was brutally murdered behind a Dartmouth apartment building. In 1999, Glen Assoun was found guilty of the murder. He served 17 years in prison, but steadfastly maintained his innocence. In 2019, Glen Assoun was fully exonerated.

Halifax Examiner founder and investigative journalist Tim Bousquet has followed the story of Glen Assoun's wrongful conviction for over five years. Now, Bousquet tells that story as host of Season 7 of the CBC podcast series Uncover: Dead Wrong.

Click here to go to listen to the podcast, or search for CBC Uncover on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast aggregator.

About the Halifax Examiner

Examiner folk The Halifax Examiner was founded by investigative reporter Tim Bousquet, and now includes a growing collection of writers, contributors, and staff. Left to right: Joan Baxter, Stephen Kimber, Linda Pannozzo, Erica Butler, Jennifer Henderson, Iris the Amazing, Tim Bousquet, Evelyn C. White, El Jones, Philip Moscovitch More about the Examiner.

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