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Nova Scotia is safe for school children and would-be municipal politicians… but not for Liberal MLAs

The McNeil Liberal government sends kids back to school and orders municipal elections to proceed as planned, but its MLAs refuse to commit to continuing to meet, even virtually, during the pandemic. Welcome to another week in Hypocrisy.

September 13, 2020 By Stephen Kimber 3 Comments

The Halifax Examiner is providing all COVID-19 coverage for free. It was just another week in our paradoxical parallel-universe paradise. On Tuesday, September 8, 2020, more than 120,000 public school students and their 10,000 teachers, along with thousands of more bus drivers, janitors, support staff — all of them interconnected in some infectious, no-degrees-of-separation way […]

Filed Under: Commentary, Featured, Province House Tagged With: Back to School plan, COVID-19, Health Committee, Public Accounts Committee

Bobbleheaded Zach joins the Public Accounts follies

Education Minister Zach Churchill was just filling in on the Public Accounts Committee last week, filling in Liberal-interest spin in the usual please-the-premier way. And so it went. Funny, but...

March 3, 2019 By Stephen Kimber

I’m almost certain Nova Scotia Education Minister Zach Churchill is not really a Bobblehead. He was just playing one in the legislature’s Public Accounts Committee last week. Last week, Churchill joined the Fangless Five and the Insensate Seven as he moved his head up and down in time with his premier on the issue of...

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Filed Under: Commentary, Featured, Province House, Subscribers only Tagged With: Catherine Tully, Public Accounts Committee, Zach Churchill

Tim Houston says that as premier he will be accountable

February 9, 2019 By Jennifer Henderson

“We will form a thoughtful, accountable, humble government that gives Nova Scotians hope,” Progressive Conservative leader Tim Houston told a crowd of more than 400 attending the party’s Annual General Meeting at the Westin hotel last night. Accountable would be good, especially since the current Stephen McNeil government which promised to deliver the most open...

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Filed Under: Featured, News, Province House, Subscribers only Tagged With: Boat Harbour, Health Committee, Northern Pulp, PC leader Tim Houston, Peter MacKay, Public Accounts Committee

Now that the Fangless Five have become the Insensate Seven, it’s past time for…?

Stephen McNeil’s Liberals have made a mockery of the notion of public accountability. So the opposition parties need to step up and do their job. It is past time.

February 3, 2019 By Stephen Kimber

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...

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Filed Under: Commentary, Featured, Province House, Subscribers only Tagged With: Health Committee, MLA Keith Irving, MLA Rafa DiCostanzo, Public Accounts Committee, Stephen McNeil

More Liberal cowardice

Morning File, Friday, February 1, 2019

February 1, 2019 By Tim Bousquet 12 Comments

News 1. Liberal cowards, pt. 2 Yesterday, I castigated as “craven fools” the five Liberals on the Public Accounts Committee — Gordon Wilson, Suzanne Lohnes-Croft, Ben Jessome, Brendan Maguire, and Hugh MacKay — for their spinelessness in limiting debate at the committee in order to (they think) gain a short-term PR advantage of controlling the public message. […]

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: Amanda Debison, collision Highway 103, Dave Stewart, Health Committee, Jaguar driving wrong way Hwy 101, Jason McLellan, Jim Vibert, Leading Pedestrian Intervals (LPI), Michael Gorman, MLA Ben Jessome, MLA Brendan Maguire, MLA Gordon Wilson, MLA Hugh MacKay, MLA Suzanne Lohnes-Croft, pedestrian safety, pedestrian struck Thistle Street, Peter Kelly CAO Charlottetown, Philip Croucher, Public Accounts Committee, Ryan van Horne, Thistle Street intersection, truck driving wrong way Hwy 101

Profiles in cowardice: Gordon Wilson, Suzanne Lohnes-Croft, Ben Jessome, Brendan Maguire, and Hugh MacKay are craven fools

Morning File, Thursday, January 31, 2019

January 31, 2019 By Tim Bousquet 6 Comments

News 1. Tuition “A proposal by Dalhousie’s Budget Advisory Committee to raise tuition next fall for the seventh year in a row drew criticism during a budget presentation to the Dalhousie Senate this week,” reports Jennifer Henderson: “You can’t put all the burden on students because we just can’t take it anymore,” said Senator Masuma […]

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: Atlantic Provinces Special Education Authority — Resource Centre for the Hearing Handicapped, Atlantic Provinces Special Education Authority — Resource Centre for the Hearing Impaired (APSEA), Atlantic Provinces Special Educational Authority, bus fares, collision Old Sambro Road, Deaf school abuse, Halifax Transit, Institution for the Deaf and Dumb, Interprovincial School for the Education of the Deaf, Michael Gorman, MLA Ben Jessome, MLA Brendan Maguire, MLA Gordon Wilson, MLA Hugh MacKay, MLA Susan Leblanc, MLA Suzanne Lohnes-Croft, Public Accounts Committee, Richard Martell and Michael Perrier, School for the Deaf, transit fares, Wageners Law Firm, Zane Woodford

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."

January 13, 2019 By Stephen Kimber

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...

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Filed Under: Commentary, Featured, Province House, Subscribers only Tagged With: accountability, Public Accounts Committee

Ask no questions, get no answers… Mission accomplished

MLA Gordon Wilson and the Gormless Gang of the Fang-less Five Liberal members of the Public Accounts committee would rather play reliable cheerleader for Premier Stephen McNeil than do their job.

June 3, 2018 By Stephen Kimber

HOUSTON: The motion is that the Public Accounts Committee meet on June 13th, June 20th, and June 27thto address these three topics of the Auditor General’s report in a timely fashion.  CHAIRMAN: Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye… Contrary minded, Nay…  The motion is defeated. NS Public Accounts Committee meeting May...

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Filed Under: Commentary, Featured, News, Province House, Subscribers only Tagged With: Auditor General Michael Pickup, MLA Gordon Wilson, Public Accounts Committee

The Liberals’ Fang-less Five ‘pre-empt’ public interest

There's a clear public interest in knowing how well the province is protecting our personal data. So why are Liberal MLAs refusing to let the public accounts committee question witnesses about the latest data breaches?

April 29, 2018 By Stephen Kimber

Really? Of course, really. Last Wednesday, five Liberal MLAs — Gordon Wilson, Suzanne Lohnes-Croft, Ben Jessome, Brendan Maguire, and Hugh MacKay — voted, not with their minds, or their hearts, or their common sense, or even in the interests of the taxpayers who put them there, but in the craven service of their self-interested my-way-or-no-way...

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Filed Under: Commentary, Featured, Province House, Subscribers only Tagged With: FOIPOP Data, Patricia Arab, Public Accounts Committee, Unisys

The Tideline, with Tara Thorne

Brian Borcherdt. Photo: Anna Edwards-Borcherdt

Brian Borcherdt came of age in Yarmouth in the 1990s. When he arrived in Halifax, the city’s famous music scene was already waning, and worse, the music he made was rejected by the cool kids anyway. After decades away from Nova Scotia, he and his young family have settled in the Annapolis Valley, where he’ll zoom in to chat with Tara about his band Holy Fuck’s endlessly delayed tour, creating the Dependent Music collective, and the freedom and excitement of the improvised music he’s making now. Plus: Bringing events back in 2021.

The Tideline is advertising-free and subscriber-supported. It’s also a very good deal at just $5 a month. Click here to support 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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