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...
Tim Houston says that as premier he will be accountable
“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...
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.
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...
More Liberal cowardice
Morning File, Friday, February 1, 2019
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. […]
Profiles in cowardice: Gordon Wilson, Suzanne Lohnes-Croft, Ben Jessome, Brendan Maguire, and Hugh MacKay are craven fools
Morning File, Thursday, January 31, 2019
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 […]
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."
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...
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.
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...
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?
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...