Did you know that, as of Friday morning, the Nova Scotia Health Authority’s News website was reporting a full computer page — 10 different items — flagging current, ongoing, never-ending emergency room closures in Nova Scotia? From the Lillian Fraser Memorial in Tatamagouche, to the Eastern Shore Memorial in Sheet Harbour, to Guysborough Memorial, to […]
The Yarmouth ferry subsidy? Still? Still more? Always…
“Our goal, which I believe we have achieved,” Transportation Minister Geoff MacLellan said when he signed the latest ferry deal, “was to put a stable, long-term agreement in place.” How’s that working out?
I could say I told them so — and I did, way back when “them” was still Rodney Macdonald and his Tories, and from then on forward through Darrell Dexter and Stephen McNeil to whatever same-old-same-old will come next — but I’d have to stand in a too-long line behind all the other told-them-so nattering...
From who me to #metoo
In which Stephen McNeil continues to be Stephen McNeil, dismissing calls to apologize to a young man for the province's own security failure. But there is also some small hint of change in the #metoo air. We take our good news where we find it.
Why am I not surprised? Last Monday, Halifax police dropped all charges against the 19-year-old they’d arrested less than a month before for “unauthorized use of a computer with fraudulent intent.” The fact is this case has been a cock-up from the beginning. Even before the beginning. Perhaps especially before the beginning. Let’s review. On...
Politicians’ snake oil hopes and dreams meet economic, environmental reality
"Many international companies believe we have resources off our coast that we have not tapped into," says Premier Stephen McNeil, "and we want the ability to do so." Forget the reality. And damn the consequences.
You can draw a neat, straight line. Start with the October 5, 1971, front page of the Halifax Chronicle Herald, with its photo of a beaming Premier Gerald Regan holding a tiny vial of oil supposedly sucked to the surface during offshore drilling off Nova Scotia. Above the photo across the entire top of the...
Memo to Stephen McNeil: beware teachers bearing frustrations
On October 25, 2016, 96 per cent of teachers gave their union an overwhelming strike mandate. And that changed everything about everything in the McNeil government’s union-busting calculus.
Cast your mind back to October 25, 2016. The date will be significant. Before that day, Stephen McNeil’s Liberal government seemed to be in full control of its anti-public-sector-worker agenda. The executive of the Nova Scotia Government and General Employees Union was preparing — reluctantly — to recommend its 7,600 members agree to a tentative...
Doctor, doctor, who needs a doctor? 42,198 Nova Scotians and counting…
The larger issue is the lack of political leadership to tackle the crisis. Where’s Stephen McNeil when we need him? Oh, right...
Nova Scotia has a doctor problem. Perhaps lack-of-doctor might be more accurate. And “crisis” is certainly a more apt description than the mundane problem. According to the province’s one-year-old “Need A Family Practice” list, 42,198 Nova Scotians — 4.6 per cent of the province’s population — are currently officially listed as looking for a doctor....
How much health care could $10 million have bought — and why it didn’t
Memo to Stephen McNeil, the health authority et al: stop bullying Dr. Gabrielle Horne and start delivering health care.
Let’s begin with what we don’t know. We don’t know when the province’s court of appeals, which held a hearing earlier this month, will rule on a Nova Scotia Health Authority appeal of a judgment against it in the case of cardiologist Dr. Gabrielle Horne. We do know about that infamous case. On October 17,...
How to get funding for your university: Morning File, Thursday, August 3, 2017
News 1. Child sexual abuse A Halifax man who has been convicted of sexually abusing three boys was sued Tuesday by three other men who say they were also his victims. Another two alleged victims have already filed suit against the man, and an active police investigation is looking at the possibility he abused dozens […]
Stephen McNeil’s 20 per cent electoral victory: it was a referendum on…?
Nova Scotians, Stephen McNeil said, were “loud and clear they appreciated our handling of making sure we live within our means.” Reading the electoral tea leaves with all the self-serving wisdom of a Donald Trump tweet, McNeil added: “I believe the election was a referendum on that.” Oh dear…
So that didn’t take long. It will be three weeks tomorrow since Nova Scotians voted in a provincial general election. You may remember that election: the one in which Stephen McNeil’s Liberals came within a few hundred votes here or there of losing their majority status, the one in which more than six out of...
Four more years… What might have been
Just as Stephen McNeil walked on to the stage to acknowledge his new minority government reality, CBC news announcer Sandy Smith cut in. There’d been yet another change in the party standings, he said, and Stephen McNeil’s Liberals were now in “majority territory.”
For me, the sweetest, saddest moment of last Tuesday’s election night lasted not much more than a moment. And it didn’t happen until the tail end of the first hour of Wednesday morning. Sometime after midnight, I gave up on the TV broadcast. At that point, the CBC decision desk still couldn’t say for certain...
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