Stephen McNeil’s Collective Bargaining Game

The thing about this game — as the government demonstrated last week when it changed the law to take away Crown prosecutors’ collective bargaining rights — is that McNeil always wins. That’s the way the game works. Always. Let’s play a game. A shell game. You say it’s not a game to you. I say […]

The curtain falls on this year’s ferry follies… but there’s always next year

Transportation Minister Lloyd Hines Hines had to sort-of admit his ferry universe hadn’t unfolded exactly as planned, or… well, at all. “We’re really disappointed on behalf of the operators that we haven’t been able to mount a season…” On behalf of the operators?! The operators are making out like bandits. What about the rest of […]

The perils of being progressive

Thanks to our first past the post system — thanks, Justin — progressives in Halifax still face a Hobson’s choice when it comes to the federal election. I get it. I even sympathize. You have only one vote and you don’t want to waste it. But how to choose? That is the question without easy […]

If we build it, will they come?

The stadium that refuses to die has returned. Last week, HRM released most of its private sector proposer’s pitch for public sector funding to make its dream of a CFL team reality. But it’s worth asking ourselves: what else could/should we spend that $180 million over the next 30 years on? “Premier Stephen McNeil reiterated […]

What to do about Justin?

Last week’s Blackface/Brownface controversy raises the complicated question of how we navigate our way through all the competing, compelling, often contradictory private and public actions of our politicians to determine who — if anyone — deserves our vote. Voting is easy. Choosing who to vote for? Not so much… In our federal parliamentary, first-past-the-post system, […]

The Great Dorian Disconnect of 2019

Why weren’t phone, cell and data companies ‘in the room’ at the Emergency Management Office during last week’s hurricane? Why is Nova Scotia Power still burying its head in its profits instead of burying its overhead cables? And other tales from an OMG week. “When the last downed branches are shredded, I trust NSP’s and Eastlink’s […]

Politicians criticizing Israel: When 2019 becomes 1984 all over again

We’ve already begun another wild modern election ride during which outrageous old social media posts have and will come back to haunt candidates and the political parties that nominate them. But what happens when the outrage is misplaced and the goal seems to be to shut down legitimate differences of opinion? Let’s begin with a […]

Lloyd ‘I-know-nothing’ Hines knows nothing… still

Four years and $60-million later, the only real question is whether the Yarmouth ferry fandango resembles a Monty Python skit or an episode of Hogan’s Heroes. Oh, yes, and — please — when will this show finally be cancelled? Monty Python was funnier. No. Check that. Monty Python is funny. Lloyd Hines? Not so much.Still, […]

Who’s Tory now?

So there are now three Tories — one official, two unofficial — running in next week’s provincial byelection in Cape Breton’s Northside-Westmount riding. Could this entire mess have been avoided if the PC brain-trust had not reacted in its usual over-reaction way to its first would-be candidate’s supposedly controversial social media posts? Quick now. Who’s […]

When a healthcare crisis is an opportunity… for an “important milestone” moment photo-op

While our healthcare crises multiply, our leaders stage photo opportunities that resemble trying to slap Band-Aids on the backsides of rampaging elephants. Whatever happened to political leadership? So last week, 10 out of 37 hospital emergency departments in Nova Scotia were closed for at least some part of the week. The Musquodoboit Valley Memorial Hospital […]

Stephen Kimber

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