Robertson’s independent facilitator’s report: independent? facilitator?

If you failed to submit written objections to Judge Heather Robertson’s “Facilitator’s Report” on proposed Blue Mountain-Birch Cove Regional Park boundaries by 3 p.m., Monday, July 4, forget it. If your written objections ran to over three pages and you failed to submit 35 copies, no one will read them. No matter. It was too […]

P3s: Do we trust the McNeil government to act in our interest, or in the interest of its own re-election?

The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives recently released an evaluation of the 1990s private-public partnership (P3) program under which four private contractors built 39 public schools they then leased back to Nova Scotia. P3 shell-game deals are “typically used to conceal government expenditures and provide guaranteed long-term profits for contractors.” In Nova Scotia, the CCPA […]

Dr. Gabrielle Horne and the lessons not learned

Call it vindication. But — after 14 years, four premiers, three changes of government, the merging of nine regional health authorities into one and a there-must-be-an-end, 33-day trial — don’t call it victory. On Friday in a landmark decision, a seven-member civil jury awarded Halifax cardiologist Gabrielle Horne $1.4 million in damages, her legal fees […]

“Without haste but without pause”

My most recent article — with John Kirk — for World Financial Review on the state of U.S-Cuba relations in the Age of Obama: “Ending the embargo remains the sine qua non for improving US–Cuba relations. While only Congress can eliminate it, Obama is doing his best to eviscerate its provisions. Before he left for […]

Journalism: From Howe to how-not-to

There is, it is fair to say, nothing new in the incestuous relationship between journalism and politics. Joseph Howe was a journalist — can you say freedom of the press? — before he (belatedly) became our father who art in confederation. The 27th premier of Nova Scotia — a.k.a. Darrell Dexter — trained as a […]

Thanks Stephen, Darrell, Rodney, et al… for ‘The Donald’?

If you want to understand the un-understandable appeal of Donald Trump, you could do worse than begin with Stephen McNeil. That is not as far-fetched as it might initially seem. We are not talking here about Stephen McNeil, the individual, but Stephen McNeil, the symbolic end result of far too many years of all-too-usual politics […]

Development: It’s time to talk

It’s fair to say no one likes Halifax’s development planning process. Consider developer Joe Metledge, who successfully sued the city over its flip-flopping on his St. Pat’s-Alexandra School redevelopment project. During a recent breakfast meeting of developers, planners and lawyers, Metledge complained about the city’s failure to defend his industry against the “demonization of development […]

Smart, funny, quirky, creative… what could be wrong?

My recollection — which is wrong — is it happened out of nowhere and for no reason. It was a Sunday in November 2009. My wife and I and Michael, our youngest son, sat in a Quinpool Road restaurant, waiting too long for the dim sum we’d ordered too much of to finally arrive. Suddenly, […]

Politics in Nova Scotia is getting interesting

The best news about the just-ended Nova Scotia legislature session is that there was so little government news. There were no new zigging announcements the government was eviscerating working-just-fine programs, like Seniors Pharmacare or the film tax credit (oh wait, Stephen McNeil’s Liberals already attacked those), and no zagging gifts to money-pit ferries (oh, wait, we’re […]

Is Joan Jessome most hated woman in Nova Scotia?

Let’s start with a question: is Joan Jessome the most hated woman in Nova Scotia? Google “Joan Jessome” and “hated,” and you’ll get 5,630 hits in less than a Google second. The top three results are news stories following the December 11, 2015, announcement she would be retiring as president of the Nova Scotia […]