Nova Scotia budget: the cost of cutting v the value of investing

In the all-too-brief interregnum between Thursday’s bad-news federal budget and tomorrow’s more-bad-news provincial budget, it’s worth noting the across-the-board, cost-cutting Kool Aid fiscal policy makers in Ottawa and Halifax have swallowed is not the only—or necessarily best—way to slay the deficit dragon. The Nova Scotia branch of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, for example, […]

Peter Kelly's stadium dream our nightmare…

The stadium is dead. Long live the dream. But let’s keep it a dream instead of the reality turning into a taxpayers’ nightmare. A brief history is in order. Peter Kelly, our in-search-of-a-legacy-to-match-his-longevity mayor, has long been eager to have the city to erect an expensive new stadium, most recently—and urgently—in the faint hope we […]

Metro Transit: An un-fond look back

Now that transit buses are transiting the city and ferries finally ferrying passengers, let’s take one last, un-fond look back at what went wrong and where we go from here. To begin with the obvious: problems at Metro transit predate—and go much deeper than—this latest dispute. Metro Transit is over-managed and under-performing, neither of which […]

Howling at the Moon

Why did Nova Scotia business wail wolf over first contract legislation? On Dec. 14, 2011, Sobeys announced it was swallowing whole every one of Shell Canada’s 250 service stations east of Ontario. No big deal. The day before, Empire, which controls the Canadian super-sized supermarket chain, had reported a quarterly profit of $78.1 million. Sobeys […]

John Risley responds to my Occupy column

John Risley, the president of Clearwater Fine Foods and a columnist for Atlantic Business Magazine, says I’ve got it all wrong when it comes to the Occupy Movement. “In the previous issue of Atlantic Business Magazine,” Risley writes, “my fellow columnist — Stephen Kimber — attempted to explain the Occupy movement. Unfortunately he got it […]

Budget making 101… you be the finance minister

While not nearly as addictive as Angry Birds, spending a few hours with the province’s You-Be-The-Finance-Minister teeter-totter app—more prosaically known as backtobalance.ca—is entertaining. And depressingly, face-slappingly educational. The government created the interactive online budget-making tool as part of its pre-budget consultations. It allows taxpayers to virtually raise and/or reduce revenues and expenses—and immediately see the […]

The rise and fall—and fall—of Richard Homburg

By 2009, Richard Homburg’s glitzy, buzz-worthy annual office parties had become corporate Halifax’s post-Christmas social hot ticket. Two hundred of the city’s elite investors, investment advisors, developers, lawyers, accountants and assorted corporate hangers-on would gather in the January freeze to mix and mingle at Homburg Citadel, Homburg Invest’s global corporate headquarters. A modern building insinuated […]

Time to make transit an essential service… no, really

It’s time to make transit an essential service. By that, I don’t—necessarily—mean it’s time to take away bus drivers’ right to strike. What I do mean is that, however the current labour dispute ends, it’s long past time city council made transit a can’t-live-without service. And not just for those who, because they can’t afford […]

Goodbye Peter, hello future

Peter Kelly’s final mayoralty meltdown announcement last week was not triggered by any of the many mis-governance issues that should have long since ended his political career. Ironically, the mayor was ultimately hoist on the petard of his own sloppy-and-perhaps-worse handling of the estate of a friend, a private matter unrelated to his duties as […]

The price of judicial independence… and fairness

With 760 bus drivers walking picket lines, 130 brewery workers on the edge of lockout, 870 professors voting to strike and 3,800 health care workers heading for conciliation, it’s no surprise news that 36 provincial court judges have a new three-year deal with the province passed almost entirely unnoticed. Judges don’t actually negotiate their salaries. […]