Permanent paid sick leave? Don’t hold your breath

The Houston government has brought back the Liberals COVID sick leave program to deal with the latest pandemic emergency. Why won’t they make the program permanent? We’re glad you asked. On Monday, January 10, 2022 — with the highly contagious Omicron variant spawning more and more COVID-related illnesses and forcing more and more workers to […]

Omicron (less than) one month later

In the month since the Omicron variant was confirmed in Nova Scotia, we’ve gone from 20 cases in a day to over 1,000. Time to take a moment to think about those trying to make sense of it all and make the best decisions for all of us. On Wednesday, November 24, 2021 — just […]

Journalism’s future is in our hands

Who will save journalism? It won’t be the government? And it won’t be the online platforms that undermined it in the first place. Which brings it back to… “Right now, the industry exists in a limbo where many of the old models are dying before the new ones have become profitable. It’s not clear whose […]

Healthcare, healthcare, healthcare: Tim Houston’s 2022 to-do list

Tim Houston campaigned on his promise to fix everything that ails our healthcare system. He won. He has put his own people in charge. Now he has to deliver. The good news is that 4,369 Nova Scotians found a primary care provider last month. The bad news is that 5,511 other Nova Scotians added their […]

Systemic racism and the Desmond murder-suicide

The inquiry looking into the 2017 murder-suicide of the Desmond family has been examining the roles played by PTSD and domestic violence in those horrific events. Last week, the inquiry heard from a panel of experts about the impact of systemic racism. In the early evening hours of January 3, 2017, in remote Upper Big […]

Nova Scotia Power: changing standards to match declining performance

Our power company hasn’t met regulator-required customer service and reliability standards for the past four years. Instead of improving its performance, NSP wants to change the standards by which it is judged. Nova Scotia Power has failed to meet regulator mandated customer service and reliability standards for four years in a row. One. After. The. […]

Turmoil continues at the Nova Scotia Barristers’ Society

Two more members of the society’s council resigned this month as the self-governing organization charged with regulating the legal profession continues to grapple with accusations of systemic discrimination in its ranks. I am writing to provide my notice of resignation from [the Bar Society] Council, effective immediately. I am resigning as a result of the […]

Physician assistants: a fast easy small fix for what ails our health system

The Canadian Association of Physician Assistants may have jumped the gun when it welcomed ‘government’ legislation to allow them to practise in Nova Scotia. But it’s past time for the government to make it so. Portrait of a medical team busy having a conversation with each other. Reality not exactly as illustrated. I was — […]

Latest apology accepted, Tim Houston. Now…

If Premier Houston really has “the greatest respect for the workers of NS, especially those making minimum wage,” he will make sure our minimum wage is also a living wage. Why are we always talking about yet another “yesterday” issue long after that train should have jumped the tracks? Consider the living wage… er, the […]

Firing a staff member for racist comments is a start, but…

It’s clear the Houston government has more work to do when it comes to confronting racism in this province and repairing its relations with the Black community. The news late last week that a Tory staffer had been fired for making racist comments about Liberal MLA Angela Simmonds is interesting on a number of levels. […]