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 […]

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 […]

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, […]

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 […]

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 […]

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, […]

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 […]

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 […]

We thought you’d never ask. We can’t tell you. But thanks for asking. Your health care matters to your government… The provincial government’s news release last Wednesday was succinct, if not desert-dry. “MyHealthNS,” it began, “the province’s secure online service that allows patients to access their health information and securely communicate with their doctor, is […]

Will Justice Minister Mark Furey do right by wronged Glen Assoun, or will he join the likes of Len Pace in the crowded dark pantheon of Nova Scotia’s injustice system? Justice Minister Mark Furey is about to assume his own dishonourable place in the dark pantheon of Nova Scotia’s injustice system. He joins many unworthy […]