McNeil says there’s ‘lots’ of film activity; the facts tell a different story

There is something vaguely Trumpian in Premier Stephen McNeil’s continuing, reality-be-damned insistence his government’s 2015 consultation-and-logic-free decision to dump a longstanding, working-well film tax credit, then replace it with a more restrictive, less incentivizing “Nova Scotia Film and Television Incentive Fund” is all working out just fine, the way we planned it, thank you very […]

Is Halifax Needham why Stephen McNeil hasn’t called a general election?

Could the answer to the pressing-to-pundits question — why hasn’t Stephen McNeil called the much-anticipated-by-pundits fall provincial general election? — be… “Halifax Needham.” Last week, the NDP’s Lisa Roberts, a former journalist and community activist, convincingly won that north-end Halifax riding with 51 per cent of votes in a by-election. McNeil’s chosen standard-bearer, Rod Wilson, […]

Stephen McNeil’s film dream — you have to (make) believe

To hear him spin it, you’d think Stephen McNeil lived inside the fantasy bubble of film and television instead of outside, systematically decimating the real-world industry that creates screen magic. In January, two of Nova Scotia’s most successful production companies became the latest to announce they were shuttering their businesses here. Since 2001, Special Effects […]

Government’s Orwellian doublespeak on Pharmacare, the ‘balanced budget’ and the next election

On Jan. 15, Nova Scotia’s Health and Wellness department — Leo Glavine, proprietor — issued a gauzy, feel-fine press release headlined, “Lower Seniors’ Pharmacare Co-pays Begin April 1.” You had to carefully parse, syllable by syllable, its disingenuous first sentence — “Changes to the Seniors’ Pharmacare program mean Nova Scotians enrolled in the program will soon […]

Film tax credits: a tale of two jurisdictions

“The math is simple,” explained the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in a Jan. 8 editorial about the state of that state’s film tax credit. Pennsylvania is currently in the middle of a messy budget kerfuffle. The big picture is beyond the scope of this column. But it’s worth noting that when Gov. Tom Wolf approved an emergency […]

Marco… meet John and John; AIMS… meet hypocrisy

“The business of government is not to prop up businesses,” harrumphed Marco Navarro-Genie, president and CEO of the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies (AIMS), the Halifax-based right-wing think tank that rarely encounters a government program (or government for that matter) it does not think should shrivel up and die. “The real point,” he continued, “ought […]