The Sackville-Cobequid byelection: seeking meaning in the meaningless

It is way too early to read anything of significance from a single constituency byelection in the muddling middle of any government’s mandate. But let’s give it a shot… “Steve Craig won the byelection for MLA in Sackville-Cobequid… The district has long been solidly NDP, so a PC victory is notable, but I wouldn’t read […]

Since ‘none of the above’ is on the ballot…

Who would you like to see win tomorrow’s provincial general election? Who should win tomorrow’s provincial general election? If you answered none of the above to either — or both — of the above, welcome to the club. And perhaps welcome too to that more select group — the none-of-the-above-but-definitely-not-Stephen-McNeil club — which Progressive Conservative […]

Are election campaigns any place to discuss serious issues?

Election campaigns are no place to discuss serious issues. That’s what Kim Campbell — Canada’s now-you-see-her-now-you-don’t, first-and-only-female prime minister — infamously declared in 1993 in the middle of her one and only federal election campaign as a party leader. Though I was among those who mocked her at the time, I now believe she was […]

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 […]

Gary Burrill: the politics of hope, or hope for politics

Cast your mind back to October 9, 2013. The morning after the night before. Nova Scotia’s first ever NDP government had just morphed into Nova Scotia’s first one-term government in more than 130 years. The party that began its re-election campaign with 31 of 52 legislature seats hobbled across the finish line with seven shell-shocked […]