Putting bureaucratic foxes in charge of cleaning up the freedom of information henhouse

An internal working group of bureaucrats who benefit from “a culture of disregard for access and privacy laws” are reviewing Nova Scotia’s freedom of information system. What can go wrong? Tricia Ralph is Nova Scotia’s Information and Privacy Commissioner, the person best positioned to know what’s wrong with our failed and flailing freedom of information system […]

Nova Scotia’s Poverty Report Card — ‘F’ for filed and forgotten

“Here is a statement from the Department,” began the statement from the department of community services. It came in response to CBC reporter Taryn Grant’s request for an interview about last week’s newly released national Poverty Report Card by Food Banks Canada. The report gives a letter grade in 13 indicators of poverty for each Canadian […]

Time to call out the ‘provided a statement’ scam

When the CBC’s Atlantic Investigative Unit wanted to understand better how police handle complaints from the public for a project called “Police and Public Trust,” it filed freedom-of-information requests asking all provincial police forces for 11 years of internal discipline decisions. Every force complied, except one. Halifax Regional Police declined to release any information at […]

Tim Houston’s idea of accountability, then and now

“The government doesn’t want to be here. This is the place where opposition parties, where media, where Nova Scotians can hold the government to account on their record, and they don’t want to be here. This is a government that doesn’t like to be held accountable.” Welcome to today’s Political Pop Quiz. Which of our […]

Political accountability meets ‘the permanent campaign’

Nova Scotia’s legislature met for just 19 days. It didn’t do much. And then it adjourned. That is the plan. It was pushing 11 pm on the night of April 22, 2022, and everything that was going to be done — however little of that there might have been — was now well and truly […]

Stephen McNeil and the folly of false choices

“We believe we’ve delivered what is a fair package [for teachers]. If there is more required to be on the table, people need to explain where they want us to get that. Do they want us to take it out of health care? Do they want us to take it away from vulnerable Nova Scotians?” […]

Stephen McNeil, the Miller contract and cavalier condescension

I like Bernie Miller, and I think Stephen McNeil is lucky to have the currently-on-leave managing partner at McInnes Cooper as one of his Liberal government’s key political advisors. Having said that, I also think, as a matter of public policy, we need to ask serious questions about McNeil’s deal with Bernard F. Miller Services […]

How not to save a sinking ship

It’s hard not to feel a twinge of sympathy for the conundrum Stephen McNeil’s Liberals face as they scramble to figure out what to do next with the listing ship that is the Yarmouth-Portland ferry service. But it’s also hard not to believe the government’s decision last week to put off deciding who will run […]

Finance minister’s new approach sounds like more of the same public sector blaming

One would like to believe newly installed Finance Minister Randy Delorey meant it. Last week he told union leaders representing teachers, health care workers, paramedics and assorted clusters of government employees he wanted to meet to discuss a “new approach” to collective bargaining. There are more than 300 collective agreements slated for re-negotiation this year, […]

Bad week for Nova Star; worse weeks to come for us

It was not a good week for Nova Star Cruises, the operators of the Yarmouth-Portland ferry. But it may turn out to have been an even worse week for Stephen McNeil’s Liberal government. Let’s start with Nova Star. Last Tuesday, CEO Mark Amundsen announced it had reached a multi-year deal with Euroferries Express Ltd. to […]