What did the NDP do to deserve its electoral fate?

The question is why. Why — if you believe the polls — is Darrell Dexter’s NDP government heading for an ignominious defeat? Nova Scotia’s first-ever NDP government was hardly a disaster. It succeeded a Tory government that had careened out of fiscal control, stumbled into one of the world’s worst economic meltdowns, got sideswiped by […]

The leaders debate: Take it from me, I wasn't there

I confess up front I didn’t watch last week’s CBC leaders’ debate. There was a book launch — mine — at the same time and, well, you have to have your priorities. To make matters worse for a political columnist, I must also acknowledge I didn’t watch the full online, blow-by-blow, health-care-by-power-rates replay of the […]

Progressives and the NDP: making the hard choice

On June 23, 2012, 50 longtime NDP activists put the issue starkly in a j’accuse letter to Premier Darrell Dexter. “If the NDP now actually stands for anything fundamentally different, for any change from previous governments,” they wrote, more in angst than anger, “it is hard to see what it is. And if the NDP is […]

This is the campaign we spent 3 years waiting for?

What to make of Liberal leader Stephen McNeil’s plan to save taxpayers money by making Nova Scotia Power responsible for (and responsible for footing the bill for) what is now the regulated, arms’ length, non-profit — and working very well, thank you all the same — energy-reducing agency known as Efficiency Nova Scotia? The reality […]

The journalistic implications of fixed elections… dates

METRO LOGO GREEN Mr. Baillie, I must, respectfully, disagree. Last week, on the eve the possible election call that preceded the eve of the likely election call which was, thankfully, finally followed by the actual election call, Conservative leader Jamie Baillie declared that, if elected, he would introduce legislation to set fixed provincial election dates. […]

Dexter's budget tinkers at the progressive edges, but is that enough?

Did Darrell Dexter balance the budget? Is the pope Argentinian? Depends on which pope you mean. And what you mean by balance. Not to forget “the…” The perhaps more relevant pre-election questions out of last week’s legislature exercise: Would the other parties have done anything different in either the budget’s broad strokes or in its […]