Occupy protesters speaking for more than just themselves

Occupy Nova Scotia’s campers will decamp—temporarily—from Grand Parade so Remembrance Day ceremonies can take place there next week. Given the respectful, peaceful tenor of the protest, that’s hardly surprising. Neither will it come as any surprise—though it will doubtless disappoint Mayor Peter Kelly—that the protesters also intend to rebuild their tent village and continue the […]

Shipbuilding contract: the good, the better but not the best

The good news is we won. The better news is that we won fair and square. The best news would be for the process by which Halifax’s Irving shipyard last week won a $25-billion federal shipbuilding contract-for-a-generation become the new norm. But that last, of course, is least likely. That’s because the shipbuilding contract was […]

Let the (Convention Centre) Summer Games begin

Metro reporter Alex Boutilier’s scoop last week that costs for the new convention centre have increased sent local, provincial and federal politicians scurrying about like ants on a hot summer day, but to less positive result. No one was able—or, more to the point, willing—to confirm what Alex’s source had told him. And no […]

When in Yarmouth… Politicians and the Hypocritic Oath

Progressive Conservative leader Jamie Baillie was in high dudgeon last week when he took his summer road show to Yarmouth to warn business leaders there about the terrible costs to our grandchildren’s grand kids because of our socialist-horde government’s “stubbornly… swimming-against-the-tide” tax policies. A slight exaggeration, perhaps, but it’s summer. And Baillie himself was attempting […]

Immigration: Can we get it right this time?

It began in 2003 with the Hamm government’s rightful recognition of our ticking demographic time bomb. In order to defuse it, Nova Scotia desperately needed to attract more immigrants who would root themselves, their businesses and their families here. But the fast-track solution spawned by those best of self-interested intentions quickly got tangled in our […]

Hypocrisy, patronage and the cleansing power of transparency

Michel Samson is right on both counts. The Liberal MLA is right to acknowledge that last week’s collection of NDP appointees to various provincial agencies, boards and commissions is clearly a well qualified lot. But he is right too to point out the unbecoming hypocrisy of a government that—while in opposition—railed so righteously against patronage […]

Do boots on the ground equal votes in the hand?

Time flies when you’re having fun. Ask Darrell Dexter. Next month, he will celebrate his second anniversary as the province’s first ever NDP premier. In two years—probably less—he will try to become Nova Scotia’s NDP premier to win a second majority government… or, perhaps, settle for a minority… or, failing one of the above—and politics […]

Graham Steele, Paul Martin and the disapproving ghost of Tommy Douglas

Is Nova Scotia Finance Minister Graham Steele former federal finance minister Paul Martin in NDP drag? Consider. The night before Steele delivered his bad-news budget last week, his boss, Premier Darrell Dexter—as bosses are wont to do; can you say Jean Chrétien?—stole his good-news thunder. The $222-million deficit Steele had forecast for 2010-11 had magically […]

Reading Recovery created a reader… and a writer

Education Minister Ramona Jennex’s this-really-is-good-news-considering announcement she’ll cut school funding by “just” two per cent next year masks a truth she dismissed outright last week. “Based on this budget,” Jennex declared, “a child in a classroom should see no difference in… the education they receive.” My experience suggests otherwise. That’s not to minimize Jennex’s achievement […]

The Senator, the Herald and the obituary

Senator Keith Davey died last week at 84. Davey was a Liberal backroom wizard, famous for wresting electoral triumph from the jaws of political ignominy. In 1963, for example, he helped Lester Pearson become prime minister. In 1974, he helped transform Pierre Trudeau’s then-floundering minority government into a renewed majority. Most famously, in 1979, he […]