Welcome, Mr. Premier. And good luck…

Stephen McNeil doesn’t even have the key to the executive washroom — premier’s desk, top left-hand drawer — and his administration-in-eager-anticipation is already being sideswiped by economic events over which it has little control and less influence. Just two days after his Liberals were swept into office on an electoral toss-those-rascals-out-and-let’s-see-what-these-rascals-will-do roll of the dice, […]

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 […]

'Donate Now.' I'll pass, thanks…

Few will be surprised to know I’m a financial as well as philosophical supporter of the New Democratic Party. I’ve been making modest, tax-write-off-able, publicly recorded donations since the early 1980s when the provincial party had no MPs and a single MLA. Giving then seemed more act of charity than political statement. Times have changed. […]