Short Snappers from the doggiest days of summer…

Tim Houston’s friends, Bay Ferries’ numbers, and the end of People’s Park is the beginning of… What friends are for… Well, that went well. On August 10, barely two weeks after announcing he had appointed two of his personally chosen, personal friends of many years to head up two new Crown corporations — at up […]

So long, Peter, we knew you too well

Is Peter MacKay resigning from federal politics to spend time with his growing greeting-card-perfect family? Or to grease a personal private sector future filled with lucrative corporate board memberships and international consulting gigs, nicely anchored by a 20-year MP’s pension worth almost two-and-a-half times the average Canadian salary? Or to jump the listing Harper ship […]

Does anyone believe Peter MacKay wasn’t involved… and other questions

We begin June as we ended May. With more questions than answers. Item: Enterprise Cape Breton President John Lynn got fired after hiring four Tories with connections to federal Justice Minister Peter MacKay — without benefit of documentation or competition. The federal integrity watchdog uncovered a “pattern” that created an “appearance of patronage.” But he […]

06/02/2014
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Abolishing the Senate… one bad appointment at a time

Dear Stephen Harper, Congratulations! I never imagined in my wildest imaginings even you could be quite this Machiavellian. Appointing Mike Duffy, the long-time pretend senator from CTV, an actual Senator from Prince Edward Island? Genius. Pamela Wallin, the queen of political TV, Senator for Air Canada? You had to know. You did, didn’t you? Some may suggest […]

05/27/2013
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Electoral boundaries commissioners being used as political cover

You could be forgiven for assuming Nova Scotia Justice Minister Ross Landry actually believes in the democratic process. “It’s very important that we look at our demographic structure in Nova Scotia… and how we get fairness and equity into the system,” he told reporters last week as his government-appointed, government-instructed “independent” electoral boundaries commission wrapped […]

The politician, the judge and the sentence

You can—in a law-school-essay, sentencing-guidelines way—justify Justice David MacAdam’s decision to sentence disgraced former MLA Richard Hurlburt to house arrest instead of clapping him off to jail. But not in the real world. Richard Hurlburt repeatedly violated the trust of his electors while bilking taxpayers of more than $25,000, and then attempted—until the truth trapped […]

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 […]

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 […]

Entitled to their entitlements, aboriginal edition

The Canadian Taxpayers’ Federation is right. There, I’ve said it. And it only hurt a little. While I can—and do, and will—dispute the larger goals of this never-met-a-public-expenditure-it-can-stomach crowd, the CTF did discover real slime under its latest freedom-of-information rock. Though there are only a million aboriginals in Canada, 82 reserve politicians “earned” more than […]

Eclectic Economic Council good; appointments stonewalling not so much

So Liberal leader Stephen McNeil has his knickers in a righteous knot because Darrell Dexter’s new 19-member economic advisory council includes a few of the premier’s union “buddies.” I’m delighted this new volunteer group—set up to “provide advice to government on strategies and actions to grow the economy and act as a sounding board on […]