How a tightly paywalled, social-media-ignoring, anti-copy-paste, gossipy news site became a dominant force in Nova Scotia

Every morning, the business and political elite in the biggest province on Canada’s East Coast turns to an unlikely source of information about their own world.

Among all the online news organizations trying to find a way to profitability, consider AllNovaScotia.com, which has just celebrated 10 years online and now challenges its historic print rival for the attention of the province’s leaders.

It’s done that by not following the rules: It has a nearly impenetrable paywall, no social media presence, no multimedia, and only rare use of links. It doesn’t cover crime and barely covers sports and entertainment.

It is astounding that AllNS has succeeded so throughly while flouting so many Internet conventions—astounding, and often irritating. I wish it were less paywalled and more open to the sociable aspects of the web that seem to me enlivening and enriching. But this is a position publisher David Bentley and his editor-daughter Caroline Woods view with ill-disguised contempt.

it’s hard to argue with the results. AllNovaScotia doesn’t prove that other models can’t work on the internet, but it affirms something at least as ennobling: that there can be a profitable market for dogged, meaty reporting.

Commenter Gavin Anderegg shares my irritation at the deliberate impediments to sharing, but adds:

I was missing the point while focusing the platform. This site wasn’t for me. Sure they could fix these issues (and probably should), but all everyone else cared about was the content. And for such an aged looking site that doesn’t care about social media, AllNovaScotia beats Twitter to the punch when delivering certain types of local news.

After a while I started to understand: people are willing to pay read well written, properly investigated, and timely content. This is especially true when you can identify a niche group and write specifically for them.

Content comes first at AllNovaScotia. That’s the key.

The 1,700-word piece is written by King’s journalism professor Tim Currie and [disclosure] briefly quotes Contrarian.

The one-page card, featuring a photo of Premier Darrell Dester and Queens MLA Vicki Conrad, will start appearing in South Shore mailboxes this week. It uses Chronicle-Herald headlines to highlight the Dexter Government’s rescue of the financially shaky newsprint mill, contrasting it with a jaundiced appraisal of opposition efforts.

The NDP government is protecting 2,000 jobs with an investment in the mill workers and the Bowater Mersey pulp and paper mill in Queens County by targeting help in training, energy efficiency, and productivity improvements….

During difficult times, the people of the South Shore stood together. And I am proud to say the Government of Nova Scotia stood right there with you. — Premier Darrell Dexter

But those opposition scoundrels?

The Liberals and Tories are still doing old-style politics.

They are opposing the deal to save 2000 jobs.

But they won’t put forward a plan of their own.

That’s just wrong.

Ouch. Could this be the first volley in the 2012 election campaign?

The CUPE functionaries failed, thanks in part to pushback from their own members. Had the NDP government’s first-contract arbitration had been in place, I suggested, an arbitrator ignorant of disabilities issues could have effectively wrecked a wonderful non-profit organization. Gillard calls this the “my cousin Louise” argument:

No matter how valid the legislation, in this case, may be there will always be someone (my cousin Louise) who can share an exception to its effectiveness. I think it is a red herring. To oppose Bill 102 on the basis that, in a specific situation, it would not have served its intended purpose is a bit much.

Darrell Dexter - Throwing a bone (Tim Krochak phot/Chronicle-Herald)

You may have been able to provide and example of an exception to the benefit of the legislation but whether you are right or wrong on the implications of the legislation in this situation is irrelevant. Finding a specific situation where something may not work falls short of making a convincing case in opposition.

Good legislation is hopefully the goal of government. No government assumes their legislation is perfect. Frankly, it’s just this type of argument that reminds us of the complexity of a government’s legislative agenda. There’s always going to be a “my cousin Louise” type exception.

Gillard has a point. I was arguing from a very specific, though not unique, set of facts. and they have limited application to disputes involving conventional businesses. To be completely honest, I saw the first contract arbitration issue as an opportunity to lay out the disgraceful behaviour of a union that thinks of itself as progressive.

But what’s the case for Bill 102? What bad situation will it remedy?. Union people say over and over that collective bargaining works in Nova Scotia. For the most part, I think they are right. Why not let it play out? Why impose settlements on unwilling parties? After the jump, Gillard responds:

[I]t is a proactive piece of legislation. So when you ask what situation it remedies, I say it is not a reaction to a problem. As they say, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

The first contract is often the hardest to negotiate. This is a fact. Negotiations can be drawn out, for whatever reason, over an extended period of time and can result in significant and unnecessary tension. While the legislation guarantees arbitration in the wake of failed negotiations, it is as much about providing a process by which the sides can come to agreement before arbitration.

It ensures support for both the employer and workers. It guides them through the process and only after a failure to arrive at a contract (now within 180 days) would the sides be asked to, themselves, come to agreement on the choice of an arbitrator.

This takes the stress off workers who want to unionize but fear a strike. It takes the ability of either side to negotiate in bad-faith (delay tactics, unreasonable demands, etc) away and forces a more genuine dialogue.

You’re right, unions do say collective bargaining works. This legislation builds on that by ensuring a timely first contract and by ensuring good faith negotiations on that first contract. The first round is less stressful, reduced strain on the employer/union relationship. This will obviously lead to more fruitful future negotiations.

The key point here, for me, is that this legislation is not about forced arbitration, it’s about avoiding long, unpleasant, and unfruitful negotiations. For the negotiating parties, the choice becomes good faith negotiating or a forced contract. Both sides will generally opt for the prior, no?

On your last point, if it did get to the point where a contract was imposed by an arbitrator, the contract is only valid for a year (if both sides agree that any part of the imposed contract should be changed, it can be changed during the year through normal bargaining) while the two parties learn to operate in good faith. Again, legislation designed for the long-term to prevent problems.

… there is no evidence that our region can survive under the current governance structure in Nova Scotia

and

It’s not survivable for businesses and it’s not even survivable for families impacted to have that level of taxation burden with less than half the service levels. It is corrosive to the entire community.

In a leader titled “The Eternal Pessimist,” the Post nailed the destructive impact of the mayor’s  constant whining:

[T]he picture he’s painting is not only negative, it’s untrue. Many local businesses and families are not only surviving, they’re thriving, despite paying higher taxes and having access to fewer services than residents of the provincial capital.

Morgan calls that putting “a positive spin on what is unfolding.” But it’s not spin, it’s the truth.

Undoubtedly, some businesses and families are struggling. Would it help if more government jobs were located in Cape Breton? Yes. Would it help if the province distributed more equalization money to the municipalities? Arguably, but that would mean less money in the provincial coffers, so something would likely be cut.

What Morgan doesn’t seem to understand — or chooses to ignore — is that a mayor can pursue more equalization money and government jobs without alienating others and without the perpetual public pessimism. His version of equalization fundamentalism might help get him re-elected, but it’s not helping the region. His attitude is “corrosive.”

This is a mayor whose administration has not lured a single job-producing enterprise to Cape Breton, and who squandered at least half a million civic dollars on a doomed legal challenge that never had any hope at success—except the “success” of  persuading gullible voters that the mayor was a scrapper in their corner.

Some scrapper. Some corner.

I appreciate a lot of Jay Macneil’s general complaint. I’ve made similar ones about decision-makers not trying hard enough to make this place more livable, and even actively trying to make it less livable. I can even be pretty cynical about council at times. Maybe that cynicism is what made me think twice about this vote, since Morgan the populist voted with Kim Deveaux the radical. Curious.

Did Morgan vote for what he knew would be the popular sentiment (“All he wanted to do was dance!”) despite testimony from the Chief of Police that the dances were phenomenally unsafe? But that’s not all council voted on. There were two motions put forward on Tuesday, and it’s the second one that MacNeil ignores in his rant:

1. Councillor Derek Mombourquette brought the motion to council to ban the dances, not because he hates young people (he practically is one), but because the Chief of Police told him the dances were a danger to the kids who attend and the police could no longer ensure their safety. I suspect that, after this police testimony, council probably couldn’t continue to allow the dances at municipally-owned buildings, as such, without being liable for what goes on. (Maybe why the schools stopped holding the dances in the first place.)
2. Council then agreed to put resources into a committee made up of police, schools, decision-makers, and kids themselves, to come up with a way to create a safe environment for kids to have fun. (Or, I suppose, more realistically: ways to provide a reasonably safe environment.)

So if you take [1] and [2] together, council didn’t really ‘ban’ dances at this venue, they only suspended the dances until those dances can be made safe(r) for the kids who attend.

The schools, on the other hand, seem to believe the dances themselves were the problem… rather than alcohol, drugs, and violence being the problem. The schools seem to have said, ‘Ban dances, problem solved.’

All the schools solved was their own problem of liability. Whereas, if we give council the benefit of the doubt (I can’t believe I’m saying that), what they’re really saying is that the problem goes beyond the dances themselves, and that creating a safe and fun atmosphere for kids is the responsibility of the community (and should be a priority of the community).

So the community — especially the “people in this community who spend their entire day trying to find ways to inspire and engage the youth of their community” — should get behind the new committee [2] instead of blaming council for doing what they (likely) had to [1].

Sydney radio newsman Jay MacNeil is attracting hundreds of comments, “likes,” and shares on his Facebook video denouncing CBRM council’s 10-2 vote to ban teen dances from civic facilities.

You’re making it hard. You’re just making it hard. There are people in this community who spend their entire day trying to find ways to inspire and engage the youth of their community, and around your council table there are a bunch people who find ways—on a shockingly recurring basis—to disengage youth.

View the whole rant here.

H/T: Jancie Fuller via Leah Noble

I might have been in favor of the NDP Government’s first-contract legislation if I hadn’t seen what the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) did to a progressive non-profit organization in New Glasgow this fall.

Founded in 1968 by volunteers and family members, New Glasgow’s Summer Street Industries supplies a variety of vocational services to 150 intellectually handicapped men and women in New Glasgow. It enjoys a stellar reputation for caring and respectful treatment of the people it assists.

If the Dexter Government’s first contract legislation had been in force this year, those very qualities would have been sabotaged, perhaps fatally. The story is a depressing example of how far some unions can stray from the progressive social roots of their own movement.

No doubt Summer Street managers made some missteps in their handling of staff relations issues. Two years ago, this led CUPE to a successful certification drive. The negotiations that followed centered on two broad sets of issues: money and workplace rules. Talks dragged on for almost two years, so on the surface, it looked like a case that would have benefited from mandatory first-contract arbitration.

Summer Street was seriously outgunned in the negotiations. The non-profit organization’s managers had no experience with labour contracts. CUPE is Canada’s largest union with more than 600,000 members and a huge war chest. It assigned a veteran negotiator, a man who had concluded scores of collective agreements. He was very good at his job, and over the months, he gradually wore SSI down on monetary issues. One by one, the union achieved virtually all its money demands.

But the CUPE man knew nothing about people with disabilities, and he had no understanding of, or interest in, what being respectful of such people means in day to day practice. CUPE wanted to impose rigid union rules on SSI’s operations, basing hiring, promotion, and work assignments entirely on union seniority.

Many intellectually disabled adults in Nova Scotia have suffered abuse at some point in their lives. They may have been ridiculed, marginalized, ostracized, tormented by bullies, and in many cases, sexually abused.

The rigid rules CUPE demanded would have denied SSI the right to insist that a timid middle-aged woman with a history of sexual abuse be assigned to the care of a female employee with whom she had developed a rapport. Instead, a less tactful male employee could have insisted on the “right” to work with such a client—regardless of the client’s wishes.

SSI wanted a preamble stating that all contract provisions would be informed by an ethic of respect for clients. It wanted to continue its practice of including clients on all hiring boards. It wanted the unfettered right to assign staff according to the best interests of the clients.

The CUPE rep insisted no mention of clients had any place in the collective agreement.  As he put it, clients had  no more place in the contract than students would a teachers’s contract—a telling analogy, if ever there was one. The week before a strike deadline, the union ran an Orwellian advertising campaign portraying its efforts to deny disabled clients a voice in own their care as “issues of workplace democracy.”

Then, suddenly, just 24 hours before the strike deadline, the union abandoned its position on the non-monetary issues. SSI got most of the language it wanted around respect for clients. I suspect the union members at SSI—who, after all, are just as respectful of men and women with disabilities as their management counterparts—told the union they had no interest in forcing a strike in support of unhelpful union rules.

With the help of a very capable provincial mediator, union and management reached a tentative agreement at 4 a.m. on the morning of the strike deadline. This agreement broke down when the Department of Community Services refused to fund one last small monetary concession achieved by the union. The Dexter government reversed course a few hours later, and the strike was settled.

But what if CUPE had had the right to send those non-monetary issues to an arbitrator? There’s no question it would have done so, and that could have led to arbitrator—likely a lawyer, and possibly one with no more understanding of disability issues than CUPE—to issue a ruling that would have made SSI a very different place for the marginalized men and women who depend on it.

In 2009, CUPE appealed the Cape Breton Victoria District School Board’s dismissal of  Harold Douglas Delaney, a middle-aged janitor who was having sex with a 15-year-old student. Arbitrator Susan Ashley overturned Delaney’s dismissal on grounds the sex was consensual, the girl was above the legal age of consent, she was not a student at the school where the janitor worked, and the sex happened while the man was “off-duty.” Ashley did impose a three-month suspension because Delaney had handed out school pens and garbage bags without authorization.

Freebie pens worthy of punishment; sex with a student no problem. That’s what can happen when you force an arbitrator to decide matters of common sense and common decency according to the letter of the law.

The Dexter Government has presented no evidence that collective bargaining is not working in Nova Scotia. In fact, it works well, and the NDP should back away from this unwarranted gift to its union base.

[Disclosure: During the contract negotiations, I provided communications advice to Summer Street Industries on a pro bono basis.]

Jamie’s position is far less about politics and much more about good public policy than your blog (or the Bee) suggests.

The Environmental Goals & Sustainable Prosperity Act reflected an all-party consensus, only a few short years ago, but before the NDP formed government. It balanced environmental needs with economic needs. It set fairly aggressive and world class targets for the greening of our energy use. The NDP, not to be outdone in front of many of their partisans, who understandably want us to get to green as quickly as possible, abandoned consensus. They reset the environmental side of the goals, which allowed them to claim having bigger goals than other states and provinces. This sounds like a good thing, but the very sustainability of the march to green power got lost in the equation. Having lofty goals isn’t any good if people can’t afford them, and seasoned environmentalists know, no matter how good an idea is, that developing and maintaining a consensus is critical. People must be part of the solution. If you lose touch with the parade behind you, go home.

Get to green as quickly as possible? Absolutely, but couple that with the very real  needs of the people you ask to pay for that greenness – and several other things at the same time – or the consensus will be lost.

Jamie Baillie would not go back on the EGSPA consensus, with which he agrees. And he would take the time to see if a new one could be built. What he opposes is jacking the targets, hell-bent for glory, without considering the impact on people.

Of course, reasonable people can disagree about the pace, but politicians should avoid pandering to the public impression that we can keep power down by sticking with carbon-intensive fuels. We might for a year or two, or even five, but we would be courting medium- and long-term economic disaster.

The Pictou Bee, an NDP-flavored blog, sees it the same way, calling it Baillie’s “unforced error.”

[O]ddly, Jamie Baillie and his Conservatives have decided that attacking renewable energy is good politics (if not good policy). They underestimate Nova Scotians interest in getting off coal, and they underestimate their core demographic’s interest in good green jobs.

The Bee accuses Baillie of taking the phrase “bite the bullet” out of context from a government energy plan, then adds:

Now, Nova Scotians don’t have a lot of love for Nova Scotia Power. It was run into the ground by the Liberals and then privatized by the Conservatives. Both were mistakes. But the rate increases the UARB is awarding to NSPI actually have to do with the rising price of coal – the very thing the NDP is looking to move Nova Scotia off.

This game the Conservatives are playing wins them no votes. Nova Scotians are not rubes. They will choose a party that moves Nova Scotia forward, not one that runs into the past.

Not sure about the last point. Baillie’s attack on renewable energy targets is not admirable, but it could find traction with irrationally NSP-hostile voters.

[Disclosure: I have been friends with Jamie Baillie for years, and I have done contract work, mostly writing, for NS Power and the NS Dept. of Energy.]
H/T: May Zhang

The Mayor has very little actual power – but he has the power to bring people together, to encourage action on matters that he considers important. He has the power to influence the public agenda. He has access to the press. And if you use those powers strategically, you can accomplish quite a bit.”

Cameron muses:

Imagine if Peter Kelly had that kind of awareness, that sense of direction, when he looked out the window in the middle of October. Imagine if he’d gone down there with his eyes and ears open. Who are you? Where do you come from? What do you do? When I asked those questions, I found I was talking with some very interesting people. An education graduate from St. Francis Xavier University who was playing a mad scientist in a children’s theatre. A sustainability consultant. A young boutique farmer. A Mi’maq veteran. A postal worker. A filmmaker.

Silver Donald Cameron at the Remembrance Day eviction

Okay (the Mayor might have said), let’s not talk too much about things that are clearly national or provincial. What are the things that municipal governments actually can affect? Food? Maybe we need an innovative urban agriculture policy. What do you think such a policy might look like? Homelessness? Let me get a couple of property developers and someone from the province down here, and let’s brainstorm a little. Tell me about youth unemployment. Say that again, will you – there’s an organization in Winnipeg called Build that trains street people to do energy refits? Fascinating. Let’s get someone from Winnipeg down here to talk about that. How can I reach them? (Answer )…

What if the Mayor had treated the occupiers respectfully, as though they were actually citizens whose voices deserved to be heard, whose ideas might have merit, whose concerns might reflect the concerns of other citizens? What if the city had welcomed the arrival of new ideas, new insights, a passionate commitment to a better future? What if the Mayor had paused to reflect that the young people among them were not aliens or monsters – or bums or dregs or scum, as they have been called by adult commentators who should know better? These are our own children, brought up in Dartmouth and Moser River, Blandford and Fairview. What if the Mayor had contemplated the possibility that those young people probably are the future?

What if the Mayor had acted not as a short-sighted enforcer of petty bylaws, but as the wise, patient leader of a functioning community?

If he had acted like that, Peter Kelly would have taught the occupiers that civic engagement actually works, that change is possible, that older people can and do welcome the energy of youth in the quest for a better tomorrow. Instead, he taught them the exact opposite – that their concerns are not of interest, that their involvement in politics is not welcome, that civic leaders cannot be trusted, that violence is just fine as long as it’s the police who start the brawl.

If Peter Kelly had found a fresh, positive way to engage with Occupy Nova Scotia, the news would have gone around the world – just as the news of the eviction has gone around the world. Other cities that are also trying to figure out what to do next would have taken note. Halifax would have looked like the thoughtful, creative community that it is. And Peter Kelly would have been a hero, a prime contender for higher political office had he chosen to pursue that.

Like I said, history just tossed Kelly the political opportunity of a lifetime. He blew it. And we are all diminished by his failure.