Leadership

[caption id="attachment_777" align="alignright" width="150" caption="Dr. Chris Milburn"][/caption] What's disquieting about our New Democratic Party government-in-waiting is the same thing that's been disturbing about Nova Scotia for decades: a lack of compelling leadership. It's not simply that our once-upon-a-time socialists have moved to the dead center of the road. Contrarian is OK with that. It's Darrell Dexter's meticulous avoidance of anything that might challenge voters in any way. The NDP knew that to get elected, they would have to win seats in rural Nova Scotia. They took polls and conducted focus groups, and discovered that rural Nova Scotians are upset about emergency room closures. So the NDP promised to end those closures, even though every thoughtful observer knows that doing so would be a wasteful diversion of scarce health care dollars. Among other things, it will make recruitment of physicians to rural areas more difficult, not easier. Why would a fully trained physician want to sit in an emergency room all night to treat one or two patients?