The NDP have joined the Liberals in insisting that voters go to the poll without knowing who donated to their campaign. The party revealed the names of labour unions and corporations that gave to the campaign, but withheld the names of individuals who contributed a total of $287,013.12. "The initial advice we received from [Chief Electoral Officer]  Christine [McCulloch] is that there were privacy concerns," said N-dip campaign director Matt Hebb. "If she has different advice now, I will take a look at it.' McCulloch's press aide Dana Philip Doiron told contrarian last week that, in response to requests for an opinion, McCulloch merely told the parties they should seek their own legal counsel, because it was not appropriate for her to issue legal advice.
07 June, 2009

Contrarian reader Scooter Bob complains that the media is ignoring NDP ads that are just as negative as the Tories': The NDP are distributing a two-page flyer. On one side is a less-than-flattering picture of Rodney MacDonald and a list of five alleged missteps — ERs closing & longer wait times; wasting money on expensive vehicles for ministers; putting HST on electricity; and putting the province in more debt. Isn't this exactly the same negative, US-style electioneering the NDP are complaining about? Why doesn't the media report on this? Perhaps because the ads go a step further by implying illegality by the...

07 June, 2009

"One man with two good secretaries could run Nova Scotia."  — Robert Stanfield, premier, 1956-1967. He did not say the man had to be any good; only the secretaries....

06 June, 2009
manning-mackay
A spirited CBC Radio forum for candidates in Cape Breton South last Thursday degenerated into a shouting match in the back parking lot of CBC  Sydney after the show. Feisty Liberal veteran Manning MacDonald and earnest NDP up-and-comer Wayne MacKay nearly came to blows after MacDonald took umbrage at suggestions he was an absentee MP. The debate itself, on CBC-Cape Breton's Information Morning, featured a generational clash as MacDonald, 66, defended attacks from MacKay, 34, and Tory Stephen Tobin, 25, both teachers (sort of). Cathy Theriault of the Greens, a one-time Marijuana Party candidate, also took part.
06 June, 2009
Well this is disturbing. In defending his decision to keep the names of private donors to his campaign secret until after election day, Liberal Leader Stephen McNeil cited privacy concerns. Since provincial law requires the names and addresses of all donors, and the amounts of their donations, to be disclosed and published annually by Elections Nova Scotia, this looked like a feeble excuse to avoid drawing pre-election attention to any embarrassing donors on the Liberal list. Now it turns out that Chief Electoral Officer Christine McCulloch handed McNeil—and the other three party leaders—a fig leaf they could use to hide any sketchy contributors from voter scrutiny. Contrarian suspected as much when a candidate for the Green Party said they had intended to post their list of donors on the campaign website today, but were holding off because, "The Chief Electoral Officer apparently has concerns about compromising the privacy of individual donors by releasing their names." This sounded absurd, so we checked with the Chief Electoral Office, where spokesman Dana Philip Doiron responded:
[T]he Chief electoral Officer has advised all registered political parties... that they should seek their own legal counsel before publishing the names and other personal information of contributors as they may be subject to the Protection of Privacy provisions of FOIPOP [the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act], while the reporting by Elections Nova Scotia is deemed to be in the public interest and not subject to FOIPOP.
A quick read of the FOIPOP act confirms the obvious. It applies only to "records in the custody or under the control of a public body, including court administration records." It has no conceivable application to records held by a political party.
05 June, 2009
[caption id="attachment_669" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="Liberal Donor John Bragg"]Liberal Donor John Bragg[/caption] Liberal leader Steven McNeil tries to draw a distinction between political contributions from unions and those from corporations on the grounds that the next premier will have to negotiate with unions. In fact, the next government is far more likely to find itself negotiating with the companies owned by John Bragg, whose Oxford Seafoods Ltd. is one of McNeil's two largest donors, than with the Mainland Building and Construction Trades Council and its member unions. Bragg's companies, including Eastlink, have multiple business dealings with the province, including bidding on contracts and receiving loans and other assistance. The Trades Council negotiates mainly with a parallel employers' council consisting of large construction companies. Its members are not public sector unions and would have little occasion to negotiate with government.
05 June, 2009
Former CBC Radio host Ian McNeil elaborates:
I am not normally moved to take such a stand in public, but the recent eviction of the man in Sydney Mines leaves me feeling shaken and concerned. Another friend wrote me yesterday, in support of the question I posed, and quoted CS Lewis:

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their consciences.

04 June, 2009

Contrarian reader M. Larusic thinks the Alice-in-Wonderland justice dispensed under the Safer Communities and Neighborhoods Act is but the tip of an iceberg that includes the Tory plan for youth curfews. Both are part of a worrisome trend to right wing politics at its worst. Two of the three candidates answered that they had enough confidence in the legal system and policing that they were not concerned with any possible abuses. One would expect such confidence to make such policies redundant. This trend is all about policing and little about law...

03 June, 2009
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