After months of counting tiny beans, Nova Scotia's politician-despising, publicity-loving, limelight-hogging Auditor General has grudgingly conceded what everyone knows: MLA Michel Sampson Samson lives in Arichat and fully qualifies for reimbursement of necessary Halifax expenses. [See: news release. Full report (pdf)] Then, predictably, Lapointe found a mean-spirited technicality on which he could deny Samson those legitimate expenses. Samson's Halifax residence doesn't qualify because it's a "house" not an "apartment." What tendentious pettifoggery! The campaign to deprive this elected MLA of the tools needed to do his job effectively was cooked up by a not very discerning CBC reporter, who couldn't distinguish legitimate living...

02 August, 2013

In a telephone interview moments ago, Jennifer Stewart, press secretary to Premier Darrell Dexter, said "there absolutely will not be an election called tomorrow." We were discussing election timing because of the danger that an early election call could torpedo all-party efforts to bring in new rules ensuring that people in wheelchairs can visit and even work in MLAs offices in Nova Scotia. More on that shortly....

02 August, 2013

The provincial government has changed the Labour Standards Code to protect the jobs of parents who take time off because their child is critically ill or has fallen victim to a serious crime. The changes guarantee a parent's right to return to work at the same pay and working conditions after: up to 37 weeks if they have been caring for a critically ill child up to 104 weeks if their child has died as a result of a crime up to 52 weeks if a child has disappeared as a result of a crime. Who could possibly question measures to ease the suffering of...

14 July, 2013

The number of "significant" natural catastrophes in North America causing more than $1 billion in losses of more than 50 deaths, 1950-2012: Number of natural catastrophes in North America, 1980-2011: For the climate change skeptics in the audience, these charts come not the Ecology Action Centre, the Natural Resources Defence Council, or the Pembina Institute, but from Munich Re, a $265-billion company that is one of the world's leading reinsurance brokers. (A reinsurer is an outfit that re-sells insurance liabilities when the risk becomes too great for a single retail firm, so it is on the front lines when catastrophic events loom.) Bear...

10 July, 2013

Premier Darrell Dexter shot a few baskets Monday afternoon during a courtesy call at the former Holy Angels High School, which New Dawn Enterprises is turning into a center for cultural organizations and entrepreneurship. Pictured in the doorway is Blair Oake, recently retired manager of City Printers, who will manage the facility. Seated in the stands, wearing a blue shirt,  is New Dawn president (and defeated mayoral candidate) Rankin MacSween. Dexter squeezed in a series of meet-and-greets en route to the NDP's Cape Breton-The Lakes nominating convention in Eskasoni, where Mi'kmaq John Frank Toney was acclaimed. Toney's nomination, tacitly endorsed by Eskasoni Chief...

09 July, 2013

Huffington Post's Canadian edition yesterday published an investigative report by a team of student journalists from the University of King's College detailing the housing crisis facing Nova Scotians with intelectual disabilities. There is not enough room in the system for all of the people who need a place to live. They languish on waiting lists that are hundreds of names long. Their families, in turn, must support them with scant financial, caregiving or community programming resources. Eventually the families get too old or sick to do it, making the situation for their relatives in rehab even worse. With so little room, placements...

12 June, 2013

The James McGregor Stewart Society, a small voluntary group with a single summer intern, has managed to pull off in a month what the Disabled Persons Commission of NS (annual budget: $600,000) and the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission ($2.1 million) have not achieved in the decades of their existence. It has surveyed the accessibility of MLAs offices throughout the province. The results will not be a source of pride for Nova Scotia or its legislators. The survey rated MLAs' constituency offices based on parking facilities, power door buttons, entrance accessibility, washroom accessibility, and proximity to accessible bus routes. Since accessible bus routes are...

05 June, 2013

Here she is, speaking obvious but rarely heard truths about specialist teaching qualifications and the education system as a vast babysitting service, in a March (?), 2012, conversation with the CBC's Amy Smith: [Video link]...

03 June, 2013

A committee meeting at Province House this week has the potential to correct a logstanding injustice in the way Nova Scotia is governed. At the behest of the James McGregor Stewart Society, a disability rights organization, the House of Assembly Management Commission will consider requiring constituency offices to be fully accessible before MLAs can claim reimbursement of office expenses. You might expect this to go without saying in 2013, but it doesn't. Many MLAs' offices are only partly, if at all, accessible. They may have a level entry or a satisfactory wheelchair ramp, but lack a paved parking lot or an accessible...

28 May, 2013
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