Here at last is Contrarian's searchable map of 2011 political donations in Nova Scotia: [Direct link to map] Each dot represents a donation. The dots are color-coded by party: orange (and brown) for NDP; red for Liberal; blue for PC; green for Green; and white for Atlantica. The larger dots stand for donations of $1,000 or more. Clicking on an individual dot reveals a pop-up table listing the name and address of the donor, the party to whom they donated, and the amount and type of donation. Use the + and – slider on the left side of the map to zoom...

12 August, 2012

In a series of posts last September, Contrarian revealed that Nova Scotia's Chief Electoral Officer had degraded the format used to report political donations over $50. For the first time, she released the file as a scanned PDF that cannot be searched or readily copied to other formats. Helpful Contrarian readers promptly hacked* McCulloch's degraded files, enabling us to republish the data in the searchable, text-grab-friendly format used in previous years’ reports. Today's long overdue follow-up provides the data in two new, even more useful and interesting formats: An Excel spreadsheet readers can view, parse, and re-use in ways limited only by their imaginations and...

21 June, 2012

Early last month, Contrarian revealed that Nova Scotia's Chief Electoral Officer had deliberately made her latest report of political donations harder to use by publishing them in an image-based PDF format whose text could neither be searched nor copied and pasted into another document. With help from hacker-readers, Contrarian republished the data in the searchable, text-grab-friendly format McCulloch used for previous years' reports. I'm not done with this topic. Several generous readers have converted the open PDF file we published into an Excel database file, thus enabling much broader use of the interesting political data it contains. I will post that Excel CSV...

03 October, 2011

There's a ton of reader reaction to Contrarian's dustup with Nova Scotia's Chief Electoral Officer Christine McCulloch (my original post here; McCulloch's response here). I intend to post a selection shortly, but what with having been out late last night, and having to wrangle opening night at the fall season of the Cape Breton Island Film Series later today, it will have to keep. But why wait any longer for this? Within eight hours of my original post, one resourceful Contrarian reader managed to crack McCulloch's digital locks and return the 2010 donations list to the traditional open pdf format, one that permits...

08 September, 2011

Yesterday I complained that Nova Scotia's Chief Electoral Officer, Christine McCulloch, had impaired the usefulness of her annual tally of political donations by rendering them impossible to search electronically. Ms. McCulloch responds: I make no apology for doing our utmost to protect the privacy of Nova Scotians while meeting the obligation of full disclosure of political contributions required under the Members and Public Employees Disclosure Act (MPEDA). The purpose of the disclosure provision of MPEDA is to provide everyone with access to the identity of contributors to recognized parties and candidates and how much they have contributed. That is met in our...

06 September, 2011

Before the end of June, each year, Nova Scotia law requires the Chief Electoral Officer to a publish all the political contributions made in the previous year. For the years 2007, 2008, and 2009, Christine McCulloch complied with the law, posting the information to the Elections Nova Scotia website in a manner that was accessible, searchable, printable, and even, with effort, downloadable to a citizen's own database. This gave every citizen the tools to determine whether contractors who won big roadbuilding contracts, storeowners who won liquor commission franchises, or communications consultants (like me!) who were selected for Communications Nova Scotia's Standing...

05 September, 2011
At the risk of sounding like a Green Party blog, today's news has to be disheartening for those adherents who have tried to get the party back on track. After the break, an email from Elections Nova Scotia Communications Director Dana Philip Doiron describes the outcome of a meeting this morning in which Chief Electoral Office Christine McCulloch gave outgoing party leader Ryan Watson and official agent Kathryn Herbert one last chance to demonstrate that the party can meet its legal obligations.
05 August, 2009

Chief Electoral Officer Christine McCulloch's annual report has been posted, and it confirms our report last week that she has initiated deregistration proceedings against the Green Party for failure to comply with financial disclosure laws. As the chart above shows, the failure appears to be complete across the board: No audited financial statements, no public access thereto, and no copies or accounting of tax receipts. The Green Party of Nova Scotia received $133,469.90 in public financing last year. McCulloch's report doesn't say when deregistration will take effect, but over the weekend  party officials told contrarian they had until July 17 to avoid...

29 June, 2009
ryan-watson-smallNova Scotia Green Party leader Ryan Watson says the party will publish its 2008 audited financial statements "within a few weeks." Based on regular conversations with Elections Nova Scotia, he believes this will be soon enough to avoid loss of official party status. By law, the financial statements should have been filed by April 30. Elections Nova Scotia communications director Dana Philip Doiron told contrarian earlier today that Chief Electoral Office Christine McCulloch had issued the required 30-day notice of deregistration required under the Elections Act, and a report due for release Tuesday would detail the issue. He said deregistration could follow shortly. Watson said the late filing resulted from the party being new, its treasurer taking an untimely vacation,  and its reliance on volunteers who were "wading through the election regulations," and busy preparing for and fighting the June election.
26 June, 2009
green-watsonThe Green Party of Nova Scotia, and riding associations for the Greens and two other recognized parties, face imminent deregistration under the Elections Act for failing to publish audited financial statements for the last fiscal year as required by law. Dana Philip Doiron, communications director for Elections Nova Scotia, confirmed that Chief Electoral Officer Christine McCulloch will file her annual report under the Members and Public Employees Disclosure Act (MPED) Tuesday, and deregistration could follow shortly thereafter. "Sometimes [the report's release is] a ho-hum event, and Frank is the only one interested," Doiron said "In this particular case the report will be looking at compliance for reporting, and that report will be interesting."
26 June, 2009
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