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Premier Dexter's office is quietly taking a firm hand in the hiring of ministerial executive assistants, insisting the new hires must be chosen for their policy chops. Officials in the premier's office will begin interviewing candidates for long-term EA positions next week, replacing the makeshift crew of temporary EAs assigned immediately after the election. The move suggests the Dexter Government could feature a Harperesque degree of central control. Executive assistants are explicitly political positions tied to a ruling party's tenure. Each minister gets an EA to help with political aspects of the job, including major constituency issues and partisan concerns related to a minister's portfolios. They are not to be confused with the eight unpaid 'ministerial assistant' positions Dexter handed out Monday as sops to disappointed backbench MLAs who lost out in the 12-person cabinet sweepstakes.
02 July, 2009

Howard Epstein will not be in Darrell Dexter's first cabinet, nor will he be offered the Speaker's chair. He may or may not be offered some sort of assistant ministerial position, akin to a parliamentary secretary in the federal cabinet, but it appears unlikely he will accept this. Word of the slight is rocketing around left circles in Halifax. The only Jew currently serving in the legislature, Epstein is best known for his storng, somewhat inflexible, environmentalist views. He was director of the Ecology Action Centre from 1991 to 1994, the year he first won election to Halifax City Council, representing the city's...

19 June, 2009
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A canny Liberal friend of contrarian suggests that Premier-about-to-be Darrell Dexter would be wise to follow Jean Charest's example and select a gender-balanced cabinet. That would mean five or six of the 11 ministers Dexter will name tomorrow would be women. A key advantage of this approach is that it would disarm the party's already isolated left wing, giving Dexter more leeway to keep Howard Epstein out of harm's way—placing him, say, in the speaker's chair. Do the math: Dexter promised a cabinet of no more than 12 members. He will take one seat himself. Cape Breton must get another, also Pictou, Kings, and perhaps Guysborough. Add five or six women, and it doesn't leave much room for white males from Metro. The left would be hard put to complain about a cabinet that raised the participation of women to an historic high.
18 June, 2009
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The Queen had only one way of settling all difficulties, great or small: “Off with his head!” she said, without even looking round. –– Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. At last night’s debate, all three party leaders offered ringing endorsements of the Queen’s punish-first, trial-later approach to law enforcement. All three tossed the presumption of innocence on the scrap heap in response to a question from Ian McNeil of East Lake Ainslie:
How comfortable are you with a Safer Communities and Neighborhoods Act, which allows people to be evicted from their homes without being charged, or convicted of a criminal offence, or having an opportunity to face their peers?
Darrell Dexter, who purports to be a New Democrat, led the charge:
Well there are always concerns, civil liberties concerns, around whether of not people are able to get a fair hearing with respect to these kinds of matters. But what the Safer Neighborhoods and Communities Act [sic] actually does, there is an evidentiary base for decisions that are made, and there are investigations that take place, and they are designed to protect neighborhoods from disruptive activity. It is a tool that is in the toolbox of the authorities and I have darrellfaith not only in the authorities but in the courts of this province that they administer that law appropriately, and they will protect the civil liberties of the people of this province. Overriding all of this, of course, are the rights under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms that is the overall safeguard for those mechanisms that  exist in the Safer Communities and Neighborhoods Act [sic].
You have to wonder, is this guy inspired by the likes of Tommy Douglas and Stanley Knowles, or by Stephen Harper and Stockwell Day? The premier, too, stood squarely in the Harper-Day, law-and-order camp.
03 June, 2009

Reader Jean McKenna thinks the mainstream media have overlooked a critical detail in the union minutes contrarian published Monday The date on this document is very interesting - long before the NDP, acting on information apparently from yourself, decided to give the money back. I am curious as to why the Herald didn't reproduce this; I wouldn't have known about it without reading to the distant, page 2, end, of their article. Where is investigative journalism? Why hasn't there been some follow-up from someone on the possible ties between the various "brothers" and Mr. Dexter, et al?...

03 June, 2009
NDP leader Darrell Dexter today promised to provide 1,000 home insulation grants for low to modest income households. This is a much better idea than Dexter's plan to subsidize carbon production by removing the provincial share of HST from home electricity bills. Here's why:
  • Insulation grants will cut the province's CO2 emissions, while the carbon subsidy will increase them.
  • Insulation grants will target homeowners most in need, while the carbon subsidy will go disproportionately to the well-off, because they use more electricity.
  • Insulation grants will create jobs for carpenters, plumbers, electricians, and local businesses, while the carbon subsidy will have little or no employment impact.
  • Insulation grants will produce permanent reductions in home heating costs, while savings from the carbon subsidy will last only as long as the tax break is in place.
29 May, 2009

With 10 days to go, a Liberal friend sums it up: Everyone I talk to expects an NDP  government. Everyone. They say, "Darrell's a good leader." They say, "it's his turn." I haven't heard a single person say they expect someone else to form the government. He could win a majority....

29 May, 2009
Let's get a few things straight. The province ran a deficit of roughly a quarter billion dollars in the fiscal year just ended. We could have balanced the books by using the extraordinary payments from the Crown share adjustment, but legislation passed by the Hamm government prevents that. Without changing that law, that one-time resource revenue has to go toward debt repayment. (There are two good reasons for that law:  (1)  thanks to the excesses of the Buchanan administration, our provincial debt is far too high, and needs to be paid down to a reasonable level. (2) Non-renewable resource revenue should not be used for current expenditures; it should be used for things that produce lasting benefits. Otherwise, we're robbing future generations.) So last year's quarter billion dollar deficit is water over the dam. It's gone. We can't wish it back.
20 May, 2009
I began this blog suggesting that voters are ready to turf Rodney MacDonald, and I've yet to hear anyone take strong issue with this observation. But if most people expect an NDP government, they're still reluctant to predict that outcome. After all, this is Nova Scotia, and an NDP victory has never happened before. It almost happened once, 11 years ago, when NDP leader Robert Chisholm (remember him?) nearly toppled Russell MacLellan, leading the N-Dips to 155,361 votes and 19 seats.  (The Liberals also got 19 seats, and 158,380 votes. As governing party, they were able to retain office.) In the last election, Darrell Dexter beat Chisholm's seat tally by one, but he has never surpassed Chisholm's '98 vote total.

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A few factors contributed to Chisholm's 1998 surge:  Voter unease with Alexa McDonough had suppressed the NDP vote in previous elections;  Once Chisholm succeeded McDonough, pent-up voter interest in the NDP bloomed. At the time, voters were increasingly unhappy with the Liberals under Russell MacLellan, yet still too sour on the Tories to give the rather stiff newcomer John Hamm a try.
17 May, 2009

Oh dear!  Google "Progressive Conservative Party of Nova Scotia," and see what turns up: A paid ad for Darrell Dexter Metatext describing the PCs as the "governing party led by John Hamm." ...

17 May, 2009