Many of those who responded to my posts on the Dexter government's mistakes and accomplishments (here,  here, here, and here) were disappointed New Democrats. To my complaint that a small cadre of apparatchiks in the premier's office exercised far too much central control, a party supporter employed in the administration offered this colourful label: [A] group of too-young, nasty, disconnected, Harper-style assholes. Another longtime party supporter on the party's left flank wrote: One of the most disappointing failures of the government was not bring more talented, knowledgeable, and competent people into the government and the party. In every area the government claims to be interested in improving—the environment, poverty,...

04 October, 2013

Here is the final instalment of my four posts on the NDP government’s mistakes and successes. Mistakes here and here. Successes, part one, here, part two below. Between now and election day, I’ll post a selection of reader responses, more of which are always welcome. 4. Wilderness protection Two hundred years from now, few Nova Scotians will know whether the provincial government balanced its books in 2013, or how much power rates increased between 2009 and 2013, or even who Darrell Dexter was. But they will know that a significant amount of Nova Scotia’s spectacular wilderness areas was permanently protected for the...

29 September, 2013

Since 1970, four Nova Scotia governments have delayed elections into the fifth year of their mandates. Three of the four got clobbered. In 1978, Gerald Regan's Liberals went almost seven months into their fifth year, then dropped from 31 seats to 17. In 1993, Donald Cameron's Progressive Conservatives went almost eight months into their fifth year, and fell from 28 seats to 9. Almost five years later, Russell MacLellan led the Liberals from a commanding 40 seats to a humiliating 19-seat tie with the New Democrats, allowing him to govern only briefly with the slenderest of minorities. In 2003, John Hamm went just 10...

04 August, 2013

Citing the latest of several Corporate Research Associates polls showing Darrell Dexter's New Democrats with a comfortable lead, longtime Progressive Conservative Rob Smith has a piece in today's AllNovaScotia.com [subscription required] proposing some form of Liberal-Tory co-operation to prevent what the news service alarmingly headlines, "Socialists forever." [caption id="attachment_9599" align="alignright" width="250" caption="Beware of blue Bolsheviks!"][/caption] This argument would be more persuasive if the Dexter Government had shown any sign of being either permanent or socialist. Dexter won office less than three years ago,  and he did so by turning quietly away from the strident leftist approach of previous NDP leaders, and toward centrist policies...

19 March, 2012

Labor lawyer Ron Stockton, who is also president of the Lunenburg NDP Association, protests that the insulated lunch bags distributed to Grade Primary students in Nova Scotia  the Annapolis, Cape Breton-Victoria, South Shore, and Strait regional school boards this month and next (and pictured here) do not appear to be NDP orange, but rather, red with orange trim. If the government were Liberal would you have levelled the same criticism?  If a PC government put out materials that were blue (admittedly a much more commonly used colour) would you have criticized them?  At my age I like things to be as colourful as...

24 February, 2012

On CBC Radio last week, Contrarian’s old friend Ralph Surette said Nova Scotia Liberals had dumped their last nine leaders — every one since Gerald Regan — before they could fight a second election. That’s not quite true. The Liberals have had only seven leaders since Regan, and two of those took the party through two elections. Still, the record is fratricidal: The operative question is whether the Liberals will repeat this pattern when they review leader Stephen McNeil's leadership Friday. A covert campaign to unseat McNeil has featured an inept website and a mass mail-out using a purloined copy of the...

08 May, 2010

We can't say whether Liberal leader Stephen McNeil read this particular Contrarian entry, but he did both the right thing and the smart thing in helping astonished New Democrats speed passage of political financing reform through the house in a single day. It's the smart thing, because McNeil couldn't prevent passage of the new law, so why encourage days of debate focusing on past Liberal wrongdoing? It's the right thing, because no party should enjoy a permanent finger on the political scale based on a 40-year-old shakedown racket. McNeil explained it this way:It was my direction—and I take full responsibility—that...

23 October, 2009

Extortion. That's how the Liberal Party of Nova Scotia obtained the money it would be blocked from using by a government bill introduced in the legislature Tuesday. Liberal leader Stephen McNeil should think hard before crying victim. Justice Minister Ross Landry, who introduced the bill, suggested the Liberals give the tainted funds to charity. A better idea would be to give it back to the provincial treasury, because that's who they stole it from. McNeil may think voters' memories are too short to remember the details, but a few of us old coots are still around to remind them. The money in question came...

20 October, 2009

Today's Antigonish by-election is a foregone conclusion. N-dip Moe Smith came within 275 votes of knocking off popular Tando MacIsaac in June's general election. Tando having abandoned the seat so abruptly, and the NDP firmly ensconced in Province House, Smith will take the riding in a walk. Inverness is a different matter. The riding is festooned with election signs in roughly equal numbers. Although then-Premier Rodney MacDonald out-polled his nearest rival by 3,431  votes in June, would-be Tory successor Allan MacMaster is widely expected to place third today. The premier's abandonment of the riding, like Tando's of neighboring Antigonish, will hurt MacMaster,...

20 October, 2009

The indefatigable Wallace J. McLean (note correct spelling; mea culpa) has risen to contrarian's challenge, and defended his view that the MacDonald government's paving proposals were as politically skewed as the Harper government's selective approvals thereof. This time he buttresses his case with a map, using traditional party colors in two shades: darker for ridings in which the government proposed  paving; lighter for those where it did not. Turning this map back into numbers, the Rodney government proposed work in two out of six rural Liberal districts (33%); three out of eight rural NDP districts (38%), and 13 out of 21 rural...

03 July, 2009
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