When information is presented in a format computer programs can read, as opposed to a static, telephone directory-style list, fresh insights spring from the data. Contrarian friend Gus Reed prepared a compendium of revelations arising from Elections Nova Scotia's annual political donations report—once we liberated it from the cloistered format favored by the former Chief Electoral Officer. Some examples: Does Nova Scotia have a party of the rich? Not according to the donations made in 2010. When Gus plotted the proportion of donations against their size, all three major parties showed a remarkably similar distributions: Vote tallies for the three major parties in...

22 June, 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

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
iuec
Contrarian reader Garland Ingraham, former Business Manager for the Mainland Nova Scotia Building & Construction Trades Council and former Business Representative for International Union of Elevator Constructors, Local 125, thinks the media are making too much of the dubious council donations to the NDP that were returned following inquiries by contrarian.
Prior to the Mainland building trades meeting held on April 9, 2009, the Mainland council had made political contribution to all three main parties, Tories, Liberals, and NDP . A motion in the Council's books, which had been there for some time  basically stated that if political contributions were to be made that all parties receive an equal amount. As a past Business Manager for the Mainland Building Trades Council, I have personally written out checks, signed by the signing officers, for payment to various candidates of all three parties, Tories, Liberals and NDP. No checks were ever returned durning my term with the council. So if the NDP is tainted so are the other two. With all this political bull in the air, I am thinking its a great time to plant my garden.
03 June, 2009

Minutes of the April 9 meeting of the Mainland Nova Scotia Building and Construction Trades Council confirm that the council tried to circumvent statutory campaign limits. A member of another political party described the minutes to Contrarian Saturday evening, and agreed to forward copies, on condition of anonymity. While waiting for the minutes to arrive, Contrarian sought reaction from NDP campaign director Matt Hebb, who said he had no knowledge of the donations. Today, the original source forwarded the minutes shown above, shortly after the NDP announced it was returning $45,000 in Trades Council donations. The source ascribed the delay in sending...

01 June, 2009