Nova Scotia's New Democratic Party is wasting no time making hay in the sunshine of its Bowater bailout with a direct-mail flyer that's sure to infuriate opposition parties. The one-page card, featuring a photo of Premier Darrell Dester and Queens MLA Vicki Conrad, will start appearing in South Shore mailboxes this week. It uses Chronicle-Herald headlines to highlight the Dexter Government's rescue of the financially shaky newsprint mill, contrasting it with a jaundiced appraisal of opposition efforts. The NDP government is protecting 2,000 jobs with an investment in the mill workers and the Bowater Mersey pulp and paper mill in Queens County...

15 December, 2011
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As Nova Scotia’s new government begins its third week in office, a critical early mistake is coming into focus: Darrell Dexter’s 12-member cabinet is too small for the job at hand. Cabinet selection inevitably requires consideration of gender, ethnicity, and geography: Women must take a prominent place; there must seats for Cape Breton, northern Nova Scotia, the south shore, and the valley; Metro MLAs must not appear to dominate. Legitimate political and cultural considerations of this sort do not necessarily trump such factors as experience and merit, but they compete with them. That leads to problems.
06 July, 2009