Early voting in Nova Scotia has been underway for weeks and yet voter turnout remains low. With the election looming, I’m hoping more people will turn their minds to who they want running the province for the next four years, but I suspect many will just shrug and snap on the TV instead.
They shouldn’t. Houston keeps saying “good things are happening” and that we should re-elect his government so they can continue to “make things happen” but they're empty words. The Premier has little to show for his three and a half years in office - if you don’t count broken promises and dumb ideas, that is.
Here's just a partial list of the broken promises:
1. to reinstate elected school boards;
2. to take a science-based approach to decisions around covid public health measures;
3. to improve health care (especially in rural areas);
4. to appoint a new Board of Directors and permanent CEO for the NS Health Authority;
5. to implement the Coastal Protection Act;
6. to abide by the fixed election date set by his own government;
7. to make Crown corporations more “accountable” (instead, he put decision making in the hands of politicians and did away with most reporting);
8. to improve wages and lower the cost of living; and
9. to legislate against the use of NDAs in sexual assault cases.
I'm sure there are others but the so-called "Progressive" Conservatives have removed their 2021 platform from their website so it's harder to construct a complete list.
And here’s a list of other failures and dumb ideas:
1. failing to improve school ventilation despite the fact the feds provided tens of millions for that purpose (it's not clear where the money went);
2. failing to provide robust public health education re the ongoing pandemic and the continued need for vaccination and other measures;
3. a too slow and utterly inadequate response to last year's wildfires and apocalyptic rain events;
4. making life worse for renters by making it easier for landlords to evict them, while doing nothing to close the fixed lease loophole that has resulted in rent increases of 70% overall;
5. the appointment of a friend of the Premier as CEO of the newly created Crown corporation Invest NS (he resigned almost immediately, likely due to conflicts of interest);
6. the appointment of another friend of the Premier as “interim CEO” of the NS health authority, though she had no prior healthcare experience (she's still in place 3+ years later - presumably because she does what she's told);
7. poorly managed (likely corrupt) decisions around buying, renovating and operating a step-down facility in Bedford;
8. a bungled "Buy Local" campaign that is, in effect, nothing more than a subsidy to Sobeys;
9. poor management of provincial parks (e.g. funds going into new signage and paved roads, when the emphasis should have been on mitigating damage caused by last year's devastating storms);
10. cancelling the previous government’s carbon pricing program and failing to propose an alternative that would meet federal standards;
11. establishing the NS Guards to do who-knows-what;
12. purchasing hugely expensive health apps with minimal functionality, which put Nova Scotians' personal health information at risk;
13. publicly attacking elementary school teachers for "disrespecting veterans” (without first checking the facts or communicating his concerns to the school) in order to rile up his base;
14. spending even less time in the House of Assembly than his predecessor;
15. hiring a communications director who sided with nazis and racists during the Ottawa convoy protest;
16. refusing to negotiate agreements with the feds for funding on a whole range of issues;
17. overspending his budgets by a billion dollars a year, with no real accountability; and
18. supporting a plan to use wind energy to produce heavily subsidized hydrogen-based fuel that will be shipped to Europe, rather than greening our own grid, which is still heavily reliant on coal.
I could go on. From where I sit, Houston has demonstrated again and again that he isn't competent to do the job. Worse, he doesn't even take the job seriously enough to bother to try and learn it. He should be held accountable for his arrogance but that won't happen if he gets another majority.
Given that, my best advice is to vote ABC - "anything but Conservative" - in hopes Houston at least loses his majority and is forced to deal with opposition questions and concerns. And be strategic about it. Figure out who has the best shot of defeating the Con in your riding and vote for them. Any colour of minority government is better than the one we have now.
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