NDP Leader Gary Burrill and MP Rick Perkins. Photo Ed Halverson

An eventful week in Nova Scotia politics.

Leader of the provincial NDP Gary Burrill announced he is stepping down as the head of his party.

Burrill was named NPD leader in 2016, winning a seat in the riding of Halifax-Chebucto in 2017, which he still holds today.

Burrill says party membership has seen a renewal with younger voters and he is stepping aside leaving the party in a stronger position than when he assumed leadership.

“We gained a member in the election and now it’s the case that every single member of our caucus is someone who has come there since I became leader our party,” said Burrill. “I think now is the right time for us to renew ourselves, also in leadership, so that we can build on these strengths and be prepared to put our program before the people in the next election.”

The party will meet in the coming weeks to decide how the process to replace Burrill will unfold.

Burrill says NDP members will select his replacement within the year.

He says he looks forward to working with whomever is chosen and intends to continue to represent constituents in his riding.

“I will be right there. I won’t be 10 feet from our new leader or from the rest of our caucus. I am deeply immersed in our project and mission to form the next government of Nova Scotia. But I think it is my responsibility to choose the moment when it is best for us to renew ourselves in leadership as we move towards that goal, and I think that the moment for that is now,” said Burrill.

On the national stage, newly elected Member of Parliament for South Shore-St.Margaret’s Rick Perkins has made his way into Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole’s shadow cabinet.

Perkins will be the official opposition’s chief critic on Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard.

The first-time MP says it’s an honour to be chosen from among 118 caucus members to hold the government to task.

“I’m a kind of an elbows-high kinda guy,” said Perkins. “I’m not a shrinking violet so, I go into the corner with my elbows high and I dig the puck out and that’s what I plan to do for the fishermen in our community.”

Perkins says he will get to work on the file right away, going to bat for fishermen being asked to repay the Fish Harvesters Benefit, working to resolving the moderate livelihood fisheries and preparing for the launch of lobster season in a couple of weeks in two of the country’s most profitable grounds in LFAs 33 and 34 on Nova Scotia’s south shore.

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Mary Dahr election signs just outside Liverpool. Photo Ed Halverson

One of the people running to represent Queens in the provincial election says not allowing election lawn signs on municipal property puts some candidates at a disadvantage.

NDP Candidate Mary Dahr says the Region of Queens has removed the signs she placed on municipal sites.

Dahr approached the Region to ask if they would relax their rules.

“They were defending their rules and they police it very good but that’s as far as they would go,” said Dahr. “Just defending their rules, they were not budging on it.”

Dahr is concerned the policy could exclude people from being involved in the electoral process.

“Anybody who’s a minority, it’s a barrier, it’s not inclusive at all. I’m hoping that they will change their rules on that,” said Dahr.

Lawn signs for Queens candidates line both sides of Bristol Ave in Liverpool. Photo Ed Halverson

According to Elections Nova Scotia, each municipality can determine whether or not lawn signs will be permitted on municipal property.

Mayor Darlene Norman says the Region of Queens has a long-standing policy of not allowing campaign signs on their lands.

“We strongly believe that people in Queens County do not want to see election signs posted on public property. They do not want to see them in parks, they don’t want to see them around cenotaphs, they don’t want to see them at beaches, they don’t want to see them at Queens Place,” said Norman.

NDP leader Gary Burrill, who was campaigning with Dahr in Liverpool on Monday takes the sign controversy in stride

“I don’t think there’s ever been a provincial election in Nova Scotia where there weren’t sign questions and lots of them,” said Burrill. “That goes with the territory.”

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NDP leader Gary Burrill and candidate for Queens Mary Dahr in Liverpool August 2. Photo Ed Halverson

The leader of the Nova Scotia NDP Gary Burrill was in Queens Monday bringing a promise of affordable housing.

Burrill says the issue comes up repeatedly as local candidate Mary Dahr meets people on their doorstep.

“They hear over and over and over from people about the real serious problem of the availability of a place to live, about the numbers of people that are living in out buildings and are living in tents on the South Shore because of this unavailability,” said Burrill.

Dahr says rental options are particularly dire.

“I went to somebody’s house the other night, they were paying $800 and it was such a bad place,” said Dahr. “They have to hold on to that because there’s nothing else.”

Burrill says if NDP wins the election ensuring all Nova Scotians can access housing will be a core priority.

“We are committed to institute permanent rent control within a month of being sworn in as government, if we are able to form government in the election,” said Burrill.

The NDP leader says his is the only one of the three major parties who are on board with rent controls.

“Our view is, that a majority of Canadians, today, live in jurisdictions where they have protection from sudden, dramatic, unsubstantiated rent increases and people of Nova Scotia should have it too.”

Burrill suggests tying annual rent increases to the Consumer Price Index.

The PCs and Liberals argue the only way to provide more affordable housing is to increase the amount of available units and should be done, for the most part, by private sector developers.

Burrill agrees more housing stock needs to open up and there is a role for government in that process.

He says the Liberals have largely abdicated their responsibility to provide social housing by open fewer than 200 new units over eight years in power.

“We are committed, in the NDP, to doing much better than that,” said Burrill. “To getting the government back into the housing business in the way that it used to be, particularly with the opening up of options in co-op housing, various kinds of non-profit housing, social housing.”

Burrill also sees the need to provide stricter regulations on short-term housing rentals, like AirBnb, to ensure more of those units will be available to people wanting to live full-time in their communities.

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NDP candidate for Queens Mary Dahr, Photo contributed by Mary Dahr

The last of the three major Nova Scotian parties have announced their candidate for the riding of Queens.

The NDP have chosen Mary Dahr to carry their banner in the next provincial election.

Dahr has been involved with the NDP for over 20 years and feels the priority the party places on social issues will resonate with voters.

“I’m hoping what I’m saying is going to touch people’s hearts and they’re going to vote for me,” said Dahr.

Born in Queens, Dahr’s family moved to Alberta when she was a child.

After retiring from a career as a medical lab technician she moved back to the region six years ago and currently works at White Point Beach and Resort.

Dahr was inspired to put her name forward after learning of the desperate child poverty rates in Nova Scotia and in particular, Queens.

“I know that when they announced child poverty in Nova Scotia, it seemed to me that nobody blinked,” said Dahr. “There was no, oh, we have to do better. I didn’t hear that at all.”

This isn’t the first time Dahr has stood for the NDP provincially. She twice ran in Alberta and narrowly missed winning a seat when Rachel Notley led the party to power in 2015.

Dahr says with a platform that includes a $15/hr minimum wage, free tuition, increased social assistance rates and a commitment to find solutions for affordable housing, the Nova Scotia NDP under leader Gary Burrill are working to make the lives of everyday Nova Scotians better.

“It’s an honest and fair government that is looking out for the people of Nova Scotia, not just caring about the people who don’t really need to be cared about, because they have all the money that they need,” said Dahr. “We need to care about everybody in Nova Scotia and not leave anybody behind.”

Dahr joins Liberal candidate Susan MacLeod and PC Candidate and current MLA for Queens –Shelburne Kim Masland in trying to win the re-established riding of Queens.

It’s up to Premier Iain Rankin to decide when the writ will drop.

Rankin has until May to make the call but given the large and frequent number of funding announcements coming out of government the past few weeks, speculation is high the election could be called soon.

Reported by Ed Halverson 
E-mail: edhalversonnews@gmail.com
Twitter: @edwardhalverson

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Nova Scotia Premier Stephen McNeil. Photo: Nova Scotia Government

Nova Scotia’s premier is making his last appearance in the legislature, and he’s none too happy about it.

Premier Stephen McNeil has asked the leaders of the Progressive Conservatives and New Democratic Parties to sit in a virtual session Friday to avoid meeting in a large group during COVID.

McNeil has previously announced he will prorogue the legislature at that sitting. The formality will close the fall session without any legislation being introduced, debated or passed.

The premier expressed his frustration with the other two parties at a press conference following Thursday’s cabinet meeting, accusing them of forcing government to meet in person.

“But I’m going to have to tell people that I have to ignore the public health protocols because the two opposition people think they’re equivalent to health care workers, they’re equivalent to teachers, they’re equivalent to people who have been working their tails off to keep us safe when the very job they do could have easily happened virtually. They have no role tomorrow. The Lieutenant Governor is proroguing it,” said McNeil.

The premier was referring to a letter sent by the NDP, which stated, “Across the province, teachers, nurses, health care workers, public servants, grocery store workers, and others have been going to their workplaces, and we see no reason why MLAs could not be present in the legislature.”

Even with reduced numbers representing all parties, McNeil objects to an in-person sitting of the legislature.

“The very thing I’m asking you to do over the holidays to keep our province safe, by keeping your gatherings at ten, I’m being forced by the opposition to cross the street with more than 15 people. I want you to think about that the next time you go to the polls,” said McNeil. “All the sacrifice you’ve made over the last ten months, all we ask from our elected officials is join you, to be a little courageous, to do things a bit different. But instead they put their own self-interest ahead of yours.”

NDP Leader Gary Burrill said his party isn’t forcing the government to do anything.

“To mischaracterize it as though we were forcing the government to do something that is unsafe, this is entirely a misreading of what we have said, at such a level that, in my judgment, it is manipulative and insincere and untruthful,” said Burrill.

NDP Leader Gary Burrill. Zoom screenshot

PC Leader Tim Houston said no one is asking to violate health orders. It’s clear to him the premier is trying to politicize this final sitting.

“I think what’s happening here,” said Houston, “is the premier is lashing out because he’s embarrassed by his own mismanagement of the whole file.”

By law, the legislature needs to sit twice a year. An early spring session allowed the governing Liberals to pass a budget before the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic set in. But the legislature hasn’t met since then.

House leaders from all three parties have been working since August to find a way to safely return to the legislature.

PC Leader Tim Houston. Zoom screenshot

Houston said his party found out late Tuesday evening McNeil wanted to sit virtually Friday and they began to plan accordingly.

“Now we find out the premier didn’t really have that plan organized, he hadn’t prepared for that, he hadn’t done the work necessary that should’ve been done over the past couple of months.,” said Houston. “And now, if we listen to him, we can’t sit virtually, we don’t know, we’re still waiting for directions.”

Houston said he was going to contact the province’s chief medical officer of health Dr. Robert Strang for his recommendation on how many people could be safely present in the legislature.

At dinnertime Thursday Strang responded to the PC leader that he had already given the Lieutenant Governor’s office direction, and that under the current restrictions in the Public Health Order there can be no more than 5 people together in the legislature chamber.

Strang added, because all Nova Scotians are asked to avoid non-essential travel in and out of Halifax until December 21, MLAs should attend the sitting virtually.

Premier McNeil said an archaic rule of law would compel the legislature to meet in person to pass a motion to allow them to meet virtually.

Whether or not select members of all parties will be present at Friday’s sitting, just like the rest of 2020, the final legislative session for McNeil will be memorable.

Reported by Ed Halverson 
E-mail: edhalversonnews@gmail.com
Twitter: @edwardhalverson