Atlantica Party’s Kent Robinson has ideas for positive change
Wilmot’s Kent Robinson wants to see change – something he’s never seen in how the province of Nova Scotia is governed.
He’s running on the Atlantica Party ticket in the Annapolis riding in the May 30 provincial election and he’s hoping the party’s six-point plan strikes a chord with voters. Robinson is from Middleton and spent 35 years in the insurance industry, has been a consultant, and a private investigator.
The Atlantica Party stands for MLA recall, an end to all corporate welfare, elimination of the NSLC, lower taxes for individuals and no taxes on businesses, lower MLA salaries and slashed pensions, and electoral reform.
These are things Robinson can get behind and he’d also like to see how MLAS vote made public so constituents would know what their representatives were actually doing.
“Fixed election dates I think are pretty important too,” he said. “So we wouldn’t be going through the whim of whoever’s in power. I’m not criticizing (Premier Stephen) Mcneil for it, but he could have done something about it. I’m not criticizing (former Premier) Darrell Dexter, but he could have done something about it.”
He said legislatively those items are pretty important to him.
“Having recall for an MLA if he does vote against the popular attitude of the constituency,” is something he supports, explaining it’s important to have the ability to, in effect, fire him or her. “These things are apparent. They should be apparent.”
He believes if these simple things were enacted Nova Scotians would become more confident in government and more engaged. And he believes the population needs to be educated.
“I think it’s important that we go back to civics and the population being involved,” he said.
Monopolies
He backs the party’s plans to eliminate the Nova Scotia Liquor Corporation.
“The experiment was done in Alberta while I was still there,” he said. “Ralph Klein said ‘we’re not going to pay for the structures, and we’re not going to pay the government employees to basically stock shelves and do the checkouts.”
Government would still make the same tax money, independent local stores would contribute to local economies, and the government’s cost of distribution would go down to zero.
“It was logical,” he said. “They made exactly the same amount of money. The tax on the bottle of liquor was exactly the same. I think it went from 120 liquor stores in Alberta that were government run and after there were 620 small businesses that were created.”
Highest Taxes
He claims Nova Scotia has the highest tax regimen in North America.
“You have to make it attractive to people to come here. It’s not attractive for people to come here and open businesses or survive in their business without a low tax regimen,” he said. “And if you lower that you have growth and you have growth through privatization of government monopolies. Motor vehicles is another example of monopolies. That was also privatized in Alberta. What they did, they had the insurance agents run registry offices. Simple. Here they’re talking about hiring some company out of Ontario to handle it. Why not the little insurance agencies which every little town has. There again, access, jobs, free enterprise. It sounds logical to me.”
He’s seen three Nova Scotia governments in the past 10 years and he’s yet to be impressed.
“We have to change the message,” Robinson said. “The message hasn’t been working. There needs to be a common sense approach to the costs of this province, the debt load of this province which nobody talks about, and we’re under a million people and we have far too much government. We need fundamental change and a real reality check as to where we are going. Do what works, leave what doesn’t work, and get us back on some sort of fiscal program. Some sort of a fiscal direction that engenders some sort of prosperity in the population.”
For more on the Atlantica Party visit http://www.atlanticaparty.ca/