New Tory policy just tinkering

Julie Chaisson is the only leadership candidate who doesn’t hold elected office. She sees the pending decimation of Nova Scotia’s civil service as an opportunity too good to miss. Almost a quarter of the bureaucracy is eligible for retirement over the next couple of years, and Chaisson says that’s the time for structural changes to refocus the government.

All told – and it isn’t here – the leadership candidates are deep in thoughtful policy proposals.

They are all for lower taxes, more efficient government, a stronger economy, improvements to health care and probably longer summers, except this one spent politicking.

But, does Nova Scotia need these adjustments to what the government does now or is a more radical reset required, because the place doesn’t work for too many, although it works just great for a few?

A democracy is ailing when the government has free rein – that comes with a majority – while earning the support of fewer than three in 10 eligible voters. And Nova Scotia is more than a tad under the weather economically when family income here is the second lowest in the nation, before and after taxes according to the most recent stats available on the Department of Finance website.

Maybe some of those tax cuts or fracking proposals will lift family incomes and perhaps the winner of this race will find a way to attract Nova Scotians back to the public life of the province.

Or, maybe a leadership race isn’t the right place to look for a candidate that can get those kinds of things done. But if not there, where?