Nova Scotians short-changed by government

If you’re feeling a little shortchanged by Nova Scotia’s government these days, it’s likely because you are.

You’re only getting two-thirds of the government you deserve and pay for. Nova Scotia’s Liberal government – and specifically Premier Stephen Mcneil – is keeping the other third out of action, out of sight and out of work. I refer, of course, to the Nova Scotia legislature.

Unlike every other province in Canada – and the nation itself – Nova Scotia has operated for 228 days with just two branches of government, instead of the three that have laboured in the interest of other Canadians, for at least some of those days.

As every Canadian schoolboy and girl once knew – do they still? – our government consists of three branches. In no particular order, these are the executive, the judiciary and the legislative.

Arguably, the legislative is the most vital of the three. It has the power-of-the-purse. The executive branch – what we generally and generically refer to as “the government” – can’t operate without the money the legislature approves. The legislature also passes laws that the judiciary apply and interpret.

And the legislature has another essential purpose. It holds the executive branch – the cabinet – accountable for its actions or lack thereof. That vital function has been absent from Nova Scotia since March 10, when the house last met.

In fact, the Nova Scotia legislature has been in session for an embarrassingly scant 13 days in 2020. (Thirty days notice is required to recall the house, so if notice came Monday, the legislature wouldn’t reconvene before Nov. 26.)

It’s true that COVID-19 limited the ability of the house to sit, but with schools, businesses and much of the rest of Nova Scotia open, it’s a travesty that the primary political and democratic institution in the province remains locked down. It’s not like there’s a shortage of issues for the province’s 51 MLAS to address, but more on that later.

Other legislative bodies across the land have found ways to meet safely during the pandemic and in most of those jurisdictions, COVID-19 is much more prevalent than in Nova Scotia.

The provincial legislature remains locked-down because without it the Liberal government is unencumbered by the messy dictates of democracy. It answers to no one, other than to provide the occasional selfserving talking points to nosy journalists.

Conversely, the Liberals face tough questions and political risk when the legislature is in session.

John Savage, a man of great integrity but perhaps more limited political acumen, believed the legislature should sit at least twice a year – spring and fall – so that the government – the executive – couldn’t escape accountability for months on end.

So, as premier, he embedded that requirement in law, specifically in the House of Assembly Act.

Stephen Mcneil, by contrast, is a man of sharply-honed political instincts who understands that his government gets a free ride when the legislature doesn’t sit. And so it doesn’t, at least not for a day, or an hour, more than is absolutely required to ram through those elements of the government’s agenda that require the approbation of the legislature – the occasionally law and the annual budget.

With the house sidelined, the government has merely brushed aside questions about its preparations for an expected second wave of COVID-19 and how, or whether, it has hardened nursing homes so there isn’t a repeat of the tragic outbreak that took 53 lives at Northwood during the first wave.

There are a myriad of questions unanswered and issued unaddressed that require the legislature’s attention.

The Liberal government has been less than forthcoming on how it is spending the money it appropriated, it says, to relieve some of the economic misery brought by the virus and the measures to contain it.

Nor will it tell Nova Scotians how it allocated the money Ottawa sent the province to support important stuff like reopening of schools.

The government likely won’t answer opposition members in the legislature when they finally get to ask why and how the province so miserably underestimated the need for high-dose flu vaccine for seniors, but at least with the house in session, that failure will draw the attention it deserves.

Nova Scotians have been enduring inordinate delays getting blood and other diagnostic tests, but with the legislature in protracted recess, the government merely responds to that problem with assurances that the situation will improve, someday.

The Nova Scotia House of Assembly, that storied institution mythologized as the birthplace of responsible government in the old British Empire ain’t what it used to be. Indeed, under the current management of the province, the legislature has been stripped of all but the barest of necessities required by the Liberals to keep doing whatever it is they are doing.

We need the legislature in session to get a better idea what, exactly, that is.