Authoritarian drift under Mcneil

No one can deny that the executive council chaired by Premier Stephen Mcneil has governed to the satisfaction of many people. However, this is not the point.

Our system of responsible government requires the executive council (cabinet) to both govern and account to the satisfaction of the elected members of the legislature.

However, the Mcneil government has: blocked access to public information; emasculated House public accounts committee oversight; refused meetings of the health committee; ignored calls for public inquiries into the greatest public health and economic emergency in one hundred years, and the greatest mass shooting in Canadian history; and has thwarted the voice of responsible government by keeping the legislature and its committees closed and ruling by daily dictates delivered at press conferences.

It’s all faintly reminiscent of Julius Caesar’s drift from elected Consul of the People to Emperor of Rome. But even then, Caesar had the good grace to allow the senate to remain in session. And that, perhaps, is why our premier also fears his demise at the hands of such a legislative body.

The enlightened minds of the 18th and 19th centuries would today stand aghast at the premier’s stubborn refusal to be accountable to anyone but himself.

For Edmund Burke, Joseph Howe and Walter Bagehot, the birthright of legitimate political power lay not with the executive council but in its accountability to the elected assemblies.

Responsible government is a hard-won right in Nova Scotia — a right generally wellrespected from Feb. 2, 1848 until the premiership of Stephen Mcneil.

James O’hagan, Bedford