Houston adept at reading changing winds
Whether you see it as a virtue or a vice, Tim Houston’s penchant for a change of mind is becoming a hallmark of his premiership.
This week we witnessed another high-profile example of the premier standing down on a controversial policy when he put a cork in a subsidy for wine-bottling companies.
The policy was originally sold as a response to a World Trade Organization ruling that found Nova Scotia wines were receiving an unfair subsidy.
The provincial farm wine industry protested furiously, saying this policy would devastate the homegrown industry and hurt the tourism economy of Nova Scotia.
They said it had nothing to do with the WTO ruling that found that Nova Scotia farm wineries should not be allowed to keep more of the profits from products sold.
Winemakers said the commercial wine bottling subsidy policy would amount to Nova Scotia taxpayers subsidizing wine made in other places. This would confuse customers who might think that wine bottled in Nova Scotia means Nova Scotia wine.
This week the premier hastily arranged a meeting with the wine industry to hear the concerns. The next day, he announced he would hit pause on the commercial wine bottling subsidy.
This was a political rearguard action by the premier to neutralize testimony by wine industry representatives amassing to testify in the legislature Tuesday. They would be drilling down on how the policy would hurt the industry and the economy.
Houston now says he will collaborate with the farm wine industry to find another way to respond to the WTO decision. Other countries subsidize their farm wine industries with policies acceptable to the WTO.
Is this a politically motivated flip-flop or a wise decision by a premier who has the confidence to admit he can make mistakes?
We saw a similar policy reversal a couple of years ago when Houston backed down on a plan to increase taxes on non-resident property owners.
That provoked howls of protest from out-of-province people who own cottages and second homes in Nova Scotia who said the policy was unwelcoming and unfair.
After some reflection, the premier backed off.
And that brings us to the Coastal Protection Act and yet another change of heart.
A couple of weeks ago Houston’s government announced that it would be scrapping the act passed in 2019 by the Liberal government with all-party support, including Houston himself.
When he came to power in 2021 he was making promises to declare the act and put regulations in motion to protect our kilometres of coastline.
By the end of 2023, the act was still not proclaimed, despite encouragement from municipalities and coastal property owners. The Houston government wanted just one more consultation.
Why, people asked. We already had two consultations showing wide support.
As it turns out, the response to the third consultation was low. And this was enough for Environment Minister Tim Halman to say people didn’t want the act so he cancelled it altogether. Protecting the coastlines would now be left to individual property owners and municipalities.
This has not been popular with people concerned about climate change, erosion, damage to dunes and salt marshes, and rising sea levels.
Many coastal property owners have said they didn’t even receive the third survey sent out late last year.
If Halman and Houston thought the whole thing would just go away, they were wrong. People are genuinely angry that the government has abandoned stewardship of the province’s coasts.
Some have interpreted Houston’s move as politically motivated. Perhaps he has friends with properties near the coastline who don’t want the government telling them what they can and can’t do.
Whatever the motivations for axing the act, people worried about our shorelines can hope that Houston might have another change of heart and reverse his decision.