From The Coast Daily in my mailbox Feb 28, 2025, this by Martin Bauman:
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Good morning! It appears premier Tim Houston is about to do something he’s had quite a bit of practice with recently: walk back sweeping changes that his government sought to pass. First, Houston withdrew widely-panned changes to the Auditor General Act that would have given the province the power to fire Nova Scotia’s top watchdog without cause and keep her reports out of the public eye. (The Coast’s Lauren Phillips dove into the story last week—take the time to read her report if you haven’t already.) Yesterday, Houston relented on his government’s plan to limit access to reporters at Province House by scrapping scrums in favour of pre-vetted interviews across the street. After pressure from CBC News, AllNovaScotia and other outlets, the premier will now scrum without a moderator, at the legislature and with opposition members present. The main thing I’ll be keeping my eye on, though, is a comment Houston made during question period this week. Last week, the governing Tories tabled a massive bill that would, among other things, amend the province’s Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. The changes would allow departments to refuse access requests from the public that they deemed “trivial, frivolous or vexatious,” and require applicants to include “sufficient particulars” in their requests—changes that Nova Scotia’s outgoing freedom of information commissioner, Tricia Ralph, said “poses risk to access rights to Nova Scotians.” She’s right. Our access-to-information system is already skewed against us. Ask any reporter who has filed a FOIPOP request—one of the strongest tools we have to seek out records you ought to know about—and I can almost guarantee they’ll have a story for you about requests that have been delayed indefinitely by the department responsible, or records that are so heavily redacted they are virtually useless. I am still waiting for the Halifax Regional Police to provide records I requested last May. Giving a public body the power to decide what’s “trivial” and what isn’t erodes our ability to hold our institutions to account. Houston said on Wednesday that, after speaking to Ralph, he’s “sure” that his government will be making further changes to its bill to address some of her concerns. “That’s the way the process works… we have the courage to listen to Nova Scotians,” he said in his remarks. Credit to Houston for listening to Nova Scotians. Not all premiers in the same situation would. But if the premier is indeed listening, how about closing the fixed-term lease loophole that’s worsening the province’s housing crisis? Or limiting Non-Disclosure Agreements in cases involving harassment or sexual misconduct? Or admitting it’s a bad look that one of your MLAs emailed supporters asking for help to “bypass the media?” |