Private Power, Public Pain: The For-Profit Ownership of Nova Scotia Power

Jason Edwards
May 15, 2012 – 6:43 pm

Nova Scotia Power (NSP) recently applied to the province’s Utilities and Review Board for 3% rate increases over each of the next 2 years.  In bizarrely flagrant fashion, 2 days later the publicly-traded parent company, Emera, released details of its executives’ compensation.  These figures are daunting.  Coupled with the millions of dollars in profits that read more »

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Justice for Cole Harbour Place Workers: A Letter to my Councillor

Jason Edwards
May 12, 2012 – 6:46 pm

I wrote this letter to my municipal representative. Find your Councillor’s contact information here.   Councillor Sloane, I am a resident of your ward, living on Creighton Street.  My letter is in regard to the labour relations situation at Cole Harbour Place. Those people are working for wages that constitute poverty.  A full-time worker at read more »

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Translating Polls Into Results

Patrick.Webber
May 11, 2012 – 6:37 am

Anyone who follows polls know that they come with a host of caveats, namely the sample size and the resulting margin of error of a particular survey. Margins of error can explain in part the gap between polls and election results, yet there are other reasons why polls can sometimes be less than accurate in read more »

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Danielle Smith’s New Challenge: Keeping Wildrose Together

Patrick.Webber
May 4, 2012 – 4:13 pm

There’s no doubting that the Wildrose Party and its leader Danielle Smith had a disappointing night on April 23rd as the results of the Alberta provincial election came in. The polls and the pundits (including this lowly political junkie) were predicting that the 41-year reign of the PC Party would end and that Smith would read more »

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Political Party Word Association

Patrick.Webber
April 30, 2012 – 5:09 pm

Political parties have an interesting task on par with any company that is selling a product: they must both work at constructing and protecting a “brand” identity, or rather an set of feelings, values and ideas that the voter or consumer associates with the product. Parties offer voters a package of policies, personalities, values and read more »

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Atlantic Canadians Agree: Inequality is a Public Issue

Jason Edwards
April 26, 2012 – 9:13 am

Original post on behindthenumbers.ca   Inequality has become a problem for all Canadians.  Nationwide, 3.8% of households control about 67% of total financial wealth.  The Conference Board of Canada recently addressed the issue, finding that, “High inequality can diminish economic growth if it means that the country is not fully using the skills and capabilities of read more »

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The Auditor General, the Governor General and the State of our Democracy

Cody Waite
April 20, 2012 – 4:37 pm

Does anyone remember the outrage when Michael Ferguson was first named to the office of Auditor General? Alas, the media, and Canadians in general, do seem to have short term memories. Ferguson’s inability to speak French was a sticking point for his detractors a month or more after his appointment was announced. However, Ferguson recently read more »

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The Liberals Still Don’t Understand Modern Quebec

Patrick.Webber
April 19, 2012 – 2:32 pm

Recently former Liberal Prime Minister Jean Chretien mused that a merger of the NDP and his own party would be an ideal political development, one that would supposedly create a centrist party capable of defeating the Tories and bring “political stability” to Canada. Of course, read between the lines and one sees that Chretien believes read more »

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How Redistribution Helps the Tories

Patrick.Webber
April 9, 2012 – 7:33 pm

The release of the population count figures from the 2011 census has recently prompted the need for additional seats in Parliament to account for notable increases in population in Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia. The Conservative government has put forward a plan to increase the number of seats from 308 to 338, with 18 new read more »

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Minimum Wage Discussion Tainted by Business Lobby

Jason Edwards
April 2, 2012 – 12:39 pm

The following is an Opinion submitted to The Chronicle Herald in response to a guest piece that ran in the paper.   This piece ran April 4, 2012, and can be seen here.   When considering the merits of minimum wage policy, I implore all Nova Scotian citizens and policymakers to be critical of the read more »

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