With the Nova Scotia legislature expected to adjourn Wednesday, a political scientist says the winter sitting was marked by government moves aimed at increasing cabinet’s authority and shrinking the legislature’s ability to provide oversight.
Tom Urbaniak, a professor at the University of Cape Breton, said the government’s multiple omnibus bills paint the picture of a government working to consolidate its power after winning a sweeping majority last fall.
The Progressive Conservative government’s activity has been “about passing legislation to enable more discretion and provide more authority to the executive, to the centre of power essentially,” Urbaniak said in an interview.
He said some examples of this are laws that allow the government to fire non-unionized civil servants without cause, that give the government more control over Nova Scotia universities and that eliminate the requirement for an annual report on emergency room closures.
However, Urbaniak said it’s worth noting that Premier Tim Houston has backed away from some proposed changes that sparked controversy during the sitting, despite his party holding 43 of the 55 seats in the legislature.
These concessions include reversing part of an omnibus bill that would have allowed government to terminate the auditor general without cause, as long as they have a two-thirds majority vote, and to veto the public release of her reports.
“Luckily, the government, in response to public outcries, did back down on that authority,” Urbaniak said, adding that government also dropped an amendment to the freedom of information law that he says would have made it easy for government to dismiss legitimate requests for information.
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Other changes enacted by the Tories affected the rules of the legislature, giving the government the option to limit the time for debate in the legislature and changing the committee process for public review of legislation.
The changes mean bills can be passed more quickly — but Urbaniak said a shortage of time for the province’s legislators has not been a problem. “Year after year, with very few exceptions, Nova Scotia is the legislature that sits the least in Canada,” he said.
When Houston was asked Tuesday about what stands out about the winter sitting, the premier cited changes in how the legislature operates.
“I think we dealt with stuff that people didn’t want to deal with for a long time. Everyone complains that this house (of assembly) doesn’t work, is not effective, is not efficient,” Houston said.
“So we’ve taken steps to improve the efficiency and effectiveness, and I’m proud we did that and had the courage to do that,” he added.
Claudia Chender, leader of the official Opposition NDP, said the government’s approach has been about consolidating control. Still, she believes the message from the six-week sitting is ultimately one of hope, because what she called an “unprecedented level of civic engagement” forced the government to back off changes to several pieces of legislation.
“We see that when the public does pay attention, when the public does make their voice heard, they can make change,” Chender said Wednesday.
Interim Liberal leader Derek Mombourquette said Tuesday that the Houston government tried to legislate “with a hammer” rather than with empathy, “but in a lot of cases they’ve had to walk it back.”
Meanwhile, the premier added that he was proud of a legislative agenda that is pushing natural resource development at a time when the province’s economy is threatened by the imposition of tariffs by the United States.
The government passed a bill that would allow it to lift a ban on uranium mining and exploration and end a moratorium on fracking for natural gas. Another bill that passed will allow the province remove interprovincial trade barriers for goods and labour.
“We have to grow our economy,” Houston said Tuesday. “The leadership position that we’ve taken with the legislation on free trade across the country is gaining national recognition in a very positive way. We have accomplished a lot that will benefit Nova Scotians into the future and I’m proud of that.”
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