Premier Tim Houston returned to Province House after nearly missing the entire week, including the passing of the budget, at the Nova Scotia legislature.
His arrival Friday brought news of an agreement with the federal government to streamline the environmental approvals process, which Houston says is a win for major infrastructure and resource projects like Wind West.
“With this cooperation agreement, that will send a message to the market, to the developers, to the people building the cables, that there’s a willingness to kind of have a reasonable process there on approvals,” he told reporters.
Houston has been out of the country and missed Wednesday’s budget vote because he was attending an oil and gas conference in Texas, something the opposition parties have been critical about.
“I think the reality is that the premier doesn’t want to be here,” said NDP Leader Claudia Chender.
“People are upset with him and he knows it. He’s got a lot of questions that he clearly doesn’t want to answer and he’d rather spend his time in Texas and at photo opportunities than speaking to Nova Scotians.”
His return was marred by ongoing public discontent as hundreds rallied outside the legislature over budget cuts. As well, it was the third day that the public has been banned from the grounds after singing protesters in the gallery interrupted Tuesday night’s sitting.
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“Some of the behaviour up there — pretty remarkable,” Houston said.
“This is a place of business, it’s a public building (…) that would never happen in a courtroom, it shouldn’t happen here either. I think there’s a responsibility for people when they show up here to act like adults.”
But protesters were undeterred, and hundreds gathered outside Province House Friday for yet another protest, shouting, “Whose House? Our House! Whose province? Our province!” in defiance.
“We’re keeping it up. We’re keeping the pressure on,” said protester Nancy Hunter.
“We know the MLAs aren’t happy. We know that constituents in their communities across the province aren’t happy. This is a budget of Tim Houston, and it’s not a budget for us.”
Those at the rally say despite the fact the budget was passed this week, they’re still advocating for the sectors that were affected by cuts, including the arts, culture, and environment.
“We want to let the government know that we’re not going to stop, we’re not going back down, that the actions that they’re taking and specifically through this budget are harmful to Nova Scotia,” said Chris O’Neill, executive director of the Ross Creek Centre for the Arts.
The provincial budget originally included over $300 million in cuts and the elimination of 72 grant programs for arts and culture.
On March 10, the government reversed some cuts but kept many to the arts sector.
“We serve our communities and we serve them well and we can serve them better if we actually have the investment. That is important,” said O’Neill.
Those in the industry say they’ll be keeping a close eye on the cuts and the impact they will have.
“We’re going to be tracking the loss in spending, the loss of jobs,” said Jacob Sampson, associate artistic director with the 2B Theatre Company.
“We know Nova Scotians are listening but we hope that the government begins to listen when we say that these cuts have a dramatic effect for Nova Scotians.”
Meanwhile, the opposition leaders say they’re listening to the concerns and watching too.
“The next budget still has the same scale of proposed cuts, so this is far from over. Those organizations that have already been cut are at risk, and anyone else that has funding,” said interim Liberal leader Iain Rankin.
“Even the cuts that are walked back, I think are still vulnerable for the fiscal plan moving forward.”
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