The meeting minutes of Develop Nova Scotia are a pretty prosaic affair. Participants discuss their contract with Grant Thorton for auditing services; preparations for the move to a new office location; the ‘lots of progress’ being made with the Queen’s Marque development. In short, they resemble the kinds of meeting minutes you could expect to […]
Freedom of information
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Nova Scotia’s approach to data protection remains stuck in the past
South of the border, U.S. president Donald Trump is facing a barrage of mockery for the fact that his proposed border wall is “a 1st-century solution to a 21st-century problem.” Perhaps we shouldn’t be so quick to judge, given the way our own government struggles to implement technology. On Tuesday, Catherine Tully, Nova Scotia’s information […]
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Stephen McNeil’s contempt for transparency
It’s been a depressing week for Nova Scotia’s freedom of information. First, premier Stephen McNeil said his 2013 campaign promise to “expand the powers and mandate” of the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner was a “mistake.” Days later it came to light that the premier’s office had blocked privacy commissioner Catherine Tully in her […]
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100 different ways to keep a government secret
Politicians of all stripes love to talk about transparency. They praise it, they throw around buzzwords like “open by default” or, in the direct words of Stephen McNeil, promise to make Nova Scotia “the most open and transparent government in the country.” None of these promises mean much if you don’t read the fine print […]
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The FOIPOP breach and the dangers of criminalizing research
Last December, two journalists in Myanmar, Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, were invited to dinner by police officers to discuss their research into war crimes carried out by the military. The officers handed them some documents, then immediately arrested them under the country’s Official Secrets Act for possessing the classified material. As absurd as […]
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A decade late, Halifax police close the book on its Drug Exhibit Audit
Jim Perrin isn’t happy with the results of the final Drug Exhibit Audit, but he’s confident Halifax Regional Police will be a “better police department” because of its findings. The Criminal Investigations Division superintendent presented his final audit update to the Board of Police Commissioners on Tuesday, closing the book on a two-year black eye […]
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Halifax’s overburdened FOIPOP office wants to go digital
The province’s largest municipality is barely keeping up with the hundreds of Freedom of Information requests it receives each year. But that could soon change. The HRM issued a tender request Wednesday for new software to manage, track and redact FOIPOP requests as a potential solution to the bureaucratic strain. “Right now, the team is […]
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Nova Scotia’s Freedom of Information laws are dangerously toothless
[Image-1] Changes need to be made to Nova Scotia’s Freedom of Information Act. That’s the call being made by critics after premier Stephen McNeil’s admission to using personal phone calls to get around the government’s duty to document. In September, the Office of Information and Privacy (OIP) published a report stating that texts, MMS and Blackberry […]
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Nova Scotia government’s absurd culture of secrecy
[image-1] Updated below Updated again, 5:45pm. Yesterday, I was looking through the latest batch of Orders in Council– the decrees made by premier Darrell Dexter’s cabinet, and only cryptically alluded to on an obscure corner of the internet– and found this one, from September 21: Order Number 2010-356 Date of Order 2010/Sep/21 Statute Industrial Development Act Text of Order The Governor in Council on the report and recommendation of the Minister of Economic and Rural Development dated September 10, 2010, and pursuant to Sections 2, 3 and 5 of Chapter 222 of the Revised Statutes of Nova Scotia, 1989, the
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Council’s secret “public meeting” on tax reform
Today, Halifax council met for a “workshop” on so-called “tax reform,” a proposal to jettison the time-honoured system of assessment-based property taxes and replace it with a fee-for-services system. When the workshop was discussed by council last month, assurances were given that it would be open to the public. And it was, nominally. Only problem […]
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How councillors voted on making appointments in public
Here’s how Halifax councillors voted on Linda Mosher’s motion which would have changed council policy such that appointments would be made in public: Adams: Yes Barkhouse: No Blumenthal: No Dalrymple: No Fisher: Yes Harvey: No Hendsbee: No Hum: Absent johns: No Karsten: No Kelly: Yes Lund: No McCluskey: Yes Mosher: Yes Nicoll: Yes Outhit: No […]
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Council sticks to secret appointments
At Halifax council’s Tuesday meeting, councillor Linda Mosher brought forward a proposal to change existing policy, such that in the future all council appointments to boards and commissions are made in public. Supporters of the status quo maintained that holding council discussion of applicants’ qualifications in public would be an invasion of those applicants’ privacy. […]