THREAD

Democracy is inconvenient. It was built that way.

Every government thinks they know what’s best and want to act without interference or oversight. But that’s not democratic, it’s authoritarian. #nspoli /1 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/province-house-stephen-mcneil-covid-19-legislature-1.5617970

That’s why we have a house of assembly and legislative committees—checks and balances. Oversight. /2

The Premier pointed out today that unlike our counterparts, our spring legislative sitting is over. We sat for 13 days, 12 hours a day to ram through several pieces of legislation that we barely had the chance to digest before we voted on them. /3

There was some collaboration, and I was very proud as a first term opposition MLA that a piece of legislation I put forward was passed, as well as a PC legislative proposal. But you cannot properly run a government session in 13 days. And this is about process, not content. /4

Aside from sitting in the legislature, committees are our only chance to ask questions about government strategy, planning and expenditures. This is literally what we were elected to do on behalf of our constituents. /5

Given the paucity of funding for programs for people facing homelessness and unemployment, low minimum wages, and skyrocketing rents, we do a lot more in our offices. We help. We also attend lots of events and connect people in our communities. /6

But we were elected as representatives of our districts to the Nova Scotia Legislature. And we are not able to do our jobs. There is NO excuse for not convening committees virtually. We’re talking about 2 hours each, once per month. (It used to be more, that’s another story). /7

Please think critically when the Premier lambastes the press and the opposition for wanting to do their jobs. It’s unbecoming, and “quite frankly” as the Premier would say, it is dangerous to our entire system. /8

There are a lot of good things to say about this government’s response to COVID-19. And some criticisms. But we need our entire government to function now more than ever. All hands on deck. /9

I am hopeful that this will happen. True leadership would be to call all committees back, invite us all to the table—not just the (helpful) one where caucus staff get updates on government activities after decisions are made—the ones that we were elected to fill. /10