PC government enters House session with new plans and increased power
The PCs will introduce a budget, pursue resource development during the session
As MLAs prepare to return Friday for the start of a winter session at the Nova Scotia Legislature, Premier Tim Houston has been setting the stage for the direction his government will follow at the beginning of its second mandate with headwinds already looming.
Last month, Houston shared a manifesto with members of his caucus outlining the challenging times the province faces and the need to become more self-sufficient. The population boom that's allowed the PCs to overspend budgets by billions of dollars is plateauing and the potential of United States tariffs could necessitate government intervention to support affected businesses.
For Houston, the path to resiliency is paved with increased natural resource exploration and extraction.
The premier has said he wants to take the "no" out of Nova Scotia and revisit all development bans in the province. His will be the government that finally stands up to an unspecified group of special interests and "professional protesters" who, in Houston's view, have prevented the province from harnessing its full economic potential.
A new political target
It's a message Houston has since shared with the public in a $10,000 front page ad the government purchased in a recent edition of the Chronicle Herald newspaper and similar language is appearing in Progressive Conservative fundraising appeals.
Municipal Affairs Minister John Lohr took a less adversarial tone in a letter making the rounds to municipal councils. Lohr is asking that if councils favour more resource development in the province that they express their support in a letter to government or a news release.
It is perhaps not a surprise that Houston is looking for a new target as he enters his second mandate.
As a politician, Houston has been combative by nature and much of his government's first term was spent taking shots at Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and a federal government the premier often argued treats Nova Scotia unfairly.
With Trudeau weeks away from political retirement, Houston has shifted his focus to a small subset of the population that he argues — without example — has had outsized influence on the direction of the province.
Despite this, government House leader Brendan Maguire says the PCs are not coming into the session with their minds made up about everything.
Changing times mean conversations must happen, he said in an interview, but Maguire points to another word Houston has used repeatedly when discussing resource development.
"Every time I hear the premier or the minister talk about this, the word that keeps coming out of their mouth is 'safe,' and that's something that Nova Scotians should care about because, you know, we want to do this in a way that's not going to impact them."
NDP Leader Claudia Chender, whose party now forms the Official Opposition, said her caucus supports resource development, but she thinks the government would be better off focusing on further development of other sectors, too.
Chender said some of the development bans that exist in the province followed extensive public consultation and that's something she thinks the PCs need to keep in mind as they revisit practices such as fracking and uranium mining.
"This government is going to have to have conversations that are hard and not just steamroll through opposition," she told reporters on Wednesday.
Chender said her caucus would advocate for issues such as health care, housing, affordability and gender-based violence during the session. She's also pushing for more information and collaboration from Houston when it comes to the government's response to any tariffs imposed by the U.S.
Interim Liberal Leader Derek Mombourquette faces challenges of his own after his party was reduced to just two seats in the November election.
But Mombourquette said he and Timberlea-Prospect MLA Iain Rankin are ready for the session and will push the government to show how it will grow the economy. The size of the Liberal caucus won't affect its ability to participate in House debate, he said in an interview.
"Iain and I have been around a long time. We both have a lot of experience being ministers in multiple departments. We're very aware of the process when it comes to the [budget debate] and the questions we want to ask and the focus we want to have."
This session will also provide the public a chance to see how Houston wields the power that comes from having a supermajority in the legislature.
With 43 seats, the Progressive Conservatives can change the operational rules of the legislature even without the support of opposition members.
Any rule changes would be 'fair'
Already the government has used its majority to reduce the amount of time opposition MLAs have to ask questions during some committees and this week Houston dissolved Communications Nova Scotia, the independent government agency required by legislation to provide non-partisan communications support. Those duties are now being put under the responsibility of the office tasked with supporting Houston and his cabinet.
Chender and Mombourquette have accused Houston of trying to consolidate power and stifle opposition with those moves. They say changes to how the House functions would be a further step in that direction.
As House leader, Maguire will be responsible for moving any rule changes through the House. Although he wouldn't share any details about what could be coming, he said if changes do take place they would be "fair and things that may need some changes or may need to be cleaned up."
"I wouldn't say there's going to be massive, drastic changes."
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