Off Script: Atlantic Canada Politics

On Thursday March 1st - the Nova Scotia Government is expected to introduce its education reform bill that will dissolve all English Language School boards in the province.

Cindy Littlefair is one of the members of the Halifax Regional School Board grappling with the challenge of how to serve the public in the dying days of School Boards in Nova Scotia. 

In this episode of the podcast we speak with Cindy about this. We use the remarks she shared at last week's HRSB meeting as a starting point for our conversation. 

What is a conscientious board member to do in this moment?

• Go away quietly?
• Resist the dissolution?
• Carry on their duties as a school board trustee in exile?

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On January 25th, PEI Progressive Conservative Leader James Aylward released a discussion paper about the need to reform the way that the Prince Edward Island legislature works.

It's a topic that is unlikely to catch the attention of many newsreaders on the best of days, but we think it's an important one, so one month after the fact we're bringing him onto the show to talk about it.

Read the discussion paper.

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This week we're sharing an episode from our other podcast, Govern Yourself Accordingly. 

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Most of us have not sat in the backrooms of politics, the places where decisions are really made. But today’s guest on the Govern Yourself Accordingly podcast has. And, he’s done the rest of us a favour - especially those of us who try to have an impact on the decisions being made in our communities, states, provinces, and countries. 

Graham Steele is the former finance minister for Nova Scotia. In his new book, The Effective Citizen: How to Make Politicians Work for You, he has drawn a road-map of the politician’s brain. He’s codified the thought-patterns, the behaviour, and the patterns of speech that even the best of our politicians use as crutches. 

He’s done this so that we (as citizens) can understand them. Beyond that, he’s taken it a step further and mapped out how citizens can use that information to be more effective at advocacy to influence policy change. He explores the big picture: how patient and persistent advocacy can have a major impact, but he also talks about the granular: like how to follow-up on a meeting with a decision maker so they’re more likely to do what they told you they’d do. Follow @steelegr on Twitter

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Resources from this episode: 

Graham’s new book: The Effective Citizen

Graham’s first book: What I Learned About Politics

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It’s been just over a year since Justin Trudeau’s government announced it would not be pursuing its platform commitment to make the 2015 federal election the last Canadian election held using first-past-the-post. This week we compare what Justin Trudeau and others have been saying about proportional representation with what the research says about countries that use proportional systems. 

Matt Risser (@mattrisser) joins us to unpack how systems of proportional representation work in other countries, and how they might work in Canada. 

Resources Mentioned

Better Choices: Voting System Alternatives for Canada (Paper)

Better Choices: Voting System Alternatives for Nova Scotia (Paper) 

Audio Clips Sampled: 

Justin Trudeau in Yellowknife 2017 (CBC) - Justin Trudeau Explains Electoral Reform U-Turn 

Justin Trudeau in Yellowknife 2017 (CBC) - Should Kellie Leitch Have Her Own Party?  

Justin Trudeau on CBC’s ‘The House’

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This week we’re talking about the power women in Canadian politics have begun to wield over the last seven days. Michelle Coffin joins the show to help us unpack last weeks news, including the sudden resignation of Nova Scotia PC Party Leader, Jamie Baillie. Michelle shares some of her personal experiences from her time in politics, and we explore what the broader implications of the #MeToo movement hitting Canadian politics. 

Michelle worked for several different leaders of the Nova Scotia Liberal party, including its current leader before he became Premier. She’s a professor of political science at Dalhousie and Saint Mary’s universities in Halifax and is a regular commentator on Nova Scotia politics for CBC Radio in Halifax. 

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We're taking this week off from producing Off Script while we focus on some planning for the upcoming year. In the meantime, here's an episode from our other podcast, Govern Yourself Accordingly.

It’s not often you hear of someone who is not a lawyer representing themselves in a federal court. It’s even less often that you hear of someone who has done so more than a dozen times. And won. 

Gabor Lukacs has been taking airlines to court and filing regulatory complaints with the Canadian Transportation Agency for the last nine years. He’s filed twenty-six successful regulatory complains and has more or less paved the way for many other airline passengers to do the same. 

Resources Mentioned in this Episode

AirPassengerRights.ca

Air Passenger Rights (Canada) Facebook Group

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This week on the podcast we try something new. In addition to this week’s feature interview with Halifax-Needham MLA, Lisa Roberts, we add a new segment where we unpack stories in Atlantic Canadian politics with a rotating co-host. This week, Lisa Buchanan (also co-host of LOL UR GAY - A Gay Comedy Podcast) joins Mark as co-host to help him unpack some of the stories of Atlantic Canada politics last week. 

In the first half-hour of podcast (0:00 - 28:00), Mark and Lisa explore the following stories: 

• Justin Trudeau’s town hall tour of Canada, which started in Lower Sackville, Nova Scotia last week; and specifically what Trudeau’s style of public conversation, empathy, and crowd-work means for activists, advocates and Trudeau himself (4:00 - 13:20)
• PEI Premier Wade MacLauchlan’s Cabinet Shuffle, how it’s being interpreted as a signal that MacLauchlan won’t stick to the legislated fixed election date, and what that means for women (13:20 - 26:30)

In the latter half hour of the podcast (28:30 - End), Mark sits down with Halifax-Needham MLA Lisa Roberts (NDP) Some of the things they talk about include: 

• Lisa shares her big takeaway from our interview with former PC Environment Minister (and Church Minister) Mark Parent (30:20) 
• Mark learns what superpowers Lisa has discovered she has as an MLA (33:40), and Lisa shares how constituency concerns can better translate into legislation and policy change. 
• Lisa shares how she focuses her efforts in opposition on amplifying the voices of the unheard, using her public platform to shape the public consciousness on issues, and how PTSD legislation is an example of parties working together to do important work. (40:00 - 52:00).
• Mark floats the idea that the problem with legislature politics isn’t necessarily that it’s all theatrical, but that it’s pretty bad theatre (52:30).

Stories Referenced:

• Trudeau turns to Seinfeld tactics to tame town hall hecklers (CBC)
• PEI: Female MLA view on cabinet shuffle (Actual CBC Headline)
• When will Islanders head to the polls? Preparation, speculation abounds
• Off Script's interview with former PC Environment Minister (and Church Minister) Mark Parent

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The PEI Green Party has experienced unprecedented success over recent years, and on this episode of On the Record, Off Script Mark speaks with the party's leader to learn more about what's happening behind the scenes in the party.

In the 2015 general election, Peter earned the party its first seat. In late November of 2017, Green candidate Hannah Bell won the by-election in Charlottetown-Parkdale to earn the party its second seat. Bevan-Baker has been Islanders top choice for Premier in CRA's quarterly opinion polling for the last three quarters and is the only party leader on the Island to experience growing public support over the past year.

Some of the things we explore during our conversation:

• What Peter learned over the ten elections he competed in before he was elected;
• How he approached getting things done as a caucus of one;
• How his party will tackle the upcoming general election, perhaps the first election in Canada where a Green Party has a shot at becoming the government; and
• We unpack what happened when Peter was removed from the PEI House of Assembly for saying a word that starts with the letter F on it’s final day of sitting before the holidays.

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Last week’s meeting of the Cape Breton Regional Municipality council was nothing routine or ordinary, especially for Mayor Cecil Clarke and Councillor Amanda McDougall. Members of council knew what was coming at the end of the meeting, but anyone who was watching would have been caught by surprise by what happened for the final half-hour of the meeting. On this week's episode of On the Record, Off Script we're going to take a deep dive into all that happened in those last thirty minutes of the CBRM council meeting. 

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