On November 1, 2018, a year after Atlantic Gold produced its first gold bar at its Touquoy open pit mine in Moose River, 11 provincial public servants gathered for a two-hour meeting with four high-level representatives of the gold mining company. Two were with Nova Scotia Environment, six with Lands and Forestry, and three with...
Time for (real) full disclosure on how many public dollars we really paid private lawyers to defend healthcare bullies
Tim Houston's new government deserves credit for releasing a blacked-out 13-year-old document showing how much a previous government claimed to have spent on private lawyers in the Dr. Gabrielle Horne case. Trouble is that number isn't new — or anywhere near complete. It's time for actual full disclosure.
Jean Laroche, the CBC’s veteran legislature reporter, emailed me recently with a “head’s-up” that he would be posting his latest “Gabrielle Horne story” the next day. “It’s by no means the whole story,” he acknowledged, “but it does lift the veil on the [legal] costs a tiny bit more.” It does. But it turns out...
Worse than Russia: Access to information in Nova Scotia places 66th in world rankings
One expert says the FOIPOP Act needs improvements, but that isn't all: "We need an attitude change within the public sector, in which people would see themselves as servants of the people, working for the people, and being open and transparent with the people."
This, the second of a two-part series about the state of the public’s “right to know” in Nova Scotia, looks at what options are available to those dissatisfied with a Freedom of Information (FOIPOP) result, and how the province’s access to information ranks internationally — spoiler alert: rather poorly — and what should be done […]