Nova Scotia Data Centre - Pale Horse or Trojan Horse?

 

Is Premier Houston welcoming a Trojan Horse?

Our Premier is boasting that an agreement with Trent Vichie of EverWind to invest 8 billion in a Data Centre in Cape Breton is the largest infrastructure investment ever in Nova Scotia.  Trent Vichie is a known Trump supporter. We only know the “official donations.” He has already conned Canadians out of taxpayers money without producing anything useful with his proposal – now dead in the water - to ship green hydrogen to Germany.  Now he has been given free access to waltz in and plunk down a Data Centre without notice or consultation. Very recently the premier promised that a data centre would be “years down the road,” when it is obvious the backrooms boys were already brimming and buzzing with pens in hand.

It is enough to make this miserable childless cat lady contemplate how convenient it would be for certain powers south of the border to open an easy conduit for mining data and taking over with the stealth of Odysseus. It isn’t that they haven’t threatened us in overt and subtle ways. The metaphor endures in modern vocabularies on that very topic. Just because we’re paranoid …

With typical Houston-style business as usual, attempts were made to keep the wrong people away from the public announcement and photo op  for "Trespassing”.   If that isn’t an attempt to control the press, I don’t know what is.  

Our Premier has been quoted as supporting banning the public from Nova Scotia legislature: "There's a responsibility for people, when they show up here, to act like adults,"   Who is the adult here? Here are bully tactics if ever I saw it. 

Last year this government issued a temporary ban on 36 people who participated in the protests over the budget, including Christine Saulnier, our local representative of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and Nina Newington, the president of Save our Old Forests. This was not a Jan 6 riot. It was a protest. I was there. Yes, it was noisy, but I think the government already had a “little list of folks they wouldn’t miss.” We are feeling betrayed and watching great harm coming to the most vulnerable people in our province and the preservers of arts and culture, the latter of whom, contribute significantly to the economy as well. Our Premier was conveniently out of town  when the omnibus budget was being passed.

Last year Houston attempted to control media scrums.  There was strong criticism, including from Canadian Association of Journalists  president, Brent Jolly: “It is deliberately designed to force journalists and news organizations into deciding: should they cover the affairs of the legislature or trek off site to hear a minister regurgitate sanitized talking points?” Houston backed down and agreed to resume unmoderated scrums behind a lectern in Province House's Red Room.

Houston’s motives were “amplified” when there emerged a Progressive Conservative member’s fundraising letter that asked Nova Scotians to help the party thwart “special interests” and “bypass the media when we need to.” Those special interests turned out to be our most vulnerable citizens.

BTW Media scrums with politicians started before Confederation.

This government also  reduced the number of days the legislature meets. “In less than 72 hours, the Progressive Conservative government released a huge omnibus budget bill, a capital plan and six bills affecting more than 30 pieces of legislation. Clearly the government desires another short, packed sessions of the legislature, according to opposition politicians, at the expense of transparency and accountability, to advance a less than admirable agenda."

I  have subsequently retooled this as a letter to the Premier and all our provincial representatives.  

 

Failing Grade for Revised Traffic Safety Act in Nova Scotia

Upon hearing why our government decided against photo radar in long overdue New  Traffic Safety Act I wrote to all of them:

 Dear elected government members  -

Duh!!!  I don’t quite understand why Doug Ford calls photo radar a "problem" because it is a source of revenue. Is that a stalling point for NS, too? Given all the squawking about deficits and noxious ideas about privatizing bridges it doesn't sound like a problem to me. 

If people want to speed, run red lights (which I see daily), endanger other people, spend more on gas and produce higher carbon emissions, why shouldn’t they pay extra into the coffers to help cover the costs of emergency services, road maintenance, health care, lost work days and worse, and extra pollution. 

According to Natural Resources Canada, driving a vehicle with an internal combustion engine at 120 km/h burns 20 per cent more fuel than driving the same distance at 100 km/h. An Ontario law that requires trucks to install technology to limit their speed to 105 km/h was estimated to have reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 4.6 megatonnes between 2009 and 2020.  This is not rocket science.
 https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/what-on-earth-speed-limits-climate-change-1.5684677 

Nova Scotians routinely drive 140 + on our highways with little evidence of enforcement. Keeping to 100 or less in our not terribly powerful 2016 Honda Fit saves gas and - surprise -  money. We experimented driving back from Canso on the old road and seldom going over 80. Amazing savings when you have the time (we are retired), and it was even relaxing - once we found the one gas station in the area. I lived through the Gas crisis and the lowered speed limits in the US in the 70's and survived.  I do not need a car that can go over 140. Aside from our collective compulsion to move fast and break things, I don't know why other people do or why we even allow them on the road.

Elinor Benjamin, Grumpy Retired Librarian

 

Is it time to renationalize the CN rail network in Canada?

Dear Minister MacKinnon, Minister of Transport

Is it time to renationalize the CN rail network in Canada?  asks the Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives, which works hard and thoroughly to cut through the surfeit of razzle-dazzle from those averse to paying taxes to make our country better. 

"It has been 30 years since Canadian National was privatized, and Wall Street continues to profit at Canada’s expense."  

It was a penny-wise pound-foolish move as are many such transfers. I have examples, but rather than digress, here are the topics examined in the study:

• Prioritizing shareholders over workers
• Raising costs for Canadian shippers
• Disinvesting in infrastructure
• Turning from Canada towards the United States
• Undermining passenger service
• Restoring public ownership

I  agree with results found in this important study not simply as a user of the passenger service by choice when possible, which is extremely limited in Eastern Canada and subject to the vicissitudes of the right of way for freight. 

My husband and I recently completed the VIA cross-Canada train trip from Halifax to Vancouver. In spite of constant delays, it was an experience every Canadian should have at least once in their lives to appreciate the beauty and diversity of our country and understand how important it is to protect that. The VIA staff are exemplary.

Yes, we subsidize passenger and rail services, but we expend far more to subsidize the fossil fuel sector and to pave more and more of the country, all of which increases congestion, pollution and destruction of arable land and habitat. Air travel is becoming more and more unpleasant. Now we are about to spend billions of tax dollars propping up a fossil fuel industry, which already has a predicted expiry date globally, with pipelines which can transport only one product and provide short-term benefit for stockholders while the development of cleaner alternatives is being thwarted by fossil lobbyists.  We have also seen disasters because of poorly enforced or inadequate regulation. With proper regulation, rail can transport many products. It has never been, and never will be, in the interests of the private sector to encourage proper regulation or balance the needs of the public over the pockets of investors.  We will see how it goes with the "public-private" concept for high-speed rail in the corridor. I suspect we will see transport suffer at our end of the country as a result.

“Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society.”  This oft-repeated quotation is carved over the entrance of the national headquarters of the Internal Revenue Service in Washington, D.C.  It is attributed to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes.  It is clear what has happened to that "civilization" which seems hell-bent on escaping or diverting public revenue for the profit of a few, no matter what harm results.   

Quid bono? GP Yacht race in Halifax

Email sent to Halifax council, Mayor, Premier, Leader of the Opposition Dear Leaders Jun 27

Can we please have a full accounting of benefits accruing from the GP Yacht race? 

The race is over.  Who benefited?  Why did our province contribute $2 million dollars to climb into bed with a particularly nasty billionaire and his friends to produce this extravagant circus? Was there bread too? This billionaire, a proud and deep supporter of Trump, is working actively to suppress freedom of the press and make the Trump message dominant. I am too old to believe the arcane myth that we elect governments to serve the public good, but the transactional purposes of serving the rich seem to be trumping any effort to maintain that arcane myth. I would like to see a full public accounting of who in Nova Scotia benefited from this extravaganza of rampant oligarchy. Did any of it trickle down to undo the damage exacted by the latest provincial budget?

This is not to say that there a not many good people working in the political sphere to keep the myth alive. I gratefully acknowledge their hard work.

Diversifying our partnerships???

 Prime Minister Carney, Premier Eby  email sent Jun 19

It is encouraging to read that  In a more dangerous and divided world, Canada is building our strength at home and diversifying our partnerships abroad.  It is less encouraging to learn that we are continuing to fund unscrupulous billionaires who are contributing substantially to making the world more dangerous and divided. Carney and Eby’s LNG deal puts B.C. in the pockets of U.S. billionaires Jeffrey Epstein's Love Affair with BC I don't need glasses to see a major disconnect here.

 

Alberta's violation of the Canada Health Act

Jun 19, 2026 email sent to 

 Dear Premier Smith    
        cc'd to Alberta and Federal Health ministers and Canadian Doctors for Medicare

I stand with the Canadian Doctors for Medicare in calling out Alberta for violation of the Canada Health Act and urging the federal Health Minister to immediately initiate Section 14 of the Canada Health Act and apply discretionary penalties, including withholding future health transfer payments from Alberta. 

Research indicates that single user pay system is by far and away the most efficient and effective way to deliver health care to ALL citizens. Research indicates that good health care is a major factor in reducing crime rates and incarceration costs.

By investing in universal care and cutting-edge research, we must affirm that medical support should be treated as a right, not a luxury. It builds populations that are resilient and health infrastructure that is prepared to tackle any threat. 

Alberta's signalling is not about improving access or reducing wait times. It is about introducing a US-style health care system that generates large profits for private insurance companies and private, for-profit, investor-owned clinics.  

It is interesting to note that the US spends far more on its criminal justice system in the name of "public safety," has far higher incarceration rates than Canada and far worse health outcomes. 

Is this really what we should emulate???

Yet another unethical Canadian mining company

 Dear Prime Minister  and Premier Houston

It is always distressing to read of yet another case of the unethical practices of Canadian Mining Companies in underdeveloped countries - and closer to home, too.  Here is yet another one  Reconnaissance Energy Africa Ltd. (“ReconAfrica”)  

We need to do better than this AT HOME !!! AND ABROAD  !!!  We do not seem to be heading in that direction at all.

The following article in the Halifax Examiner has not reduced that distress
Canada, come get your people’: Namibian communities reported abuses to the human rights watchdog Canada built. Two years later, the complaint is still unanswered and the office is gone

I followed up on the "human rights watchdog Canada built" - CORE    and discovered it had indeed been shut down by the current government.  That is not exact a "technical issue" is it?

Notice: Complaint form not available
Due to a technical issue, our complaint form is unavailable at this time. To submit a complaint, please send us an email at complaints-plaintes@core-ocre.gc.ca or call us at +1 343 203 5060. Thank you for your understanding.

What understanding?