Tag: Auditor general

Parting gift from the AG, threatened lawsuit from J.P.

Parting gift from the AG, threatened lawsuit from J.P.

Posted by | Jul 18, 2020 | , |

Normally it is the departee receiving the gift. But the practice was reversed this week when Nova Scotia’s auditor general delivered his final report to our missing in action legislature. Michael Pickup, who is leaving after five years to take the same job in British Columbia, bequeathed the McNeil government a thumb’s-up on its plan to use the widely discredited P3 approach to replacing the Victoria General hospital. While it was far from an enthusiastic endorsement, Pickup’s headline conclusion – that the public private partnership model was selected “based on a reasonable and appropriate business case” – will come...

Read More
On Auditor General, McNeil is half right

On Auditor General, McNeil is half right

Posted by | Nov 27, 2017 | , |

The ironic thing about the fuss over the Premier’s snarky attack on the provincial auditor general is that he has the right target but the wrong issue. Asked by reporters last Thursday to comment on the auditor’s deconstructing of the government’s efforts to deal with the family doctor shortage, McNeil aimed a couple of jabs in AG Michael Pickup’s direction. The gist was first, that he (McNeil) didn’t need to be told Nova Scotia has a shortage of family doctors, and second that the voters, not Pickup, would judge the quality of the government’s communication on the shortage. Prodded...

Read More
New AG picks up where Lapointe left off

New AG picks up where Lapointe left off

Posted by | Feb 26, 2015 | , |

A few years ago, Nova Scotia’s auditor general of the day, Jacques LaPointe, nominated himself  as the defender of future generations against the ravages of government debt and deficit. In his February 2013 annual report,[1] Lapointe raised questions about the province’s debt levels, and whether, as he put it “it is responsible or even ethical to bind future generations with the costs of today’s spending.” This week, Lapointe’s successor, Michael Pickup, picked up the torch of fiscal responsibility and hurled it at Nova Scotians. (Sorry, the devil made me do that). I leave those who are more philosophically inclined to debate...

Read More

Richard Starr, The man behind the Point

About Richard

RICHARD STARR has had careers as a journalist, public servant, broadcaster, political staffer and freelance policy adviser. He is author of numerous newspaper and magazine articles, a former radio and TV producer and weekly newspaper editor, and the author of three non-fiction books. Starr has lived in Dartmouth for more than 30 years.

Subscribe to Starr’s Point

Support Provided by