{"id":585,"date":"2016-05-12T01:51:57","date_gmt":"2016-05-12T01:51:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lilstar2.com\/?p=585"},"modified":"2017-09-25T15:08:58","modified_gmt":"2017-09-25T15:08:58","slug":"n-s-budget-debate-proceeds-but-few-notice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.formac.ca\/starrspoint\/2016\/05\/12\/n-s-budget-debate-proceeds-but-few-notice\/","title":{"rendered":"N.S. Budget debate proceeds but few notice"},"content":{"rendered":"

The following is the transcript of a routine day at Province House.<\/p>\n

SPEAKER: Order, please. The time allotted for Oral Questions<\/strong> Put by Members to Ministers has mercifully expired. The honourable Government House Leader.<\/em><\/p>\n

HON. MICHEL SAMSON: Mr. Speaker, would you please call the order of business, Government Motions.<\/em><\/p>\n

SPEAKER: The honourable Government House Leader.<\/em><\/p>\n

HON. MICHEL SAMSON: Mr. Speaker, I move that you do now leave the Chair and the House resolve itself into a Committee of the Whole on Supply unto Her Majesty.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

SPEAKER: The honourable member for Kings North.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

JOHN LOHR: It is my privilege to begin to speak on Supply on the budget that we\u2019ve just had tabled in the House here.<\/em><\/p>\n

SPEAKER: Order, please. The members can exit the Chamber quietly, if they can<\/strong>. The honourable member for Kings North has the floor. (emphasis added)<\/em><\/p>\n

As the bolding suggests, question period is over, the Legislative assembly is going into committee to study the budget \u2013 and then there\u2019s a noisy stampede for the door. And this is not an unusual event, resulting from some extra-chamber excitement like a public demonstration. It happens every day and has been happening for decades. The budget \u2013 government\u2019s signature creation \u2013 comes up for debate and most MLAs exit, taking the media with them.<\/p>\n

Last week, for four hours every day except Wednesday (opposition day), some members of the legislature, sitting as a committee, examined the spending estimates of the Department of Health and Wellness. At $4 billion, that department spends 40% of the provincial budget and accounts for over 10% of the provincial Gross Domestic Product. Health care is usually number one when pollsters ask people about the issue most important to them. Last week\u2019s review of the health estimates came against a backdrop of media reports on violent homicides in long-term care facilities, chronic concerns in various communities about emergency room closures, inadequate mental health services and availability of family doctors. But if members of the public wanted to seek insight into how the budget impacts on these and other issues their only option was to sit in the public gallery for hours on end or watch abysmally-produced legislative television. If there was any news media coverage of the 16 hours of health estimates debate I could not find it.<\/p>\n

Long established pattern\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Although it may be worse this year because of the Chronicle-Herald<\/em> situation, the lack of coverage is par for the course. When I started as a legislative print reporter in Manitoba in 1970 we covered estimates debates, required by our editors to find nuggets of news in the back and forth between Ministers and inquiring opposition members. But coverage of legislative debates petered out as news budgets withered and editors\u2019 tastes changed. The trend extended to parliamentary debates in Ottawa. Nowadays the most you can hope for is a story about time allotments for debate – http:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/politics\/wherry-time-allocation-1.3575754<\/a>. As for the content of the debates themselves, you best look it up in Hansard, (Courtesy of the web: “Hansard\u00a0is the traditional name of the transcripts of Parliamentary Debates in Britain and many Commonwealth countries (and provinces). It is named after Thomas Curson\u00a0Hansard\u00a0(1776\u20131833), a London printer and publisher, who was the first official printer to the parliament at Westminster”).<\/p>\n

But when it comes to Estimates debates in Nova Scotia, Hansard is no immediate help. Unlike other Assembly proceedings (such as question period, throne speech debate and the often trivial statements and resolutions by members) complete transcripts of the debates are not published until several months later. Requests for specific time periods may be entertained by the Hansard office but any member of the public wanting to scan the whole of the debate without sitting through 16 agonizing hours is out of luck. And that\u2019s still not the worst of it. Only five departments are examined during the 40 hours allotted to estimates in the legislative chamber, with the cameras present and the delayed transcription available. The remainder (that would be 15 departments) are shunted off to the Red Room where there are no cameras, no transcripts and, invariably, no journalists. Whatever happens in the Red Room generally stays in the Red Room.<\/p>\n

(To digress back to the statements and resolutions, as the legislative session neared its conclusion this week Hansard overflowed with them. On May 10 there were 40 statements by members placed on the record ranging from the solemn (the 24th<\/sup> anniversary of the Westray mine disaster), the political (emergency room closures) to the cloying ( Mother\u2019s Day carnations for seniors). That was modest compared with the 182 resolutions recorded for posterity that day. Topping the list, Resolution 3582 celebrated the 90th<\/sup> anniversary of an Antigonish nursing home, provider of \u201cfully personalized services for three generations.\u201d Bringing up the rear, Resolution 3764 celebrated the 50th<\/sup> year of the Petpeswick Yacht club, said to enjoy \u201ca beautiful location overlooking scenic Petpeswick Inlet.\u201d In between, Resources Minister Lloyd Hines put on the record individual tributes to 18 young people in his riding who attended a science fair in Port Hawkesbuty. No wonder Hansard staff don\u2019t get around to producing transcripts of budget deliberations).<\/p>\n

The Missing News<\/strong><\/p>\n

This haphazard way of scrutinizing and recording the budget estimates seems out of synch with the accountability fetish that otherwise dominates the media and many opposition politicians. What with parliamentary budget officers, crusading auditors-general and frequent freedom of information filings,\u00a0reporters are forever leaping to defend \u201ctaxpayers\u2019 money.\u201d But not when it comes to the budget. Maybe they are intimidated by the big numbers – $10 billion is a lot. Or maybe it\u2019s just me who\u2019d like to see a bit more systematic drilling down into that number by the media and the opposition at budget time.<\/p>\n

The way it is now brings to mind the philosophical question about hearing the tree falling in the forest if no one\u2019s around. If something is said during the estimates debate but there are no journalists around to report it (and no transcripts to check) is it news? I\u2019ve never been one for such profundities. But this is the age of the citizen journalist so I believe that question can be answered in the affirmative.<\/p>\n

I watched nearly three hours of proceedings on legislative TV last Monday as examination of the health estimates was beginning. In my humble opinion the Health minister made news when he provided \u00a0more detail about how the Trudeau government plans to meet (or not) its commitment to provide additional funding for home care some time in the near future. This home care money is meant to partly compensate the provinces for the Liberals\u2019 decision to keep in place the harsh health transfer regime imposed by the Harper government. (For those who have not been following the story, increases of 3% are in store for next and subsequent years, not the 6% increase that have been the rule since the well known 2004 Health Accord.)<\/p>\n

Leo Glavine advised the House that the Trudeau government\u2019s health offer (he called it an accord, maybe for old time\u2019s sake) will provide the provinces with annual increases of that 3% a year \u201cwith a little bit more for home care, shared across the country.\u201d On the question of whether provinces with older populations could expect more of the \u201clittle bit more\u201d \u2013 a request from regional leaders for at least the last five years – Glavine said maybe. He provided insight into how the home care money may be distributed across the country. It will be on a per capita basis, although some provinces may get more if they can come up with “innovative” ways for providing home care. He also advised that Nova Scotia is working with the other Atlantic provinces to come up with such an “innovative” proposal to attract federal dollars \u2013 sort of a political version of \u201cDragon\u2019s Den.\u201d Looks like news to me \u2013 something along the lines of \u201cLiberals tell provinces to sing for their supper.\u201d<\/p>\n

-30-<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The following is the transcript of a routine day at Province House. SPEAKER: Order, please. The time allotted for Oral Questions Put by Members to Ministers has mercifully expired. The honourable Government House Leader. HON. MICHEL SAMSON: Mr. Speaker, would you please call the order of business, Government Motions. SPEAKER: The honourable Government House Leader. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1024,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[25,90],"class_list":["post-585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy","tag-department-of-health-and-wellness","tag-economy","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.formac.ca\/starrspoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.formac.ca\/starrspoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.formac.ca\/starrspoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.formac.ca\/starrspoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.formac.ca\/starrspoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=585"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.formac.ca\/starrspoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1051,"href":"https:\/\/www.formac.ca\/starrspoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585\/revisions\/1051"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.formac.ca\/starrspoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.formac.ca\/starrspoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.formac.ca\/starrspoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.formac.ca\/starrspoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}