Much of the personal stuff — the old family pictures, the photos of notable folks met along the way, the memorabilia, like the poster from the U.S Masters he and his son Jeffrey attended years ago — is down in Stephen McNeil’s corner office by now.
Some of his loyal staffers have already said their goodbyes. Those who remain, though there is plenty still to do, know the time is short.
One day very soon their boss, for the last time, will take the stairs down to the Barrington Street level of One Government Place.
As he has done so many times before, he will have a few words with Rick Smith at the front desk.
If history is any guide, he will take the escalator down to Granville Street, which will provide a last view of the Nova Scotia legislature where, during the wide-open pre-COVID days, he sometimes gave impromptu tours to people he met on the street.
Outgoing Nova Scotia Premier Stephen McNeil and his wife Andrea at their home in Upper Granville in late January. – Eric Wynne
Then, sooner or later, McNeil will fold his long body into his Chevy Equinox or perhaps his Sierra half-tonne, and head home to Upper Granville, where his improbable journey began.
“I’m tired,” he told me in his office just nine days before the vote to decide his replacement as leader of the Liberal Party of Nova Scotia and, therefore, premier of this province.
“But every time I say that out loud all I can hear is my mother say, ‘you’re tired.’”
After all these years, the voice of the late Theresa Helen McNeil is still in his head.
She was middle-aged, a woman who had never worked outside of the home, who didn’t even possess a driver’s licence, when her husband Burt died, leaving her to single-handedly raise 17 children, including Stephen, who was eight at the time.
This woman, who would later receive the Orders of both Nova Scotia and Canada, would go on to become the first female high sheriff in the country, while, at the same time raising a family full of teachers, policemen, public servants and even a premier.
“She was the rock we all stood on,” said McNeil, who credits her for everything he is and has done.
Newly elected Liberal Leader Stephen McNeil celebrates after delivering his acceptance speech April 28, 2007. – Eric Wynne
So, when I asked him how it will feel when he walks out that last day, McNeil brought up his mother, who died in 2009, again: how when trying to forge a way forward for her children she always made choices, as difficult as they might have been, that reflected her values.
That has been his guiding principle as well.
“I can be happy walking out of here,” he said, “and looking in the mirror and being OK with the guy who is looking back.”
The guy looking back never really had one of those five-year career plans. Leaving high school, McNeil considered teaching or studying business but instead took a trade at the Nova Scotia Community College so he could run his own business and “live where I wanted to live,” which meant near his mom in Upper Granville.
He ran in the riding of Annapolis for Russell MacLellan’s Grits in the 1999 provincial election, but lost, which McNeil, in retrospect thinks is a good thing, since winning would have meant too much time away from his young son and daughter.
Nova Scotia Liberal Leader Stephen McNeil speaks with reporters June 10, 2009 at his party’s caucus office in Halifax. – Christian Laforce
Four years later, he did win a seat, and thought his role was to support new Liberal leader Danny Graham. But Graham’s first wife got cancer and he stepped away from the leadership. His successor Francis MacKenzie failed to even win his seat.
In 2007, McNeil, whose beard and six-foot-five height earned him the adjective Lincolnesque, became leader.
Six years later, the beard was gone — ”it was a distraction,” he said, “nobody was listening to me” — and McNeil was the leader of a majority government, which won again in 2017, albeit with a reduced margin.
You know from seeing him on the COVID update most days that his hair is a little greyer now, the waistline, by his own admission, a little thicker.
Yet, during all that time, he told me that his core political beliefs have never wavered.
To McNeil, a Liberal is “fiscally responsible and socially progressive,” and “invests in the things that actually have long-lasting impacts on your community.”
Premier Stephen MacNeil addresses reporters after his government delivered the budget at Province House in Halifax on April 19, 2016. – Herald file
That path was sometimes a hard one, particularly in his first term, when his government pushed through essential services legislation on health-care workers, and implemented back-to-work legislation on teachers, in the pursuit of getting the province’s finances in order and making money available for other programs.
“I wish I could have gotten labour peace a little easier, concedes McNeil, who calls trying to do what you “believe is right” and then, when you can’t seem to be able to convince others of the validity of your stance “just having to go out and do it,” one of the hardest moments of his political career.
Though he stops short of saying he has regrets, there are moments McNeil would like to have back — like the controversial changes his government made on senior’s Pharmacare that were reversed after a constituent personally called McNeil and explained what the policy meant for her and her husband.
Timeline
November 10, 1964: born in Halifax, the 12th of 17 children of Burt and Theresa McNeil.
1988: after graduating from community college McNeil opens an appliance repair business in Bridgetown, which he operates until 2003.
1999: unsuccessfully runs for the Liberals in the Annapolis Riding.
2003: wins Annapolis seat in the Nova Scotia House of Assembly.
2007: elected leader of the Nova Scotia Liberal party on the second ballot.
2009: leads the Liberals to Official Opposition status, winning 11 seats.
2013: Liberals win a majority government in general election, taking 33 seats and defeating the NDP government of Darrell Dexter.
2017: McNeil-led Liberals hold onto another majority government with 27 legislative seats.
Aug. 6, 2020: McNeil announced that he would resign as leader of the Liberal party and as premier of Nova Scotia when a successor is chosen in a leadership election.
But he is proud of the programs his fiscally prudent approach made possible like free pre-Primary across the province — as he is of running an activist government that “never met a problem we didn’t wrap our arms around and try to fix” whether it was the declining population and exodus of young people, or helping our businesses expand into the global marketplace.
What McNeil is proudest of, though, is the past 10 months. The way Nova Scotians rallied around the government’s approach for curtailing the pandemic’s spread. How working together, government and the public have made this province the envy of the world.
It has not been easy. McNeil, who has stood with chief medical officer of health Dr. Robert Strang on the near-daily coronavirus briefings, knows this more than most people.
He was planning to resign in April, had settled on a date when he would leave the premiers’ office because he thinks that after two terms under a single leader a malaise sets in for a government. The coronavirus changed all that.
Premier Stephen McNeil and Dr. Robert Strang, Nova Scotia’s chief medical officer of health, tour the first COVID-19 immunization clinic in Nova Scotia before it opened in Halifax on Dec. 16, 2020. – Communications Nova Scotia
“There was so much uncertainty, so much we didn’t know,” he said.
McNeil and his staff isolated in their offices, exhausted men and women working round the clock trying to figure it all out.
Then came April 18 and the slaughter in Portapique. “So much loss,” is all McNeil could say of the 22 deaths.
He did not grasp the cumulative impact of all of the woe — the deaths from COVID-19 and a madman’s bullets, as well as air crashes that took the lives of a Nova Scotian-born snowbird and six people aboard a helicopter from Halifax’s HMCS Fredericton.
Until, that is, he finally went home to Upper Granville after months of isolation. “It was the night of the memorial service for Portapique when I arrived home,” he recalled, “and things that had to come out came out.”
The past 10 months, he thinks, might have allowed Nova Scotians “to see who I am, and who I was” to glimpse the sentimental side that those know him well often talk of.
Not the unsmiling guy on the television news that many of us would see — or the union-basher who had earned the enmity of your kid’s elementary school teacher — but a premier determined to acknowledge every death that occurred during this trying period “because it mattered to me.”
We covered a lot of ground in our conversation last week, which took place in the conference room where he has recorded his double-ender interviews since COVID hit : the view that he is thin-skinned and combative, which he prefers to call “determined” in defending his position; the criticism that he has shut down government.
Of the view, held by some, that McNeil, whose distaste for public speaking almost kept him out of politics, is the most able orator to sit in the Nova Scotia premier’s office, he said, “For me the important part is that people know that I believe what I say (and that) if I say it, I am going to try and fulfil it.”
He has some advice for his successor, whoever that happens to be. Don’t think of being premier as a career, and don’t worry about being popular.
Stephen McNeil’s daughter Colleen, when she was 10, put together an album of photos and clippings of her dad during the 2003 election. – Eric Wynne
“There are very few places in which you can have a positive impact on a place you live,” he added. “Don’t waste it.”
He never wanted it said that he was paralyzed by the opportunity to govern. When I asked him what he thinks people will say about him after he is gone, McNeil said that he has no idea, but hopes “they think we were fair” and that although “you may not have agreed with everything we did or how we did it, but hopefully people they understood why we were trying to do what we were doing.”
I get the sense that if that isn’t the case McNeil can live with that too.
He will miss those he worked with “in this intense environment” who “see how the sausage is made”, but not “the office” of premier.
His plans, he said, are vague: in the short term to spend more time with his kids, lose a few pounds, and finally get around to renovating that shed out behind his home, in the longer run to make a return to the private sector.
“We’ll see how it all works out,” he said as our conversation drew to a close. “I won’t stay idle for long.”
With that, the premier bid myself and my colleague goodbye, as he soon will all of us, and slipped back into his office, his head, I noticed, still held resolutely high, as is only fitting for a son of Theresa McNeil.
HALIFAX – Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston says it’s “disgraceful and demeaning” that a Halifax-area school would request that service members not wear military uniforms to its Remembrance Day ceremony.
Houston’s comments were part of a chorus of criticism levelled at the school — Sackville Heights Elementary — whose administration decided to back away from the plan after the outcry.
A November newsletter from the school in Middle Sackville, N.S., invited Armed Forces members to attend its ceremony but asked that all attendees arrive in civilian attire to “maintain a welcoming environment for all.”
Houston, who is currently running for re-election, accused the school’s leaders of “disgracing themselves while demeaning the people who protect our country” in a post on the social media platform X Thursday night.
“If the people behind this decision had a shred of the courage that our veterans have, this cowardly and insulting idea would have been rejected immediately,” Houston’s post read. There were also several calls for resignations within the school’s administration attached to Houston’s post.
In an email to families Thursday night, the school’s principal, Rachael Webster, apologized and welcomed military family members to attend “in the attire that makes them most comfortable.”
“I recognize this request has caused harm and I am deeply sorry,” Webster’s email read, adding later that the school has the “utmost respect for what the uniform represents.”
Webster said the initial request was out of concern for some students who come from countries experiencing conflict and who she said expressed discomfort with images of war, including military uniforms.
Her email said any students who have concerns about seeing Armed Forces members in uniform can be accommodated in a way that makes them feel safe, but she provided no further details in the message.
Webster did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
At a news conference Friday, Houston said he’s glad the initial request was reversed but said he is still concerned.
“I can’t actually fathom how a decision like that was made,” Houston told reporters Friday, adding that he grew up moving between military bases around the country while his father was in the Armed Forces.
“My story of growing up in a military family is not unique in our province. The tradition of service is something so many of us share,” he said.
“Saying ‘lest we forget’ is a solemn promise to the fallen. It’s our commitment to those that continue to serve and our commitment that we will pass on our respects to the next generation.”
Liberal Leader Zach Churchill also said he’s happy with the school’s decision to allow uniformed Armed Forces members to attend the ceremony, but he said he didn’t think it was fair to question the intentions of those behind the original decision.
“We need to have them (uniforms) on display at Remembrance Day,” he said. “Not only are we celebrating (veterans) … we’re also commemorating our dead who gave the greatest sacrifice for our country and for the freedoms we have.”
NDP Leader Claudia Chender said that while Remembrance Day is an important occasion to honour veterans and current service members’ sacrifices, she said she hopes Houston wasn’t taking advantage of the decision to “play politics with this solemn occasion for his own political gain.”
“I hope Tim Houston reached out to the principal of the school before making a public statement,” she said in a statement.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
REGINA – Saskatchewan Opposition NDP Leader Carla Beck says she wants to prove to residents her party is the government in waiting as she heads into the incoming legislative session.
Beck held her first caucus meeting with 27 members, nearly double than what she had before the Oct. 28 election but short of the 31 required to form a majority in the 61-seat legislature.
She says her priorities will be health care and cost-of-living issues.
Beck says people need affordability help right now and will press Premier Scott Moe’s Saskatchewan Party government to cut the gas tax and the provincial sales tax on children’s clothing and some grocery items.
Beck’s NDP is Saskatchewan’s largest Opposition in nearly two decades after sweeping Regina and winning all but one seat in Saskatoon.
The Saskatchewan Party won 34 seats, retaining its hold on all of the rural ridings and smaller cities.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
HALIFAX – Nova Scotia‘s growing population was the subject of debate on Day 12 of the provincial election campaign, with Liberal Leader Zach Churchill arguing immigration levels must be reduced until the province can provide enough housing and health-care services.
Churchill said Thursday a plan by the incumbent Progressive Conservatives to double the province’s population to two million people by the year 2060 is unrealistic and unsustainable.
“That’s a big leap and it’s making life harder for people who live here, (including ) young people looking for a place to live and seniors looking to downsize,” he told a news conference at his campaign headquarters in Halifax.
Anticipating that his call for less immigration might provoke protests from the immigrant community, Churchill was careful to note that he is among the third generation of a family that moved to Nova Scotia from Lebanon.
“I know the value of immigration, the importance of it to our province. We have been built on the backs of an immigrant population. But we just need to do it in a responsible way.”
The Liberal leader said Tim Houston’s Tories, who are seeking a second term in office, have made a mistake by exceeding immigration targets set by the province’s Department of Labour and Immigration. Churchill said a Liberal government would abide by the department’s targets.
In the most recent fiscal year, the government welcomed almost 12,000 immigrants through its nominee program, exceeding the department’s limit by more than 4,000, he said. The numbers aren’t huge, but the increase won’t help ease the province’s shortages in housing and doctors, and the increased strain on its infrastructure, including roads, schools and cellphone networks, Churchill said.
“(The Immigration Department) has done the hard work on this,” he said. “They know where the labour gaps are, and they know what growth is sustainable.”
In response, Houston said his commitment to double the population was a “stretch goal.” And he said the province had long struggled with a declining population before that trend was recently reversed.
“The only immigration that can come into this province at this time is if they are a skilled trade worker or a health-care worker,” Houston said. “The population has grown by two per cent a year, actually quite similar growth to what we experienced under the Liberal government before us.”
Still, Houston said he’s heard Nova Scotians’ concerns about population growth, and he then pivoted to criticize Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for trying to send 6,000 asylum seekers to Nova Scotia, an assertion the federal government has denied.
Churchill said Houston’s claim about asylum seekers was shameful.
“It’s smoke and mirrors,” the Liberal leader said. “He is overshooting his own department’s numbers for sustainable population growth and yet he is trying to blame this on asylum seekers … who aren’t even here.”
In September, federal Immigration Minister Marc Miller said there is no plan to send any asylum seekers to the province without compensation or the consent of the premier. He said the 6,000 number was an “aspirational” figure based on models that reflect each province’s population.
In Halifax, NDP Leader Claudia Chender said it’s clear Nova Scotia needs more doctors, nurses and skilled trades people.
“Immigration has been and always will be a part of the Nova Scotia story, but we need to build as we grow,” Chender said. “This is why we have been pushing the Houston government to build more affordable housing.”
Chender was in a Halifax cafe on Thursday when she promised her party would remove the province’s portion of the harmonized sales tax from all grocery, cellphone and internet bills if elected to govern on Nov. 26. The tax would also be removed from the sale and installation of heat pumps.
“Our focus is on helping people to afford their lives,” Chender told reporters. “We know there are certain things that you can’t live without: food, internet and a phone …. So we know this will have the single biggest impact.”
The party estimates the measure would save the average Nova Scotia family about $1,300 a year.
“That’s a lot more than a one or two per cent HST cut,” Chender said, referring to the Progressive Conservative pledge to reduce the tax by one percentage point and the Liberal promise to trim it by two percentage points.
Elsewhere on the campaign trail, Houston announced that a Progressive Conservative government would make parking free at all Nova Scotia hospitals and health-care centres. The promise was also made by the Liberals in their election platform released Monday.
“Free parking may not seem like a big deal to some, but … the parking, especially for people working at the facilities, can add up to hundreds of dollars,” the premier told a news conference at his campaign headquarters in Halifax.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
