Bill 1: An Act Respecting Government Organization and Administration - Response

CLAUDIA CHENDER: I am pleased to rise and say a few words about Bill No. 1, An Act Respecting Government Organization and Administration.

This is an omnibus bill and although the Premier did open debate on second reading, he didn't actually say much about the bill or what the bill does. I'm going to make an effort to go through it because in my time as an elected official I have received more individual correspondence - not like email chains or campaigns - individual correspondence from people in every corner of this province on this bill than I have had on anything before.

Still it's coming in and still people I don't think actually know what's in it. I'm going to be honest: Omnibus legislation exists to obscure. That is why it's used. Why you would put so many amendments to so many different bills that do so many different things in a single piece of legislation - there is no reason other than to obscure the purposes of pieces of the bill.

We have been told that some of the bill will be repealed and we are glad. That hasn't happened and so I am going to go through this in some detail, although I am going to save the bulk of my remarks for Committee of the Whole House on third reading after we have had a chance to hear from people at Public Bills.

The last time Bill No. 1 was introduced, at the beginning of the sitting, folks who were here might remember that it was fixed election dates. That was the first bill this government introduced upon ascending to government. Good news: It's being repealed in this piece of legislation. We are hopeful that one day, too, the bulk of this bill will be repealed.

In the meantime, let's go through what's in here. There are some huge issues with this bill but the overriding one - and not to beat a dead horse, but it's something we have talked a lot about - is the, I would say, shocking lack of consultation that led to this bill.

We're going to talk about changes to the role of the Auditor General. We're going to talk about proposed changes to the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, some lesser-known changes to the Municipal Government Act, to the Executive Council operations. In most of these cases, it is clear that conversations were not had with the impacted parties.

I hope that someone on the government side can get up and explain to us the rationale for some of these changes, because we have yet to hear good explanations about many of them. What we know is that aside from the lack of consultation, the other thing that many of these provisions have in common is that they reduce accountability, they reduce oversight, and they - I guess to put it more kindly - streamline processes. But streamline for whom is the question, Speaker.

This bill amends nine pieces of legislation. It amends the Public Service Act, making changes around salaries. It amends the Executive Council Act. And here's something we haven't really had a chance to talk about: Ministers will know, but most others probably don't, aside from the press corps, that when a decision is made by the Governor in Council, there is an Order in Council that is produced as a result of that decision.

When Cabinet is required to approve an agreement with an order of government or a municipality or an organization - and there have been lots over the years, of course; we're dependent on funding and relationships with all kinds of entities and bodies - that is then published as an Order in Council. It's one of the only ways, particularly if it's not something the government feels like announcing, or it's not part of the story that any government of the day is wanting to tell at that particular moment - we find out about a lot of things through looking at Orders in Council. That's how we know what our government is doing.

The amendments in this bill clarify, according to the notes, when Governor in Council approval is needed, and by "clarify" they mean "reduce." So in fact, there will be many decisions now that do not have to go to Cabinet, that can be entered into by ministers on their own authority and therefore there might be no record. We already have such a hard time getting information from this government. We haven't seen the contract for our hospital. We talked today in Question Period about the number of reports that have been done but not produced. This is a hallmark of this government. And now we may not even know of the existence of these arrangements, because the government is giving themselves an end-around to public accountability.

This bill amends the Civil Service Act. It stipulates that non-unionized employees - which is a big chunk of the public service - can be dismissed without cause. Those are the folks who have been filling the galleries. Those are the folks who are helping all these ministers do their work. Those are the folks whom we rely on in Opposition to help our constituents and to help navigate government services. Those are the people, as my colleague in the Liberal Party mentioned earlier today and no doubt will again, who will be relied upon to take point on our tariff response, to help businesses and communities and individuals navigate that.

Those are the folks who, in our non-partisan public service, we also rely upon to give the government good advice. So while we have a majority government in this House - and I think every member in this House is a respected member of the community they serve and has been elected to this House for a reason: Their constituents like them. More on that later.

Most of us don't have experience in government. Most of us don't actually - I would suspect that most ministers don't - the Minister of Justice aside at this moment, because we have a lawyer in that role - come to a Cabinet position with a great deal of experience about the minutiae of the bureaucratic wheels that grind through that department. We rely on the public service for that. We need their expertise.

Yet there is an implicit threat to them in this legislation - and not just in this legislation. This provision is of a piece with the language around "problem stretchers" and "problem solvers" and the letters that are going out. While it may be well-intentioned, it is not being perceived that way. It just isn't. It's being perceived as a threat to people's livelihoods.

This bill amends the Elections Act - no more fixed election dates. I think the Premier the other night said: We figured out that doesn't work. I think maybe the Premier decided that it didn't work for the Premier and the Premier's party and their electoral success, which in our system is his wont. I don't think it is entirely accurate to say it didn't work, and I think in fact, when that bill was introduced, we really fought against the fact that they were trying to legislate a Summer election date.

We thought: What an absurdity. Why are you going to bring everyone to the polls in the Summer? It's going to depress the vote. There's going to be lower turnout. It doesn't make any sense. Well, that's true; we saw that. What it does do is it creates certainty. It allows Elections Nova Scotia to plan, and it allows Nova Scotians to have an expectation of when they are going to the polls. The snap election this time - combined with the Canada Post strike - was the worst possible example of what goes wrong when you don't have that certainty on the heels of a municipal election.

The number of people who didn't know that there was an election - who didn't know where to vote, in particular - was astounding, and we saw that in the overall turnout. I think it's pretty sad and it's pretty cynical to not take every opportunity we have to engage people in a public process. Again, this is one provision, but I think what we see in this provision is a hallmark of this bill, which is less information for Nova Scotians. In this case, it's information about when they have the opportunity to choose their elected representatives.

I think that repealing the fixed election date is a real missed opportunity because as we know, fixed election date or no, premiers can still call a snap election. That's the Westminster system of government. They will always have that power. This was a nod to the fact that it is challenging from an organizational point of view and it is challenging for people in communities to keep up with when elections are happening. I would say that far from seeing that this doesn't work, we actually saw the need for this in the last election.

I know that the government probably doesn't hold that view, because they came here with this resounding majority, but I think if you look at the challenges people had finding their polling station, if you look at the challenges Elections Nova Scotia had communicating with people, if you look at the challenges that we had around information, I think an objective analysis bears that out, and so I think this is a real missed opportunity.

Now we get to the changes to the Auditor General Act. The government has said that they will be repealing these provisions in whole, and I will take them at their word, but I still think to the point of the hallmark of this bill being a lack of consultation, I do want to say a couple of words about how damaging and ill-considered these provisions are.

First of all, to be clear: These provisions allow two-thirds of this Assembly to fire the Auditor General without cause. The Auditor General, who is responsible for informing the public, for being a watchdog around public spending, could be fired without cause. There is simply no rationale for that. We are told it's to align with other jurisdictions. That has been refuted, including by the Auditors General in the jurisdictions that were named, which I think are two. It's just not true. We've been told for years now that we can't have NDA legislation because only one other province is doing it. Why aren't we aligned with them? I just think the whole alignment thing is a total red herring. I think it is to have less oversight.

The other provisions here would allow government to keep confidential reports of the Auditor General. Those reports are meant, yes, for government, and they are shared with government in advance of being published, but also, importantly, for the public. A lot of time and money and energy and social media is spent on discrediting the voices of the Opposition. We are in a partisan environment, and in that partisan environment the cut and thrust of political debate - most people won't pay attention, some people will pay attention, some people already know how they think, some people are very partisan or not partisan or care about one issue or another.

We rely on third parties. Those third parties are the Auditor General; the media. I know this seems quaint in the age that we're living in, but I still maintain that we do need some unbiased, respected sources of information. In this formation, in this House, as an independent officer of the Legislature, the Auditor General is that source. So to make the changes proposed in this bill to that office amounts to one thing and one thing only, which is reducing accountability of government decisions and government spending.

I'm going to table some articles that came out just to confirm by headline what I'm saying:

·       "Nova Scotia government giving itself power to fire the Auditor General";

·       "N.S. Auditor General says she could not do her job if Houston government has power to fire her";

·       "N.S. move to allow firing of auditor without cause should be seen as threat: watchdog";

·       "Accountability at stake says AG as she urges Houston government to scrap changes to her office";

·       "Auditor General's university report in limbo, as Tories bring forth sweeping changes in bill";

·       "N.S. information commissioner says government bill threatens right to access records".

Oh wait, I'm onto the next topic. Hold on.

Those are a few of the titles. If that many articles could be written, with multiple sources - watchdogs, former Auditors General, current Auditor General, unbiased information sources - if this government had bothered to ask literally anyone, they would have been told that this was a terrible idea. It's clear that either they didn't - that's the generous interpretation - or they did and they decided to do it anyway. In both cases, it represents a dramatic overreach.

I want to say that I am glad to see that it is coming back. That they are pulling back from this. If there is a silver lining, it's that as soon as these changes were introduced, as I said, there was this public outcry. If you had asked me six months ago: If they try to make big changes to the Auditor General Act, do you think people are going to freak out?, I would have said no. I would have said: I've been around here long enough to know what people care about. They care about the cost of groceries. They care about whether they can find a home they can afford. They care about health care.

We've seen, even in the polling over the last year in particular, that people broadly care about the same things, but there are different ways to fix it, which hasn't always been the case. I think that we're in a different moment, particularly today with the imposition of tariffs. We're in a different moment where people are paying attention to politics in a different way and where people are sensitive to government overreach because we're seeing it south of the border.

I am heartened by the outcry over this bill because I think it's a really good sign for democracy. I really do. People are paying attention. I am going to get through the other provisions, but I mentioned that I received a lot of correspondence. Most of the correspondence I received followed a very specific formula, which was that most of it was that I was copied on an e-mail from a resident to an MLA. Most of those MLAs were PCs, and most of the e-mails said: "Dear Blank, I really like you. I voted for you because I think you're a champion for our community, and I loved the way that you reached out to us in the past, but I've got to tell you, I didn't vote for you to do this."

Again, I think it's such a good sign of democracy. Again, people vote for people they see as people who will represent their communities. I think Nova Scotians are paying attention.

The next bill that this bill amends is the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. I think the headline for this one is that the heads of public bodies can refuse to administer frivolous, vexatious applications or applications that are too broad in scope. The point has been made in here a few times that the Information and Privacy Commissioner asked for these powers. I think that's true, but she asked for the powers - she did not ask for the powers to be given to the public service. There's a reason, and that's because the heads of many public bodies serve at the pleasure of the Premier.

If we are creating a regime where we say to people: Your employment is dependent on whether or not the Premier is pleased with your performance, and we are asking you to make a decision about a freedom of information request from a body or individual that may displease the government, that may contain information that the government does not want released, you're putting people in an impossible position. By accepting a request, in theory, they could be risking their employment.

We're heading into tough times and rough waters. I don't think many people want to risk their employment right now. I don't think they should be blamed for that, but this is not a responsible regime. While we've been told that this will be repealed, I think again it's worth making the point that we are convinced that there are indeed freedom of information requests that are vexatious and frivolous. I'm sure that's true. I think the Information and Privacy Commissioner is absolutely the person who is best determined to make that call. We support that office having that power, but we do not support heads of public bodies and the way that it's laid out in this legislation having it.

Again, it appears as though there were no conversations had about this provision. Another selection of articles:

·       "Nova Scotia information commissioner says government bill threatens right to access records";

·       "N.S. wants to deny 'vexatious' information requests. Critics say they are concerned".

Those are just a couple. Again, why the omnibus bill? Why the lack of consultation? Why Bill No. 1? Why now?

In his remarks the other night, the Premier said: This is about the issues of the day. We wanted to bring forward the first bill to tackle the issues of the day. I will tell you, not a single Nova Scotian I have spoken to thinks that these are the issues of the day. Not one Nova Scotian has ever said, You know what? I think we should be able to fire the Auditor General. I've never had that conversation with anyone. Never.

I think that it's disingenuous to present this as though this is an issue about the issues of the day. The Premier, in his remarks the other night, also referenced the Law Amendments Committee. I'm not sure why. I think he was speaking to ways in which this is connected to Resolution No. 5, which the government passed, changing the rules.

In his remarks on this bill, he mentioned that he didn't think a bill had ever been amended at the Law Amendments Committee. This goes to oversight. This goes to - Resolution No. 5 was Number 1, Bill No. 1 was Number 2.

Here's a list of 295 bills that have been amended since the year 2000 in the Law Amendments Committee. That is a fraction of the time that the Law Amendments Committee had been in existence.

I think it's important that we put the facts on the table in this Chamber. I really do. I hope the Premier is listening because he has said many times that once he hears a good idea, he'll take it. I'm not convinced that's true, yet we will continue to try to present the information as we understand it and as we hear about it from our constituents.

I'm almost done. There are amendments to the Municipal Government Act, and I am hoping we'll have some representation on that in Public Bills. It seems there are some provisions that would create the same powers for freedom of information requests at that level as they do here. I don't know if that was requested by municipalities or not. I'd be interested to hear if that's the case.

There's a change to the Private Ways Act. I also have lots of questions about that. I suspect it relates to the government's surprise natural resource strategy that we've all been learning about in the last little while. It essentially removes the government from private land disputes. I think my colleague will talk about this a bit. We're not really clear about what impact that will have, but I'm hoping we will hear about it from government at some point.

The House of Assembly Act is amended in a few ways.

The Members' Retiring Allowances Act is also changed. MLA compensation is dealt with in this, but MLA pensions are also dealt with in this. I know there have been a number of retired public servants who have also pointed to their desire for a cost-of-living increase after a long, long time. A lot of the changes in this will result in a change to MLA pensions, so I think that's a conversation that folks are asking about.

That's a summary of what I've been able to digest of this bill. I will tell you that there's a lot more in here. We get these little explanatory notes on the bill; they're not entirely accurate, and they're not entirely clear. There are lots of times when it says "this clarifies" when it doesn't clarify - it substantially changes.

I would urge people to spend a little time with this. This is one piece of legislation that essentially seems designed to cast a pall over public information, the public service, and access to information.

I want to come back to where I started and say that this is not an issue of the day. This is not something anyone asked for. This is a well-known political playbook. First session, Term 2, majority government - bring the bad stuff. It happens all over the country. It has happened in Nova Scotia many times. Do the things that are unpopular at the beginning of the second term of a majority government. By the time you go back to the polls, people will have forgotten.

Maybe that's a good gamble. I don't know. We'll see. I still think the government has to answer the question of why. I started a little exercise last week as I was trying to manage my inbox. I started writing down the names of places where people were emailing me from on this bill. This is probably about one-third. I am going to read a few place names; Waverley, West Hants, Bedford, Halifax, Sundridge, Spryfield, Berwick, Dartmouth, Truro, Blandford, Lunenburg, Shelburne, Preston, Sheet Harbour, Head of St. Margarets Bay, Woodlawn, Paradise, Annapolis Royal, Queens - definitely a handful from Cape Breton, although they didn't make it on to the list. If your constituency wasn't mentioned, it doesn't mean I didn't receive an e-mail from there.

I want to just close by saying that, surprisingly enough, this is a bill that Nova Scotians care about. These are things that Nova Scotians care about. We are seeing the dismantling before our very eyes of what many would have called the greatest democracy in the western world: the United States. It's gone, pretty much, and it didn't take very long.

We still have ours, and it's semi-functional. But it only works if we protect it. So much of what we do in this House is not in legislation. It's not in the rules. It's convention. It's actually incumbent upon all of us to decide why we're here. Are we here to participate in a representative government that brings the concerns of the people into this Chamber, debates them, and then comes out the other side with the best possible policies to serve Nova Scotians? Today, more than any other day, that is a question we all have to ask ourselves. This bill, as it stands, does not do that. It does not address the concerns of Nova Scotians. It weakens our democracy, and Nova Scotians won't stand for it.

I look forward to hearing from people. I wish I could hear suggestions for amendments at Law Amendments. We can't. We don't have Law Amendments anymore. But I am certain we will have many representations at Public Bills of people who want to have their voices heard on this. We will be listening. I hope the government will be listening too. We will certainly be coming forward with amendments at Committee of the Whole House.