Defence Minister Peter MacKay says he’s worried about Nova Scotia’s future under Premier Darrell Dexter.MacKay pointed to high taxes and the NDP’s recently passed first-contract arbitration law as harbingers of economic hard times.
"We have concerns about companies that want to invest here, or existing companies, going elsewhere because of questionable labour legislation that has been introduced against the protestations of the business community in Nova Scotia," he said.
It’s rare for provincial and federal politicians to scrap so openly, but MacKay’s comments in a phone interview with The Chronicle Herald on Thursday are just the latest in a series of words publicly exchanged between the federal minister and the premier.
It started after Halifax won the $25-billion main prize in the $35-billion national shipbuilding procurement strategy. MacKay criticized the provincial Ships Start Here campaign as misleading and worthless because the evaluations were independent.
In an interview last week, Dexter countered that the federal government had to stay out of the decision-making while the province worked with Irving Shipbuilding to help maximize Halifax Shipyard’s score.
This clearly annoyed MacKay, who pointed out that Ottawa not only designed the process but put up the funding.
MacKay said Dexter’s reasoning was "the worst kind of politics."
"It’s a provincial premier trying to take credit for the hard work and efforts of his constituents and trying to garner credit from a federal process that he had no influence in designing and no control of the outcome.
"It’s a bit like saying he was responsible for Christmas."
MacKay said he suspects Dexter is laying the groundwork for an upcoming provincial election campaign in which the NDP will try to take credit for the shipbuilding contract.
Both MacKay and Dexter have acknowledged there is some awkwardness in partisan disputes between Nova Scotia’s premier and its only representative in the federal cabinet.
"I don’t spend a lot of time reacting to what Mr. MacKay has to say," Dexter said last week.
"He is the person ultimately who has to act in our behalf at the federal cabinet table. I have a respectful relationship with him. I try to maintain it at as high and productive a level as I can."
Dexter said he deliberately separates the partisan side of politics from the day-to-day dealings between governments.
For his part, MacKay said he has to respect the choices Nova Scotia voters make and deal with whomever they elect. He said his relationship with Dexter is not one of tension but that they are simply on opposite sides of many issues.
MacKay also drew parallels to Dexter and the Harper government’s new top opponent, the federal New Democrats. MacKay noted that interim NDP leader Nycole Turmel had said there was enough shipbuilding work to be spread around to everyone, including the troubled Davie shipyard in Quebec. That province now has a lot of sway within the NDP after electing 59 New Democrats in the May 2 election.
"If she’d had it her way, this contract that Nova Scotia shipbuilders have won, in part or in whole would have gone to Quebec," MacKay said.
"And Darrell Dexter said nothing about that. Nor did (Halifax NDP MP) Megan Leslie, by the way."
MacKay said his main defence priority in 2012 will be overseeing the Canadian Forces in Afghanistan transitioning to a training mission to help build the Afghan army.
But aside from his Defence Department duties, MacKay cited jobs and the economy as the Conservative government’s main focus, which sparked his comments about the provincial New Democrats and their handling of the Nova Scotia economy.
Dexter has said the previous Conservative provincial government mismanaged years of booming revenues, leaving the NDP to pick up the pieces and balance the books.
Original Article
Source: the Chronicle Herald
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