N.S. Premier Finds Ottawa's Aloofness 'Troubling'

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford isn't the only elected official who wants a face-to-face meeting with the prime minister. Canada's premiers haven't had a group sit-down meeting with Stephen Harper since the last meeting of first ministers in 2009.

In an interview on CBC Radio's The House, Nova Scotia Premier Darrell Dexter — who also serves as the chair of the Council of the Federation, a group made up of Canada's territorial and provincial leaders — said "a bit of a vacuum" has developed in federal-provincial relations under Harper's government.

Premier expects Ottawa to stick to shipbuilding deal

Premier Darrell Dexter says he's not worried about the $25-billion shipbuilding contract shrinking as the federal government tries to cut $2 billion from the Defence Department's budget.

Analysis predict the contract with Irving Shipyard in Halifax will have fewer ships or be delayed as the feds scale back defence spending.

"Of course we expect, and I'm sure they expect, to fulfill the terms of that procurement strategy," Premier Dexter told reporters at Pier 21 Tuesday. "I have heard nothing that would suggest otherwise."

The comments were made following the Premier's address during the Atlantic Provinces Economic Council's (APEC) major projects event.

APEC research analyst Patrick Brannon told the audience that  the shipbuilding project is already being set back by two years.

"Initially, in the early stages of talking about the contract, there was an outlook to 2013 to start cutting steel," Brannon told the breakfast crowd. "That's moved back to 2015. That moves the timeline for the ramp-up of activity, as well as the peak of activity."

Original Article
Source: news957
Author: Desiree Finhert 

MacKay slams Dexter on labour bill, shipbuilding

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.