Another Premier, Another Power Grab

On March 5, hundreds of Nova Scotians gathered in front of Province House, the provincial legislature, in Halifax. Many held handmade signs, including one featuring Premier Tim Houston transformed into a Donald Trump doppelganger, and slogans like “Nobody voted for Tim Trump,” “Please dump the Trump playbook,” and “We want democracy. Not autocracy.”

The rally had been organized by community groups and labour organizations to push back against far-reaching legislation that Houston’s government introduced in February. The proposed omnibus bills would, among other things, overturn a four-decade moratorium on uranium mining, give the government more control over universities, and allow non-unionized civil servants to be fired without cause.

“No one knew this was coming,” says Lindsay Lee, one of the protesters, who works at the advocacy organization Ecology Action Centre. “This is not something people were consulted on in any way.”

None of the bills had come up during the provincial election last fall. Houston and his Progressive Conservatives campaigned hard on health care and housing affordability in a province that has seen its population surge since the COVID-19 pandemic. With a dismal 44.9 percent turnout, the PC were elected with a super-majority, winning forty-three of fifty-five seats. The scope of that win gives the PC power to unilaterally change legislative rules, including altering the structure of committees and limiting opposition speaking time.

Houston has cited the economic threat of President Trump’s re-election to justify his pivot. He says that Nova Scotia must become more self-reliant to mitigate the risks posed by outside forces. In late January, Houston wrote a six-page letter to his caucus, bemoaning how previous governments had failed to take advantage of Nova Scotia’s potential because they had bowed to “special interests.” These unnamed special interests wielded an outsized voice in policy decisions, he said.

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Promising to grow the economy and create jobs, Houston vowed to “take the ‘no’ out of Nova Scotia.” He praised mining and energy, declaring he would reverse “lazy public policy” by overturning bans and speeding up resource development. Nowhere in his letter did he mention plans for hiring more nurses or building homes.

Not long after Houston’s memo was released, news broke of a fundraising letter by PC cabinet minister Leah Martin asking for donations to overpower “special interests and professional protesters” and to “bypass the media.” Then came a government attempt to ban media scrums outside the legislature, a move that was rolled back after reporters boycotted efforts to stage-manage briefings in a media room across the street.

Houston’s power plays follow a disturbing trend among Canadian premiers seeking to quash dissent and centralize executive control over decision-making, often to override the power of municipal governments or the legislative process. Alberta premier Danielle Smith introduced a bill last year that would allow the government to fire mayors and municipal councillors. Ontario’s Doug Ford is obsessed with tearing up Toronto bike lanes and has ranted about getting rid of “bleeding-heart” judges through American-style judicial elections. In British Columbia, David Eby introduced legislation in March that would allow the cabinet to bypass the legislature in order to respond to tariff threats. After public outcry, Eby walked back that portion of the bill.

Some sections of Houston’s legislation—including the ability for the government to fire the province’s Auditor General and to withhold reports from her office—were scrapped after immediate uproar, according to in-depth reporting by the Halifax Examiner. But other portions remain in play. Bill 1, for example, strikes down the government’s own law to hold elections at fixed dates, passed by Houston in 2021 and then promptly ignored when he decided to head to the polls early.

Other bills have also passed without any change despite widespread opposition. Bill 12 fundamentally redefines the relationship between the government and universities. It lets the province appoint up to fifty percent of a university board of governors and effectively cedes control to the government. Under the bill, the government can also compel institutions to pursue forced restructuring (called “revitalization”) to eliminate programs and tie research funding to areas deemed in the interests of the province.

Peter McInnis, professor of history at St. Francis Xavier University and past president of the Canadian Association of University Teachers, has spoken out against Bill 12. Provincial control of university governance, he says, entrenches the notion that postsecondary education should operate within a corporate cost-recovery model, rather than a shared social investment. He says giving the government greater authority over university research leads to an agenda determined by short-term political priorities, where the government can target programs it finds misaligned with its own political mission or values. Such is the case in the United States, where Trump’s administration is targeting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives at major American universities, including Harvard and Columbia, by withholding billions in funding.

“You’re starting to see some ideological filters applied. So this is concerning given what we’ve seen in the US,” says McInnis. “This is going to happen on a smaller scale here.”

The bill also states that research grants provided by Research Nova Scotia must support the government’s priorities, and that these research priorities can be determined solely by the education minister. In early May, the CBC reported that Brendan Maguire, who serves as the Minister of Advanced Education and the Minister of Education and Early Childhood Developmeht, announced that all research funded by the agency must make “measurable changes” to the economy and provide “tangible and demonstrable” economic benefits to the province. Given the government’s focus on maximizing investment in education, McInnis fears the net result will be a greater enrolment in fields like business and economics instead of the arts.

Tammy Findlay, a professor of political studies at Mount Saint Vincent University, worries programs with a critically informed lens will be first on the chopping block. In Canada, she says, attacks on diversity and equity tend to fall below the radar. Both McInnis and Findlay point to Ontario, where York University has recently suspended eighteen programs, including gender and women’s studies and Indigenous studies, in what was framed as a cost-cutting measure.

Houston’s suite of bills takes direct aim at the province’s long-held consensus on natural resource development. Bill 6 overturns a moratorium on uranium mining that has been in place since 1981 and was officially signed into law in 2009. It also opens the province up to onshore fracking, despite decades of extensive public consultation on these issues by several previous governments.

In a late-March press release, the Assembly of Nova Scotia Mi’kmaw Chiefs said it was exploring the possibility of filing an injunction. The Assembly said they were disturbed by Houston’s lack of consultation with Indigenous communities on a bill of such magnitude, and that the government is dismissing the self-governing rights of the Mi’kmaq.

“Over a decade ago, the Assembly worked hard to ensure that safeguards were put in place to protect the interests of everyone who calls Mi’kma’ki home,” said Chief Michelle Glasgow of Sipekne’katik First Nation in the release. “It is our responsibility to use our Rights and Title claim over these lands and waters to help protect it from this harmful industry.”

During public hearings surrounding Bill 6, a broad range of citizens, experts, and community organizations shared their concerns. Out of about a hundred who wrote or spoke on the bill, the only submission in favour of overturning the ban on mining uranium came from the Mining Association of Nova Scotia. Nevertheless, Houston’s government greenlit Bill 6—and Bill 12—without amendments in just a matter of weeks.

In his January memo, Houston cautioned caucus members to listen closely to their constituents and stay grounded in Nova Scotia values. But the premier seems unmoved by the protests, which appear not to have harmed him politically. An April poll shows Houston to be more popular now than when he was re-elected in November.

Yet Lee says her organization has heard from Nova Scotians from across the province. People in rural areas are especially worried about threats to their well water and the safety of their communities if uranium mining and fracking proceed. The Houston government, she believes, is intentionally ignoring their fears in favour of its own special interests.

“People are very concerned in Nova Scotia that we are seeing Trumpian style politics here,” says Lee. “The people of this province deserve better.”