Afternoon Pint
Afternoon Pint is a laid-back Canadian podcast hosted by Matt Conrad and Mike Tobin. Each episode, they invite a special guest to join them at a pub or microbrewery to get to know them a bit better. Conversations cover a wide range of topics, including Entrepreneurship, business, Arts, pop culture, music, science, society, Life stories, experiences, you get the idea...
Our aim is to create a show for everyone (even non-Canadians.) We create a welcoming atmosphere where guests can share their perspectives with transparency. Essentially, Afternoon Pint is like heading to the pub after work to catch up with some friends through your headphones or stereo. We are Nova Scotia's #2 podcast, but we pretend we are number 1!
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Afternoon Pint
Stephen McNeil - From Appliance Repairman to Premier, A reflection on his time as leader of Nova Scotia
Its not everyday we get to have a beer with a former premier at the kitchen table in his home town! Stephen McNeil tells us about ups and downs of his time as Premier, insights into the challenges of leadership and the importance of listening. He discusses his commitment to community, the impact of social media, and the lessons learned during his time in office, particularly amid the COVID-19 pandemic. We recap some of the challenging issues he faced such as the film tax credit and teachers union and we learned that he is a huge craft beer fan.
This show started from the love of craft beer so we would like to thank Sober Carpenter for helping us with some non alcohol craft beers through Dry January. Also big thanks to Great Roads Brewing for the Red IPA (Liberal, red... get it?) McNeil also was proud to have some great microbreweries around him such as Annapolis Brewing Company, Lunns Mill and the Premier enjoyed his Dry January Beer out of a 'Stay the Blazes Home,' Beer Glass made by Garrison Brewing.
Kimia Nejat of Kimia Nejat Realty
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Cheers, cheers, cheers. And welcome to the Afternoon Point. I'm Mike Tobin, I am Matt Conrad and I'm Stephen McNeil Stephen McNeil Wow that name sounds familiar. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So, Steve, what did you do?
Speaker 1:Why are we talking to you?
Speaker 3:What did, I do wrong.
Speaker 2:No, nothing wrong.
Speaker 3:Well, I had the great fortune of being elected for the riding of Annapolis in 2003,. Served as their MLA until 2021. But I also had the good fortune of being elected premier in 2013. And I stayed there until 2021 when I saw my opportunity to get off the train and allow someone else to be the conductor.
Speaker 2:I like that.
Speaker 1:Awesome.
Speaker 2:So we got to do a little bit of housekeeping to start the thing here, right? Oh yes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So this is dry January. That's right. We're recording this episode in dry January. So, if you saw me on social media, I'm not drinking for the month of January and, steve, you're not drinking for the month of January.
Speaker 3:Is drinking for the month of January and, steve, you're not drinking for the month of January. Is that right? That's correct, yeah. So how'd you get roped into it? No, you know what? I decided that I wanted to try to lose some weight, and I thought the best way to do that would be to curtail my beer and a little bit of how the menu changed a bit, so I did the same thing.
Speaker 1:I also had to cut out Hawkins cheese for the month and chips and all the fun snack food I ate over Christmas.
Speaker 3:It's. Yeah, I haven't completely robbed myself of all of that stuff, but it was really just trying to recalibrate the body and so far, so good, so got to thank Sober Carpenter.
Speaker 1:They are helping me out on this journey, so they donated. This is a brewery from Montreal. Is it Montreal, sorry?
Speaker 2:Matt, no, Quebec like the province of Quebec.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, Brewery from Quebec. They make a whole. I think they had nine different Sober Carpenter beer types. It was pretty crazy.
Speaker 2:We got some good ones here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're all really good. I'm trying their ipa out.
Speaker 3:I have your favorite, the raspberry sour, not a sour guy, so mac out all the sour sober. But so and I have the sober, carpenter, ale blonde.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there you go and you and you said that you actually you'd never know the difference.
Speaker 1:No, it's, it's great taste, nice taste, good body to the beer. Yeah, really good guy. So thank you so much. Yeah, so thanks to yeah.
Speaker 2:So sober, carpenter, the um, I do have uh something for you, though, as you are the second premier that we're speaking to, and the first premier we're speaking to said that his favorite beer is an ipa. Uh, and tim, yeah, tim hughes said his, and I mean we can see that you obviously like some double ipas and things like that, but I'm a little bigger than him.
Speaker 2:Fair enough, but I actually like it. So we actually got something as a gift from AP. We wanted you to try this. This is from Great Roads Brewing in Sackville, and because one premier said that he liked IPA, we figured it was only fitting that the liberal premier likes a red IPA. Oh, geez.
Speaker 1:Now someone's going to have to make a blue IPA for Tim. You know, Unfair for Tim.
Speaker 3:I often have a red ale if I'm out, but, to be honest with you, my favorite craft beer is there's two of them Vickers Cross, which I've enjoyed very much. Oh yeah, that's a double IPA, yeah that's a good one, yeah, and it's a great beer. It's out of Boxing Rock. They've done a great job with it. When I first started drinking it, it was actually in the court beer bottles, oh, okay.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah yeah, and of course, court beer bottles had been gone for quite a while. And then if you look in our local community, lund's Mill has a Purple Grain, which is another double IPA, which is a fabulous beer, very popular locally and, I think, popular across the province, as it continues to get out in the liquor store.
Speaker 2:You must be a bit of a craft beer guy, because you actually had a beer made with your face on it. Yeah, we were trying what was that about?
Speaker 3:Well, jeremy, from up in Cape Breton, decided that he was going to put me on the spot, as he often did for the industry, wanting government support on how we would best support it. And you know what? He had great ideas and the industry had great ideas. So one of the things that we did early on was make some changes in in, uh, the crop brewing regulations, um, and I suggested that, uh, you know, maybe it'd be good idea to have a double IPA is which I like. So we, we did one with Big Spruce.
Speaker 1:Oh cool.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was called the Real McNeil. Uh and uh, I think he went to uh, uh. Uh, I think he went to uh um the local herald, uh, cartoonist oh, that's right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, mike, yes, mckinnon, mike, mckinnon, yeah, no, no, no, I went to mckinnon, okay yeah and uh.
Speaker 3:uh, he drew up the character on the can, that's pretty fun? Yeah, it was great fun, and you know what?
Speaker 1:Hopefully you kept the can around.
Speaker 3:I have a few of them kicking around, yeah, Good good they're not full, though. Yeah, I enjoyed it. The last going off I heard was going when the run was being finished. I bought a few of them, but it was great, great fun and uh, I hope to help yeah, I would say yeah, it was, uh, I could try, it was pretty good yeah, so so, matt, you got to explain the connection here because you're so, you're your grandfather yeah, so the I this is only our second meeting, uh, we've.
Speaker 1:We met uh earlier and but uh, we had some, uh, so like for context, we we we attacked him, not attacked approached him at the Trudeau speech. We had to listen to Trudeau speak here in.
Speaker 2:Halifax and then we decided to jump on top of it, kind of thing. But I had something that I could personally relate, right? So yeah, because my grandfather, jj Spurns, was your teacher We'll dive into, like your earlier career before politics, because that's really what it. You know how I so, when you first ran that's what was told to me was like oh, your grandfather taught him.
Speaker 3:Yeah, jj taught me at a curly campus in Dartmouth. Ironically, our daughter lives in that neighborhood now, so I spent a bit of time in the neighborhood of the campus in Dartmouth. But your grandfather taught me for a couple years, uh, he was a great guy. Uh, uh, he knew a number of people in the industry but, uh, and we stayed in touch a little bit. Uh, he was a fabulous guy. Uh, who was from spryfield. Uh, another connection is that's where my father was born and he would have known, uh, some of my aunts and uncles and some of my cousins that were still living in the area.
Speaker 1:And you have a pretty big family, eh.
Speaker 3:We do. Yeah, I have 16 siblings. 16 of us are living. We lost a sibling a few years ago 10, as a matter of fact. And then, of course, each of my parents are from a family of 10. So those are, you know. So we have a fairly large, extended family, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so my mother is like really like best friends with his cousin Colleen as well. I have a daughter.
Speaker 3:Colleen.
Speaker 2:That's right, I knew that too. Yes, yeah, so yeah, colleen and mom grew up together from like elementary all from Herring Cove and everything Small world, it's a small world. So it's kind of funny like we've never actually run into each other, especially me being a political geek and everything too right.
Speaker 3:All you had to say was hey, my grandfather taught you, you're well on your way. Well, that was it. People only knew how easy it was to get a meeting with me. It.
Speaker 2:People only knew how easy it was to get a meeting with me. It's true, though. We went up, I saw you because you're taller than everybody, and I was like, hey, you know what? There's Steve McNeil, let's go see, let's go chat. That was a great idea and we went over and I was like hey, you know what, I'm JJ's grandson.
Speaker 1:So back to the teaching bit though.
Speaker 3:What was he teaching you? No, I took a trade called Appliance Repair which really did domestic appliances, refrigeration, all the household appliances that you would have in your house. So I took that trade back in 1983 to 85. And then I came home here and I worked for a fellow by the name of Sandy McLaren for a couple of years. And I worked for a fellow by the name of Sandy McLaren for a couple of years and then I bought his company and ran that company for 17, 18 years Before I entered public life. We had an office here in town and one in Kentville in the Minas area.
Speaker 2:Okay, so you had three offices, like three, no just one here.
Speaker 3:And what I did in Kentville in the Minas, was I ran it through a communications Valley Communications it's called. Basically, what I did is I connected a phone into that system and you wouldn't know the difference when you called it. You called a local number and then it would get dispatched to me. But I commuted for the better part of 10 years to Kenfold and the Minus from here and then I ran in politics in 1999,. Um, and then, uh, I ran in. I ran in politics in 1999, um, really, uh, wanting to kind of add a voice to this local area. I hadn't thought about doing it for a while. I thought I would do it, maybe later in life. Um, I was young, I was 37 at the time. Uh, thought that, you know, uh, you know I was had too many other things to do and do and I was encouraged to do it locally. I said no and then I came home. Andrea said you may want to think about this because you'll drive us crazy for the next four years if you don't do it.
Speaker 1:If you could think about the time, though what were the issues that kind of drove you there to kind of get into politics? What was happening in the community?
Speaker 3:Well provincially, what was happening well provincially, provincially, what was happening? Uh uh, health care, ironically uh, was a big issue locally. Um it, I'll come back to that in a second. Um, I was a big fan of russell mcclellan. I'd been involved politically locally, just as a local writing association and, and in LA at the time Laurie Montgomery had announced kind of that night that the government fell it was a minority government, that he wasn't re-offering.
Speaker 3:But for me really the biggest thing was I was looking around, I was involved in the community through our children, through sports, their activities, whether it would be soccer, basketball, coaching, those events. I was sitting on a local economic development board called Valley Ventures where you kind of would it would be really seed money for some local kind of companies that you would set up. It was funded a lot through government nationally. So it was kind of just a natural extension from what I was doing. And really my goal really was never I never even completely contemplated running to be a leader of any political party.
Speaker 3:My reason to run was to try to improve this local economy and the local place where I grew up, which was very good to me and to my parents, to my mother especially, and then it was good to our children. So I was just trying to hope to make a difference there. And then, you know, I lost that election. It was, believe it or not, probably one of the better things that happened to me. It positioned me in a good way. Things that happened to me. Um, that positioned me in a good way, uh, because you realize, um, you know, sometimes elections are, you know, uh, come and go, uh, candidates shouldn't take it all.
Speaker 3:Personally, I used to be able to say to people uh, don't get your head too swollen when you win, and take all the credit for it because that that if you do better accept all the blame when you win and take all the credit for it because that, if you do, better accept all the blame when you lose uh fair enough.
Speaker 3:And there's also people vote for different reasons. Sometimes it's related to the leader, sometimes it's related to the policy of the government. They're re-electing it, um, so it's a. It's a combination of a whole host of things and for me in 99, one of the things that happened here people were very good to me, very kind to me, kind to us. So when Danny Graham became our leader in 2002, that's when I decided that I would seek the nomination again, and I was fortunate enough to be elected in 2003. And I continued on through till when I left.
Speaker 2:Was provincial, always the thought Was there ever any municipal or federal politics ever?
Speaker 3:No, lots of people used to talk to me about municipal politics, but, to be honest with you, it was because I was trying to run a business at the same time. It wouldn't fit right.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 3:So it had to become, and really the provincial one was where the opportunity opened up. Not because it became vacant, it was more what I thought, where I think, thought I could contribute. I never really gave any, you know any thought about going nationally. I've been asked a few times and you know, but that's not my um, it's not that I can't contribute there. I'm doing something right now helping, uh, the current government, but, um, I just felt this was more of the place for me yeah, no, I mean, I get that.
Speaker 2:I mean, uh, uh, I've talked about this before I ran. I ran municipally, though, um four years ago and uh, what riding. It's spryfield hearing at spryfield herring cove like district 11 yeah yeah.
Speaker 2:So, uh, I did not win that and, funny enough, like you, uh, I thought that's what I really really like I did at the time I it is what I wanted. I mean, I've wanted to be in politics since I was 14. Uh, john buchanan was actually a very close friend of mine, eventually, right kind of thing. So I met him when I was like 16 or 17 and we just really connected and so I've always kind of wanted to do that and thought that's what I wanted, but lost and you know, you lick your wounds and stuff like that and you move on. But I learned so much and it's a pivotal point in my life where I changed a lot from that loss.
Speaker 2:But it's not just the loss that did it, it's just the talking to everybody Going and listening to so many different people's opinions for and municipal elections are long for months and months and months. So I know what you mean. It can really kind of change your perception. But I think it was also, in the end, the best thing, because I don't think we'd be doing this if I want yeah, cause I'd be too worried to like.
Speaker 3:You know it's also to your point. It makes you reflect a little bit, like my kids at the time were seven and nine, um, so while I thought that was a good time, in hindsight it wasn't the right time. Um, um, I still was involved with our son, sports and hockey, and our daughter and soccer. Uh, we did a little basketball thing here, uh, which it was not the right time for me to go, even though I did run, not knowing, but in third, when, when I ran in in, oh three, they were 11 and 12, 11, 13 and the thing was I. It was time for me also, whether I'd run in politics or not, I would have stepped back from some of that coaching, because it was, I felt, for my kids.
Speaker 3:It was better for them to experience another voice in the room besides mine, that's fair as in a you know, as as as building them for whatever was going to be next for them, and I would have stayed involved which I did in organizing things, but I just felt it was time for someone else to coach my own children, because I think there's two extremes you either favor them or you're harder on them. So I think they'd probably tell you I was harder on them than I favored them, but others may have a different opinion Uh, but it was just time for the change, uh, and then it was also a good time for us. The kids were growing at the right time, uh, and it was the right time for me. Yeah, uh, I had a like, a like. I said earlier, I was a big fan of Russell McCollum.
Speaker 3:I still am. I think he's one of the true gentlemen in public life. I admired him a lot, and Danny Graham and I became friends and still are to this day. Danny came home and was starting kind of a new journey for the party and I wanted to be part of it. Uh, we saw the world in in similar ways. Uh, we shared similar, similar passions about things outside of politics. Um, so I was, uh I was actually thrilled when he won the leadership and then, when we were both elected, uh in, and then, as they say, circumstances changed for everybody. I ran again in 2006. I was elected and then the leadership opened up and I ran for the leadership in 2007.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I remember when you ran for that. But before we even get into that, I'm always curious, because when you are premier, obviously you're the one, you're the leader, you're in front of everything. What would your kid say? It's like to be the kid of a premier.
Speaker 3:You know, at the front end of that I probably would have said it was great.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:Because we come in in the swing of a big majority. You know what, living here, it was just the same as yeah. Like when I tell you my life didn't change much here, it didn't. I came home, you know, depending on what I was doing, occasionally I'd have to have security, but it didn't change life. I would drive myself to and from Halifax, yeah.
Speaker 1:And actually we're in that house right now. You said you bought this house in 1991?
Speaker 3:So we moved in this house in 1991, but I moved in this house in 1968, uh, in December 18th, uh, as a four year old. My parents, my parents, bought this house and then, uh, this was the house that my most, that all of us grew up not most that all of us grew up, not all of us, but most of us grew up in and in 91, when my mother was getting ready to retire, I convinced her that it was time to sell. And we've lived here. We moved in September of 91. Our son was born in November of 91. So this is the only house he knows.
Speaker 3:But so I would commute back and forth, I would drive myself back and forth. So for them, here didn't change a lot. Where it changed was when the aspects of social media could play to. You know, get involved. You know, people can say whatever they want. Uh, on social media, it doesn't have to be factual, it doesn't have to be true, and it can be, uh, their own echo chamber, uh and uh. So it's one thing when they're debating issues, quite another when they're personalizing it in a way that, um, you know, I would say this that you know both of you probably think your parents are okay.
Speaker 3:Most people do, uh, my kids thought I was okay most of the time, uh. So to hear that on a on a consistent basis was it wasn't easy for them, um, but the longer we were in it, the tougher they got Uh and uh, I think they believed that I was doing what I was doing was because I believed it was right. Yeah, and they would be the first ones to tell you that there was no real benefit in it for me or them. As a matter of fact, it was kind of the opposite. But for them, for me, I loved the job. I loved it to the day I left. But, yeah, so they would say to you that in our normal quote-unquote life here, not much had changed.
Speaker 2:And I mean, it's kind of like you would have seen through your time originally in politics and then becoming leader, and then social media has just grown and grown. Have seen through your time originally in politics and then becoming leader, and then, you know, social media has just grown and grown and grown through your time and I mean I remember one.
Speaker 1:One movement against you at one point was the. Was the film taxing right?
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Like. I remember that on Twitter and I was probably one of the ones that probably hit a couple of like buttons against you at that point Cause I was big on the tax credit. You what?
Speaker 2:sorry, I just want to be honest.
Speaker 1:I I like I really like chatting with right now. That was a moment, though, in time. I remember that people were really like how did you deal with that? Like, I mean, that was must have been like a massive shift, and you never get in a you should never get in a fight with professional communicators yeah, I like that it's like.
Speaker 3:It's like they say arguing with the media, they got a barrel of of ink. You shouldn't argue with them. Right, it was because what we did, I believe it would be right, and here's what I'll tell you. It has stood the test of time.
Speaker 1:Sure yeah.
Speaker 3:The current government hasn't changed it. The one that followed me didn't change it. They made some adjustments to it, but in principle they didn't change the philosophical position that we were going to have an all-in Nova Scotia spend, not a credit based on just labor. Why this is important? Why we felt and, if you go back and look at it, not that we want to rehash this- no, no, no.
Speaker 1:Someone's going to call us out and say, why didn't you ask him about that? Well, it was a tax credit. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:So what it meant was. So, the more we as government talked about it, we potentially were revealing people's personal tax information because there was such a small subset of people who were making a lot of money while others were making money I'm not questioning that, uh when, the more we started talking about it and the amount of money we were spending, we're saying to ourselves, okay, well, this is, we got a problem here. Yeah. So we said how do we look at this to make it more open and transparent? So Nova Scotians know what we're spending and, at the same time, make it a broader spend in the province.
Speaker 3:So, if you go back and look at what the changes we made, was a uh, a 25% all in. So it wasn't just labor, it was hotel rooms. There's gear that's sitting around here If you bought it in Nova Scotia, uh, food, uh, all of that stuff that was in Nova Scotia by uh was portion was part of that. That was a Nova Scotia buy was part of that. I'm not dismissing and I'm not diminishing the anxiety people felt, because there was. You know, could we have communicated better? Sure, yeah.
Speaker 1:Oh, actually I'm thinking right now, as you just said that last bit. I should check our buddy Dave here when he helps us with taxes this year for doing all the tax stuff right for the gear.
Speaker 3:So as long as you bought it in Nova Scotia.
Speaker 1:Yes, Well, I bought it off Amazon. Oh well, then you might have a problem.
Speaker 2:You might have a problem. Oh, okay, it was bought in Nova Scotia, not from Nova Scotia, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:So and the current coverage made changes around a bigger percentage outside. Garden Garden's made changes around a bigger percentage outside. There was a conversation that started from when we were in government about doing a sound stage production place in Nova Scotia. I think they're moving on that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're moving ahead. I think that's actually great for the province. 100%, 100% yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, depending on how it's structured, meaning as long as it's for the province. A hundred percent, a hundred percent, yeah, yeah, depending on how it's structured, meaning it's for as long as it's for the industry. So that really what that was, and it turned out to be a yeah. So that was one of the ones that became. We had many labor disputes, we had lots of disagreements with people over over things, but the one that people remember the most is the film.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:Uh, film one, because we had the trailer park boys and everyone out protesting us outside Provincest.
Speaker 2:The teachers was a big one. The teachers was a big one, yeah, like my wife's a teacher, so your wife's a teacher.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, you got the film guy and the teacher guy here.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly, police officer, teachers or people who were connected.
Speaker 2:Your brother was a principal or something right he was.
Speaker 3:How was? That Around the family dinner tables oh great Because philosophically they knew that what I was trying to accomplish was believably the right thing.
Speaker 2:Right, I will tell you one thing my wife is a very, very reasonable person.
Speaker 1:um and uh we she listens to every minute of every episode.
Speaker 2:Yes, he has to say this exactly no, she's, she, she's, she's a very reasonable person. She's a true, true teacher. And what I mean when I say that is like uh, she didn't care about the long service award, um, she cared more about just getting more help. She was okay with her salary, you know. Obviously. You know everyone wants to get a little bit paid a little bit more, probably more now than back then, but she was, honestly, her big thing was just like we need more help.
Speaker 3:So it was really interesting, first of all, I think, your wife and all of her colleagues. There is no profession I believe that has a greater impact on our future than education. Yeah, we all remember great teachers. Yeah, I can give you a list of the ones in mind. Well, we talked about one of them. Yeah, that have an impact generationally. Yes, so that was never.
Speaker 3:And when I believed, when I was coming in, we wanted to invest in classrooms. One thing that was lost prior to us coming in, there were cuts in the classroom. We restored all of those, yeah, side of. And what became very clear to me after the third collective agreement we negotiated with the union? Uh, that the union didn't know what their teachers wanted either. Because if you look at collective bargaining, I don't get the right to actually go talk to classroom teachers in the bargaining process. Right, that process belongs to the union.
Speaker 3:Union is, it's dictated. We negotiate with the union. And it's not just the dictated. We negotiate with the union. And it's not just the teacher's union. It could be the Nova Scotia Government Employees Union, it could be. It's up to the union to know what their members wanted. After the third rejection of a deal that we had, we knew that they didn't know either. So we were in this kind of odd place. Teachers were by themselves feeling very angry rightfully so not feeling the investments Because we had put money in classrooms. We obviously missed the mark because they weren't seeing it. But I can tell you the budget was identifying, there was more money but we weren't hitting the mark, obviously. But the people who were sent to the bargaining table didn't know either.
Speaker 3:Fair yeah, so were there we quickly learned they were equally as mad at the union as they were at government.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm pretty sure they ousted the union leader right after.
Speaker 3:Well, that was part of the issue, yeah, but there was also internal political stuff going on in the union.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:I'm I'm being frank here, so I hope your wife listens. Uh, you know they were also having their own internal battles.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know, just like tim houston wanted to replace me yep, they had people inside the union. I would argue that wanted to replace, uh, the current president at the time. Fair enough, so there was always that I'm loyal with, instead of fighting about what was in the classroom. So, post that, we put 10 million aside and said tell us how you want to invest it. And we put this group together and it was classroom teachers. Ironically, the courts didn't agree with us because they said we were acting against collective bargaining. And I argued, and I still argue to this day, that the courts missed the point. We put together this group on classroom conditions, which was 12 teachers, I believe, one government and one union person, and the courts believed that we should have not we overstepped with the union, we should have allowed the union to have more spots. But my argument is the teachers are the union. Yeah, without them, and we needed to know what they were saying. So, listen, I understand and I don't.
Speaker 3:You know why there was a level of uh, of anger, and it wasn't just generated at that moment in time. It's been building, for it was building when I got elected. It was building before I got elected. Um, because the complexities have changed um and we have a very inclusive school system, which I'm fully in support of. Um, well, that's a whole other topic, but we didn't keep track of. But what we didn't keep pace with was the investment required to ensure that that inclusion was functioning at a rate that is benefiting all students. So that's a long answer to go back to. We went from film to this. Is there anything else? You two?
Speaker 2:boys want to know that I didn't.
Speaker 2:I will say, though, the one thing that I actually really like, and I actually the one thing I like the change that you made when it came to the teachers' negotiations and all that stuff, and I think my wife initially wasn't for it.
Speaker 2:But then, when I sat and this is the hard thing about being in a position that you're in is you have media trying to get you know, sell newspapers, sell whatever headlines and things like that, where you don't get like nuanced conversations sometimes, especially with the one-off or whatever it may be. But I had the conversation with my wife about how principals and the admin should not be in the same union as teachers, and she disagreed with me at the time, but I would say that she's come around on that sense. The thing is is she had a great, great, great principal when she was doing there, and she was like what are you talking about? She's like I want her in the same union. She's, you know whatever. But then when you have principals who maybe aren't so as involved or as great, you start to realize that they're your boss Now. They're your manager, and do realize that they're your boss now they're your manager. And do you really want a union that's representing both of you?
Speaker 3:and I think no, the answer is no, so I think that was good. Okay, it was one of the few places in in all of our where, where the, where the administration and and the people they were in charge of were in the same collective bargaining, um, and and. There are great principles and it really was. You know, the changes that we made were tough. You're good.
Speaker 1:You want half of it. No, you go ahead, okay.
Speaker 3:I'm just looking with envy at that Vickers Cross and Purple Grain.
Speaker 1:I know it's hard looking at the real stuff grass and purple grain down.
Speaker 3:I know it's hard looking at the real stuff, um, but it to me that that the change was about the, the, because what would happen is if the what? So in your wife's case, yeah, she, she had a great relationship, right. But if something soured that or something changed within the school, who's representing who exactly? Uh, so that what it became an issue? It wasn't anything other than okay, how do we, how do we set this out? And and uh, but as I as again, uh, no one's changed it. I always used to say a test of public policy is whether or not the people that follow you change it. Brian mulrooney brought in free trade. We, we ran elections on free trade. Yeah, you know what. We ran elections on GST. Yeah, no government that followed them changed them. Right, that tells you the policy, while difficult on the front end, wasn't as scary as everyone anticipated it to be. As a matter of fact, it would, in lots of ways, could be a benefit to them. I believe some of the changes we made provincially have passed that test as well.
Speaker 2:That leads me to something I wonder Is there any change that you ran on that you looked at, because previews is the NDP. So when you won, is there anything that you were really gung-ho about doing and that you just couldn't get done within your mandate? Was there anything that you're kind of like, ah, I didn't get to do that kind of thing.
Speaker 3:No, I would have liked a few things to be a lot smoother, okay, but no, I mean, I and people were surprised when I left. They thought I was either not well or something which it was. None of that, I believe. There's just a window and you do what you can do, and if I hadn't done it by then I wasn't getting it done. It was that kind of simple for me.
Speaker 3:But no, we also came in at a time when the province was fiscally in a very difficult spot. We were over half a billion dollars on an operating deficit, not to talk about our long-term debt. Our long-term debt which had been accumulated was really not on infrastructure, it was year-to to year overspending. Yeah, and so we were. You know we had tough things to do, one of them being, you know, we had to look at the healthcare infrastructure. Yeah, if you go by Bears Lake, there's a facility in Bears Lake. That was the decision that we made.
Speaker 3:If you look at some of the changes in Dartmouth not all of them the current government made some as well, where we increased the operating rooms in Dartmouth. It put eight new operating theaters in Dartmouth. If you go down to the we made the decision that the VG was going. We had to. We started making changes, we were going to P3 the whole project, except for what happened inside the current footprint. When we started, actually and it's it's a really an interesting thing the cancer care wasn't moving with the rest of it and it became, you know, and people were raising the question because there were issues at the cancer care with water issues. So that's why so, when we decided to move it uh, look at our neighbors, look at the fox, welcome to the country boys we then realized, okay, we had to bury the bunker. So the best spot for us was where the, where the current or the old parking garage was. So, if remember, there was lots of noise about the parking garage.
Speaker 3:That's right, yes, well, that started to build and then we bought the old CBC building and you're going to see that come out of the ground. The new government came in and started, I think, trying to put their own fingerprints on what hadn't been done. They couldn't really do anything in Bears Lake because it had gone far enough. The stuff we did in Dartmouth they added to this one. They tried to put their fingerprints on it. I think, by and large, it's going to go along. It's going to end up, other than being delayed by a couple of years, it will go on to what was the original project.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay, cool. I mean, vg needs something fierce.
Speaker 3:We all do. But here's what I would say to you, and this is where we looked at. So if this was a greenfield today, you wouldn't put it downtown Halifax simply because it's a peninsula. You're driving everyone downtown. That's why we moved. That's why we did the one at Bears Lake. The 102, the 103 meet there. If you look in Dartmouth, Dartmouth General is a gem.
Speaker 2:It's a fantastic facility.
Speaker 3:It is and it should have been long before our time a bigger part of the healthcare conversation.
Speaker 2:They do some really, really great things for being you know. It's amazing.
Speaker 3:There's a number of them, but it's also proximity People who are coming in from Cape Breton, coming in even from the valley. I often go through Dartmouth over the bridge to go downtown to the office, so it's on the outskirts. There's so many people in the province who've never been downtown or, if they have been, somebody's driven them. So when you get called for a consult, you get called for needing to see a follow-up on a surgery. People can do that out in the Bears Lake area or in Dartmouth or other spots. The current government announced, in addition to the Lower Sackville, at the Cobb Quidd Center you capture more people. When we did the VG over, we built and opened a new operating room in Windsor. Yeah, we took 800 surgeries that were happening on downtown Halifax to Windsor.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And I used to say the distance from Windsor to Halifax is the same as it is from Halifax to Windsor. So if we can travel in, someone can travel out.
Speaker 2:And Windsor's really not that far. Honestly, no, yeah, it's really not that bad.
Speaker 3:I used to say, and we used this one One of the reasons we were looking at one health care authority was because we needed decisions being made as objectively to meet the needs of the citizens today. Right, and so when these infrastructure changes were happening, like, I accessed the healthcare system for surgery when I was in, but I did it in Amherst because the shortest wait list was where I could go, so then I could drive and if not, someone could drive me. Right, you know, great place. New Glasgow was during my time. I'm sure it still is. Lots of orthopedic surgery happened there. Great location, but we're not that big. You can drive this province. And the fact that we're so mobile today, you know, and it's easy to do, and for those who can't, it just means when some of us who can do it, it frees up our local.
Speaker 1:I just had my hernia repair. As I think I was telling you before the show, this is done down in Bridgewater.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Great spot.
Speaker 1:It's kind of neat how we're starting to look at those solutions. Mr Fury was after me all the time we had an announcement down there.
Speaker 3:It was actually started. I remember doing the announcement when we did it with Mr Fury, but Dave Wilson, who was at the time the health minister with the NDP, was a portion of that and he was there when we did the big announcement, which I acknowledged his contribution to that. I've often said there's lots of reasons why we replace governments, but not everything that they've done is bad, and I think it's important, when you're given the you've given the privilege to be the next government, that you acknowledge the things they did, and we were able to do that, particularly in Bridgewater.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's, it's true. So you know it's great when you can see, you know, different parties and governments kind of moving forward to, you know, do what's best for Nova Scotians. But was there anyone Because anyone who watches anything there's opposition and all that stuff Was there anyone in particular who kind of really kind of got under your skin a little bit?
Speaker 3:No, no, he can't answer that. Yeah, he can. He's retired now.
Speaker 2:He can say whatever he wants.
Speaker 3:You don't know me too well.
Speaker 2:Yes, I can.
Speaker 3:No, no. I would say to you that you know. I knew they wanted the job I had. I spent a period of time in opposition. I know what it's like.
Speaker 1:That's right, yeah.
Speaker 3:You try to you recognize they are doing as much to try to shine a light on things they think you're not doing well.
Speaker 3:Right things they think you're not doing well, right? Yeah, one of the challenges you run into is, I would say to you that so much of the collective bargaining process is faced. We spend too much time on wages and benefits, okay, and not enough about workplace. You mentioned earlier about classroom. Not enough of those types of things are brought to the bargaining table. Yeah, it always boils down to a percentage of and I get it Historically. If you look at it, that's what we're fighting to get paid properly, Right, we all would like a little more, but I think we really sat down and had a chance to sit down and talk to the men and women who were doing the actual work. It's not their number one priority.
Speaker 3:Their number one priority is yes, give me a little bit here or there yeah, but can you improve my daily life, whether it's in a classroom, whether it's in a classroom, whether it's in an office space, whether, quite frankly, it's out in the field plowing and cleaning the roads.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean that's, that's. I mean I think we're. We're at a point now where I think there's a lot of Canadians and I'll just say broadly like they, they and I it's not particularly Nova Scotia, but I think it's like if you can't pay me more, can you make my? Way of life a little easier right there, people are definitely looking for a break. Right now.
Speaker 2:People are looking for a break for sure, in terms of wages, but I think, like, in particular, like you know, um it's, I'll speak. You know I can't speak for teachers because I'm not one, but I can kind of. My understanding of listening to teachers is that they want to feel like they're appreciated, uh, and teacher burnout tends to be a really, really big thing.
Speaker 1:But it's the same in the hospitals.
Speaker 2:No, no, it's true, but how you fix burnout in general is not like give me a 10% raise, it's. How do we fix the conditions that you're in.
Speaker 1:Right that you're not working.
Speaker 3:I used to say if you're burned out and I pay you 10% more, you're still burned out. Exactly no that's very true, so tell me what else I need to do that was always one of the things.
Speaker 3:It's the same thing. Quite frankly, you hit on the head. We have this issue in health care, but I've always argued the health care challenge you have, you and I have come to expect a certain thing. We want it not to change. We want it to be the same way it had for our parents, right? Yet the people who are delivering it have changed, our practices have changed Our policies, just haven't kept up to them. I'll give you an example. And it was because of COVID Right, why it happened Virtual care.
Speaker 1:So, andrea, my Andrea, she it works with 811.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so 811 was before 811 started in 2007, I think 8. Yeah, which was great. You called in and a nurse would be. We used to say here, our old 811 was we would call the hospital in Annapolis and an experienced nurse would be answering the phone or get you on the phone and they would say, yeah, I know, yeah, come in. Or the doctor would be in at eight o'clock or, quite frankly, you're pretty good.
Speaker 1:Call the doctor in the morning, yeah.
Speaker 3:But what's happening now, though? So this is the prime example. You have blood work. Well, if there's no issue and your doctor sees them, what's wrong with us figuring out how to compensate your doctor to call you, walk you through the blood issues, say you're good to go?
Speaker 1:This will be controversial, but I love virtual care. I do too, and it's not just Andrea, I mean you have strep throat, I have to go sit in a waiting room with a bunch of other sick people and wait for 40 minutes for something I know I have.
Speaker 3:You and I carry this around.
Speaker 1:Our lives are on it, yeah.
Speaker 3:Every part of our life is on our phone and on our email.
Speaker 3:Yeah, why is healthcare? Well, part of it was and I would, you know, we were part of the problem as government because you know, I'm sure if it had well, it's irrelevant at this point Right, we needed people to have access to care somehow, and we were restricting how that was happening. So this became a natural part of that. And I listen, I've had a number of one where I would go and have an in-person and the follow-up might be virtual or on the phone. So I think these things are to go back to what we were talking about. These are the kinds of conversations about how we modernize a system that meets the needs of the people who are accessing it, whether it's a student or a patient, to meet the modern time and to understand that the people who are caring for us don't want to operate in a system that their forefathers did. They want it to be more modernized.
Speaker 2:And that's the thing is, I think, how we fix healthcare I mean, I'm by no means an expert in it, but I mean how we fix healthcare is it's going to be more than one solution.
Speaker 3:Oh, yeah, yeah, and, and and. You know, listen, you're going to be an expert by the time we're done here.
Speaker 2:You're drinking that boxing rock. So I think we're done.
Speaker 1:Here you're drinking that boxing rock.
Speaker 2:You're halfway there. You're gonna be good to go. So I think, yeah. But I mean, virtual care is a great thing. I do like the more recent change of uh, you know, when you get strep throat you can go to a pharmacist.
Speaker 1:I think giving pharmacists more power makes sense give nurses more power too giving nurses more power, 100 there's one person I trust when I, when I have an injury, I'm like Andrea, and this is the thing is like I always say.
Speaker 2:it's like why you know, if you have diabetes or you have ADHD or anything and this is a thing that you have, that you need to be on medication for the rest of your life. Why do you have to go and take up a doctor's appointment to go and get that prescription?
Speaker 1:I don't think Mexico does okay actually, but realistically it's like you go down there you can get Was there an immaculate so many drugs, that just don't really.
Speaker 2:Well, those are other drugs. I like knowing that in a couple of ways.
Speaker 1:No, but I mean the drugs that you need that aren't addictive they don't really have.
Speaker 3:We call them medication.
Speaker 1:Medications, that's the word.
Speaker 3:We can go to Mexico to get drugs.
Speaker 2:But it's one of those things where I think, if you are on meds that are not going anywhere, just get someone like a pharmacist to refill them and not take up a time.
Speaker 3:So again, we're getting way deep in something that uh, but, but 100. Some of that can happen, but there's a model that works, because some of that you require to go see you. You know, let's use blood pressure medication for a period of time. Um, you know, do you need to see if someone every three months? I think there's a good question, but, but you need to make sure that you have seen your practitioner, your nurse practitioner, a doctor. In the front end of our mandate, a seniors pharmacare review, where we paid the pharmacist to go over. If you're a senior and you run numbers of lots of medication, we would have them review you annually to make sure there's no interaction amongst the medication. And pharmacists play a huge role. That's really what they do. Is what is the you know, from a medicational point of view, drugs?
Speaker 2:you can argue that pharmacists probably know more about that than some doctors.
Speaker 3:A lot of times, yeah, you could argue, but I'm gonna. I'm out of politics.
Speaker 2:I'll let you two argue that so you know we you mentioned covet like. Do you feel at all that covet like derailed anything in terms of what you had kind of planned?
Speaker 3:I think COVID was a massive in some ways. There were challenges with COVID and there were opportunities with COVID. Covid obviously put about 40% of our economy in real jeopardy Right economy in real jeopardy Right. You know, any personal care restaurants we're talking about health care. We had to change how we did that, dentistry, all of the things that we were doing. But then there was also that portion of the private sector restaurants. Any businesses where we were really closing you down, preventing people from coming for a period of time, had a huge hit on their bottom line. The province itself stayed fairly well. We were able to. We stayed well in terms of how Nova Scotians rallied around handling the pandemic. But fiscally we stayed okay too, because we knew and we felt we were all going to hurt.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:There was no way to prevent that. Well, all we could do is help mitigate some of it. So we tried to. How do we dovetail provincial supports in with what the federal government was doing? So we would kind of make sure that we didn't leave. We tried not to leave somebody behind in the sense of people still lost money. I know it's suggesting that like the rents ups yeah for restaurants.
Speaker 3:The people lost, it was hard to recover from them and on top of that, I'm telling people to stay the blazes home. Yes, and then on top.
Speaker 2:You should have trademarked, by the way.
Speaker 3:Well, I'd like to tell you it was my idea, but, uh, it was my chief of staff's phrase, I just happened to be the one to mouth it, but it was, you know. So even when we started opening up, we were still you know, we still put in the psyche of people to stay home and it took a period of time to come back. But because of the way Nova Scotians responded, because of the way the infection rate stayed down, we were getting we had articles in the New York Times, we were getting articles places of the success that we were having. The Atlantic bubble took off in a big, big way, Right yeah.
Speaker 3:So part of our immigration that's happened was because of the publicity and the effect that happened from COVID.
Speaker 2:It was part of that Our film industry bounced back because of it. Like that's their words.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. They would never want to acknowledge the fact that they figured out how to use the new system.
Speaker 1:Oh, shots fired, Shots fired.
Speaker 2:But you know what, honestly, I think, here's the thing that this is what I find. I actually find this fascinating. We can get into all the what ifs and all that stuff, but covid, and in particular your leadership through it, is a really interesting thing because, as we talked before, film we the film stuff, the teacher stuff. Like you were, you took a very uh, you know, conservative approach is that a bad word?
Speaker 2:yeah, but you took a very conservative approach in some, in some aspects where, like some people may not think, a, you know, a quote-unquote liberal might take, yeah, um, but I mean certainly, like we were talking about this in the car we were conservative liberal and there's the fact that there's good, there's great liberal conservatives, there's great conservative liberals, that's right.
Speaker 1:And we found like there's a weird thing that we found like there's often when one can kind of think a little bit more about column B and not just be on column A, there are great political leaders in many places, not just talking Canada.
Speaker 3:Well, I would argue, in Nova Scotia, if you go back and look, the biggest socialist governments we've had have been conservative.
Speaker 2:Yeah, buchanan was.
Speaker 1:I just want to know why do you say that?
Speaker 3:Premier Buchanan, who I came to quite like lots of great stories about him.
Speaker 1:Because he knew my grandparents.
Speaker 3:He was a great politician in the sense that he knew your name, your grandfather's name and, by the way, if you had a dog, you knew your dog's name.
Speaker 2:It's scary.
Speaker 3:It's canning, what he could remember and he made you feel good, but at the end of the day, he never said no. So we had a fiscal, we had the deficits that we were operating on and it wasn't unique, in fairness, to him, it wasn't unique just to Nova Scotia. At that modern time we were running deficits both nationally and at other provinces.
Speaker 2:I do think also, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think more schools and hospitals went up in Buchanan's term than any other period.
Speaker 3:Well, so here's what I would say to you. This is where I might disagree.
Speaker 1:And to people listening. We have all ages listening to the show. So what year was Buchanan on he?
Speaker 3:would have been elected in 1978, and he stayed until 1993.
Speaker 1:So he was— I don't go back that far Long period, okay, yeah, wow, never lost an election.
Speaker 3:So we had massive, so we were running operating deficits, which means so, when you go back then Dr Savage came in with the fiscal health of the province and people don't believe this but every year the bonding agency would talk to our government. The bonding agency would have talked to his government and I bet you they would have said to him and I haven't talked to, obviously I bet they would have said to him you better figure this out or else we're going to figure it out for you. People don't believe that happens, but the reality of it is we operate on bonds that we borrow into the marketplace. I don't know where people think the money comes from, but we go out into the market to get bonds and we operate on that. Well, the money was starting to tighten up and people were starting to say you're getting to a point where you have to make tough decisions as a government both. So he made them.
Speaker 3:And then, if you go in, uh, uh, dr Ham operated with uh, some, some surplus, uh, some, uh with some surpluses, at a time when the federal government was spending a lot of money on on healthcare, um, you know. But so you fast forward all of that. Daryl Dexter ran an actual. If you look at Dexter's government, he ran through the largest financial crisis globally in the 2008, 9, 10 era.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he did.
Speaker 3:But he ran a government with some level of thought about the fiscal challenges.
Speaker 2:He was very much a centered NDPer.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and he had a tough time. They came in at a very difficult time for the province globally, not just here, with the meltdown, um. And then I mean there were things that you know we could argue about, as everyone would with what I did, um. And then we came in at 13 with a, you know we were um about a 600 million dollar annual deficit. To go back to your point about building schools, we had about a $15 billion debt. Two-thirds of that was on covering operating debt, not capital. So we ended up with this massive. You know I should have never had to deal with the VG it should have been dealt with by previous governments, because that's not new.
Speaker 3:That was happening for periods of time. So, when you come in, we were trying to get our fiscal house in order, and there's only a few places government can do that. We were an aging population. We were out migration. Our population was declining. Yeah, that's right, I were out migration. Our population was declining.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's right. I remember, year over year, our population was going down here in Nova Scotia I do remember that.
Speaker 3:Well, not only was it going down, we were getting older. Yes, so I was born in 1964, just turned 60 in November, in 2017, I believe it was 2017 or 18, was the first time in my lifetime that our average got younger. Wow. And if you go to 2015, my first two years in government our first two years in government, we had out-migration. 2015 on, we had in-migration. We had started to make changes and you know, other people can make their own decisions. Why that happened.
Speaker 2:And then COVID hit and we saw a bunch come here.
Speaker 3:Well, COVID put it on steroids, yeah. And so to go back to your point, that's why I would say, you know one of the voters confused about political labels in the province.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's confusing yeah.
Speaker 3:But I would argue that a liberal is someone who cares about the finances of the province. Yeah, it's confusing. Yeah, but I would argue that a liberal is someone who cares about the finances of the province. Yes, I always used to believe. It's not a question of what you do. It's a question of what you do with what the surplus is.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 3:So do you say, okay, I'm going to now take that money, cut taxes, whatever. You make that decision. We introduced pre-primary, which was, in my view, the largest social program in my lifetime. Every four-year-old in Nova Scotia today, if they choose, enters public education at four in an evidence-based, play-based pre-primary. Did we introduce it perfectly? No, is it getting improved? Yes, I think the current government made a good decision by bringing it all in under the principles of a particular school making it, pre-primary is important.
Speaker 1:We actually work I just registered my son yesterday for pre-primary.
Speaker 3:No, I think it's a great. You'll love it.
Speaker 2:You'll love it oh, I think so, and every time you drop them off. Oh, thank you.
Speaker 2:Like I said I was kind of like leading into, like the fact that there you know, there was a couple thank you, like I said I was kind of like leading into, like the fact that there, you know, there was a couple of things in there that were you know, there was a couple of things in there that we had where it was. Like, you know, there might've become some controversy and things like that. Any, every government is going to be faced with some things, some things. But COVID come, and this is what I find fascinating is, I think, because your leadership was so good and so strong, standing like personal opinion but standing above pretty much every premier in in this country. Um, and you know you have my wife as a teacher who might have been like not so happy with, you know, liberal government kind of was like okay, well, this is actually they're doing a great job, kind of thing and they've managed this thing really well. I think if you didn't call it quits, I think you could have won another term.
Speaker 3:So we felt that we could. Our numbers indicated that, to be honest with you. But that wasn't for me. I was ready Because I philosophically believe. Could I have squeezed out another one? Yes, and I think we would have had a bigger number. But my problem, I wouldn't have stayed. So I would have stayed for a year maybe. So, on a personal level, I would have been going around and asking people you know to run for me, put their life on hold again, people who worked for me to do that, get re-elected, and then I leave yeah 12 months later, they're stuck there for four years fair enough
Speaker 3:so an all good conscience for me to the people around me who were long-term employees or long-term members. Uh, I didn't feel that I could do that without telling them that, hey, either, I was going to tell them up front yeah, I'm going through the election but I'm out right. Um and I also think for a government, two terms is a long time in this day and age it is um, covet, resurrected us politically. Uh, in lots of ways, um, you know, dr strang and I were. We did it a little differently here than anywhere else, not only in canada, but, I would argue, in north america, probably anywhere else uh, everyone saw you every day, like people were looking to you literally every day.
Speaker 2:But what they did, what they did, what was different? What was?
Speaker 3:different here is people never saw me without Dr Strang and they never saw Dr Strang without me. Yes, so it wasn't. So there was a level of reassurance here that the guy who manages the science of this is here, yep, and the guy who manages the operational stuff of the province. In terms of how do we manage our economy, they're on the same page. Yes, we didn't always agree necessarily when we went to the boardroom.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's fair, but when we left.
Speaker 3:We did, yeah, and it wasn't that we had any big discrepancies between us and it wasn't really my chief of staff was a big part of that, but we had. So I think from a citizen's point of view there was a level of reassurance and I felt that, you know, people who know me said it was the first time really Nova Scotians got to see me as who I was. It was also a very difficult time for the province in other ways. Portapique happened.
Speaker 1:We had lost a helicopter off the coast of.
Speaker 3:Greece, at Nova Scotia, one of the snowbirds was a Nova Scotian. Not far from here we lost a fishing vessel where six people perished. So it was a lot of death happening at one time, and so COVID was just a big, was a part of that, but it gave us a chance and we, you know, we, both, dr Strang and I, would say to you I think he'd say this we anguished over every death, yeah, even though you know we may have had fewer, we may have, but one is one too many.
Speaker 2:No, I agree with you, because you know what we look at. Often we look at numbers of people and they're just numbers on a board to me, to you, whatever Right, but that could be someone's entire world.
Speaker 3:Well, and we would know some of them. Exactly yeah, if I might know them directly.
Speaker 1:It's lost in the conversations today about COVID. I think the people we lost and the individuals yeah.
Speaker 3:Big time and the impact that happened and you know anyway. So it was definitely a time of real transition and out of that came economic growth. Population generates revenue. Growth, uh, population generates revenue. Uh, surprisingly enough, inflation, which impacts you and I in a negative way, increase government revenues I think we're about to come into some very difficult rocky waters in the next 12 to 18 months, 24 months around, the fiscal challenges of provincial revenues and and I would argue, not just here but across the region.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, yeah, because we're looking at multiple elections that are happening all within like a six-month period. I mean like we just had a provincial election but now we're on the brink of a federal election and we have a neighbors to the south election. That's changing hands.
Speaker 1:That's all impacting how we do business yeah, what do you think about that mess?
Speaker 3:well I've been. The prime minister's asked me to sit down on a council with some people who are dealing with that administration or looking at how do we deal with what is potentially the tariffs that are coming. Um, we had a meeting last week and I'm going to go to Ottawa this week to sit in on another one. I mean, it'll determine what he does. Often, I mean he's going to do something. His rhetoric doesn't always match his actions, so I think we need to be mindful of that. There's a lot of anxiety about the 25% which the 25% which is all real and how do?
Speaker 3:you manage it, but let's, before we start publicly debating how we're going to deal with him, let's try to figure out what he's actually going to do and he's demonstrated. To be honest, it's the art of the deal.
Speaker 2:He wants a deal, yeah, so we'll figure out what's the best way to deal with it, but you would have dealt with like Trump policies in like in his first term anyway, yeah I was, I was there. Uh, that was during my time yeah um then, um, yeah, he was an interesting uh uh did you get to actually meet him and have a conversation with him?
Speaker 3:not him. We I dealt usually with governors. I dealt with Secretary of Commerce Ross Wilbert Ross, who was there. I would have dealt with some senior people that would have been in his, but not him. No, that is the prime minister and the president. The rest of us would deal with governors and sub-nationals.
Speaker 2:And that makes sense. I just wasn't sure, because sometimes, sometimes you guys can all get in the same room together Sometimes.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, I wasn't with him, but I was in rooms with and I had meetings with the secretary of commerce really around Southwood lumber and some other stuff that was happening at the time. We weathered it actually really well, not bad. Nothing's perfect and, to be honest with you, the trade agreement I think, even though Trump was looking for a win out of it, the trade agreement is 25 years old. Yeah, you mentioned to me about social media. When I was elected in 2003, I never had a Facebook page, facebook just comes up.
Speaker 2:Did you have a MySpace page? Myspace, yeah, steve McNeil, liberal MySpace, my gosh.
Speaker 3:So none of that was part of the journey, none of it. And then in my dying days, if I jaywalked across the street from the office to the ledge or from the ledge to the caucus office, someone would notice I was jaywalking. Catch a clip.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly that is the crazy thing about the progress of things, and even now more so.
Speaker 1:It's like you know, elections are being determined much off major, like a lot of the more discussions are having being on online on TikTok and YouTube and all these other social medias than actual news channels and news organizations.
Speaker 3:Podcasts, podcasts have been a huge thing. It is, but it's been huge it's. But you also, mainstream media, yeah, is also under the same challenges. There, you know financial restrictions, there's lots of you know. You know we talked and one of your former guests, uh, worked for one of the national groups but uh, he, he, he was a rarity in terms of his longevity. There was lots of changes, especially in the private media, where they're squeezing the newsrooms.
Speaker 1:They're definitely squeezing the newsrooms when.
Speaker 3:I got elected in 2003 to when I left, the number of people who covered the Nova Scotia legislature and news outlets that covered Nova Scotia. It shrunk in such a way. The other thing which really happened and I think is a disservice to citizens people who would cover you, like the day-to-day operation. When I first got elected, it was the reporters that were at Provinces. All of those outlets, whether it was CBC, the Daily News at the time, the Herald all had editorial writers. They were different from the people who managed that.
Speaker 1:And back then too, editorial was a little bit more fleshed out than opinion. Writers that are more relevant today, and I mean I think editorial and opinion are. I mean I know it's the same thing, but they are kind of a little different, if you know what I mean.
Speaker 3:Well, for example, david Rodenheiser used to do the Daily News and Marilla was one of the people who you would hear from with the Herald. I would rarely see them. You know on the day-to-day stuff of what was happening and they gave a more fleshed-out, fleshed-out. Thank you, yes, a view, a more fleshed out.
Speaker 1:Fleshed out, thank you, yes, view of what was up.
Speaker 3:Sure, it's been, and I don't mind if their opinion is that's after they've put some of their own flare into it. But in my view in today's world kind of hard to say. Someone's covering you objectively in the afternoon to cover a story and then on that night run an editorial with their opinion in it, uh, which is blasting the hell out of you. You can't tell me. On one hand, Right, and even if you can think you can do it, the perception of that is just simply yeah, you know, doesn't make sense. And that's where we're at today. Yeah, Uh, most of these, most of these organizations don't have editorial writers. They have people who cover this cycle and then they write an opinion. All Nova Scotia is a prime example.
Speaker 1:All right, yeah. So what's up for 2025? Yeah so you're going to help Mr Trudeau almost-to-Premier Minister Trudeau here next week.
Speaker 3:I'm one of a group of Canadians who is helping them build a bit of a strategy around how we deal with the first couple of months of the incoming president Amazing, and what else do you have? Well, I'm working at the law firm Cox and Palmer. They're a great group of people. They've been fabulous. I'm doing some business development things with them, which has been a great kind of a transition for me. Out of there. I'm doing some other work related to early childhood education with the McCain Family Foundation. Margie McCain Amazing, cool. Yeah, she was a big proponent of early childhood education. So I'm working with her and the group and kind of talking about our experiences as a government when we put it in, but also some of the things that we would change to make differently. And then I'm just doing some other stuff. Our children are involved in things. Our son's got a business, so I'm helping him a bit.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And we just had a grandson born a year ago. Oh, awesome.
Speaker 1:Congratulations yeah.
Speaker 3:He's now getting to the point where he's getting mobile. He's starting to hang on to. Things stand up start dope.
Speaker 2:Hang on to things stand up, Are you going to go full circle and maybe coach basketball to your grandson.
Speaker 3:Oh no, His father would never do that to him. I'll be a driver.
Speaker 2:That's probably what I'll be.
Speaker 3:I'll take him a driver and be a cheerleader. It's an exciting time.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, cheers to you, my friend. This was amazing. Thank you for inviting us to your home. That was really kind of you and now we go into a fun part of our show. Yeah, so we have 10 questions, so this is kind of silly questions that Matt and I wrote just on the drive here today.
Speaker 3:You boys put a lot of effort in preparing, did you?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, Didn't on the way down, oh yeah.
Speaker 3:Well, the 10 questions on the way down.
Speaker 2:I used to tell that to cabinet ministers.
Speaker 1:You're mailing it in to me if you're a fiction or what you're going to tell me on your way to the cabinet meeting. Well, we had two hours to get down here, so that's a lot of time to come up with 10 questions.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 10 questions no-transcript you want to turn these around? Do you catch them? Yeah, yeah, no, yeah, they're actually all the same both sides, seriously. So we're, yeah, they're actually all the same on both sides, seriously Sober. Yeah, there you go. So all good, yeah, perfect, and I'll put the Great Roads can face into them. There we go.
Speaker 3:Okay, we're rolling Pass me, those Vickers Cross and the.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you might as well. I've got to put a couple of those. Yeah, we can put them right there. Put them there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, lots of. Just looks like we had like a Sunday drink fest there.
Speaker 1:My gosh, it looks like a fun weekend.
Speaker 3:I'm telling you, I'm telling you.
Speaker 1:We're going to thank Sober Carpenter on this one for the 10 questions Sure. Just because they're sending us stuff. Yeah, all right, all right Now. So welcome to 10 questions with 10 questions with former Premier Stephen McNeil. So, matt, this is brought to you by Silver Carpenter. We're getting better at this.
Speaker 2:But yes, we got some beers here, non-alcoholic, large Canadian brewery. This is for the dry January crowd.
Speaker 3:Since we're on camera, we're drinking from a Garrison glass that has stayed at the Blaze's home on the back, and you boys are drinking from two glasses I bought at Annapolis Brewing Company there you go Annapolis Brewing Company, these are great glass actually.
Speaker 2:It's a good tasting glass actually.
Speaker 1:We also have representation from Great Roads. Brewing, that's Sackville. Lund's Mill, that's Muscadabit no.
Speaker 3:Listen, I've just gone through this.
Speaker 1:It's here in.
Speaker 3:Annapolis. County it's just down the street. This is a.
Speaker 1:Shelburne. I was just testing it to make sure you were paying attention.
Speaker 3:Yeah yeah.
Speaker 2:All right. So here we are for 10 questions brought to you by Silver Carpenter Question number one.
Speaker 1:You were once an appliance repairman, To your recollection which appliance was the most cumbersome to repair?
Speaker 3:Refrigerator trying to get it out.
Speaker 1:Trying to get it out. Getting out the fridge, All right. Question two Matt.
Speaker 2:Question number two.
Speaker 3:Are you a Tim Hortons or a Second Cup guy? Oh, Tim Hortons, I would have been Tim Hortons. I live in the Valley. Second Cup is not close by. As you drive between here and the city you'll see lots of Tim Hortons signs.
Speaker 1:All right, Great answer For the upcoming federal election. Are you a Kearney or Freeland guy?
Speaker 3:Oh, I'm going to continue to support the current prime minister in my efforts and then they'll determine at that. But I'll have a vote.
Speaker 1:That means you have to have a drink, my friend, sorry yeah question number four.
Speaker 2:So if reincarnation is a real thing and you had to pick to live your next life as any animal, what would it?
Speaker 1:be okay, you two boys are weird I'm just gonna tell you okay, it's the best I I just want to tell you that is not an upper-grammel question.
Speaker 3:That is not a question we would if you asked me if I was coming back as someone else. Maybe, but as an animal now, aren't you?
Speaker 1:You just pick one. Well, you know, animal, you're fond of Dogs, have it pretty good. Cats, you know.
Speaker 3:Oh, I think a guy that's six five probably has to say he's gonna be a draft.
Speaker 2:But did I not, he called it on the way, while we were writing the question, he called that and I went for ostrich and and matt said and there's no way he's gonna say, literally said that okay, next question, number five.
Speaker 1:Number five name a book that you think everyone should read, just any book that you're fond of that you think other people could get a lot out of from any time.
Speaker 3:There's a book called Both my Houses and it is about a member of parliament, a conservative member of parliament named Sean O'Sullivan. Sean was the youngest member of parliament at this time, elected in the Diefenbaker cabinet. Sean left. He was a really rough and tumble politician uh, really rough and tough, nasty as some would describe him and he left, uh, in five years into his mandate and became a Catholic priest. Uh, and the book is called both my houses and he describes in it, uh, careerist politicians and careerist people in the church that are climbing the ladder and attaching to people who they think are going to be successful. Sadly, sean only lived to be 39. He died of cancer. But it's a great book of, first of all, I think, looking at the institutions. You know you can extrapolate from the Catholic Church or a political party, but it talks about the inner workings of institutions and anyway it's quite fascinating Cool.
Speaker 2:Great answer. I like that. Yeah, all right. Question number six is what's one of your favorite albums or records? Wow, I didn't think we'd get a drink on that one.
Speaker 1:Okay, okay, this is a funny question, so you can answer why we're asking you this question. Matt came up with this one and explained it to me. Do you think in 2025, there is a place for men with beards in politics?
Speaker 3:And why are you?
Speaker 1:asking this question.
Speaker 3:Do? I think there is. Yeah, there's. Tom Mulcair had one. I think there is. Yeah, there's Tom Mulcair had one there is. I would say to you that, though, if that person had dark full head of hair and a dark beard at the time, they might want to shave it. Okay, my gosh, Did you know the story?
Speaker 1:No, tell us the story. I just want to listen to it, just in case.
Speaker 3:I was elected with a beard. I had a beard all of my adult life. I had it when I got married, shaved it on honeymoon and grew it back a few weeks later and then I got elected with it here. I became the leader of the Liberal Party with the beard.
Speaker 3:Um, and then, uh, you know, there was lots of discussion about the facial hair and it was really interesting for me. Um, I would always get, if I was on Steve Murphy or somewhere, I would always get an email or two about just shave. No one knew what I said, they were just looking at me and if you saw me in, so my beard was dark. No, I tried to keep it trimmed and my hair was dark. It's not gray like. It's not gray like it is now.
Speaker 3:So I, you know, I watched an interview I did with Murphy at the host it was a double ender, uh, where he was in the studio and I was at the host looking at a new camera in that December and that's when they decided to shave it off and I shaved it off and you know what it was interesting, People started to listen to what I was saying. Less about, but it depends. If you've got a receding hairline, you can get away with it. If you've got lighter hair, you can get away with it, Because it was never an issue when I talked to people like this, but because it was never an issue when I talked to people like this, but it was a real issue when people saw me on the camera, interesting.
Speaker 2:You kept it off, though no thought of bringing it back.
Speaker 3:No, I shade for you boys today. Oh okay, I go through periods of time where I'll go. If I'm home for five or six days, I'll let it grow. Golf season I'll put a little, you know, a couple of days of not shaving and go play golf.
Speaker 2:Perfect Question eight. All right, question number eight. So if Nova Scotia had a NHL team, what would their name be?
Speaker 3:Oh, you know what? There's been lots of good sports names. You know the Vs were great, the Voyagers. You know, the Hurricane I thought was an Halifax Hurricane. The basketball team was good, the Mooseheads are, you know, were good, but what would we name a hockey team? I think they're trying to figure that out in Utah, the Nova Scotia. I'm trying to figure it out.
Speaker 2:Yeah the Nova. What would?
Speaker 3:how about the Nova Scotia Renegades, renegades, renegades, like it, that's cool, could have been the. Nova Scotia blazes. Yeah, could have been. Yeah, yeah, you're way smarter at this than I am.
Speaker 1:There you go, okay. So we've asked many questions, all of our guest questions do you believe in aliens or do you believe in ghosts? But for you we wanted to try to change one. Do you believe that there could be a Sasquatch Like? Do you think the Sasquatch, the Bigfoot theories could be any like any possible way? There could actually be a Bigfoot out there.
Speaker 3:No, I don't, and I'll tell you why. With the amount of of clear cutting that has been happening, we're seeing wildlife move closer and closer to us. Well, SkySquad should have to.
Speaker 1:He'd be in Kamloops by now. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, it makes sense. Yeah, good answer, that's right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it makes sense yeah good answer, all right, so question number 10. This is the theme of 2025 for us Ask the same 10th question to everybody. So what is one piece of advice that you were given in life that you would?
Speaker 3:like to share with us and our listeners. You have two ears and one mouth. Use your ears twice as much as your mouth.
Speaker 2:That is not the first time I've heard that advice.
Speaker 3:It sounds like something my parents would say got that advice from someone exactly my my mother would have given that advice to uh me, but the reality of it is we do need to listen to one another more, uh uh. You know we were talking a lot about my time in government. There was a lot of you know, you're always everyone's trying to get their own points of view out. I've got a window to try to do what I'm trying to do and sometimes we don't spend enough time pausing. I think COVID forced us to do some of that. I think COVID in many ways, forced us to kind of reflect a little bit about our lives and the treadmill we were on.
Speaker 3:So I hope in 2025, that we would spend more time listening to one another. And it doesn't mean we agree. I mean that's one of the things that at the end of the day, we don't agree, but try to understand everyone's position, not to take it back to politics, but the First Minister's meeting is always that case. Every premier and territorial leader comes uh to the meetings representing the region, but in the day, you hope everyone gets the table focused on Canada. Um, and more often than not that happens not currently happening, but more often than not it happens. So I hope that happens for us individually that we spend more time talking to those who don't necessarily see the world the way we see it, but at least hear their point of view.
Speaker 1:Great answer. I love that Great answer.
Speaker 2:I think that's what we're all about. Well, cheers to you, stephen. Yeah, cheers, cheers, yeah.
