Former NDP Premier Darrell Dexter On Leadership, Energy Policy & Transformational Government

Former NDP Nova Scotia premier Darrell Dexter walks us through what it’s like to govern when the economy melts down, revenues disappear, and voters still expect big change on a small budget. He’s candid about how fast a government can go from popular to punished, and why that doesn’t automatically mean the work failed. 

We get into the real mechanics of “transformational” government versus “transactional” government, using Nova Scotia examples that still shape daily life: the Irving shipbuilding contract, the fight to keep Port Hawkesbury Paper running, and policy choices that aim for durable benefits instead of quick wins. Dexter also breaks down healthcare reforms like collaborative emergency centres, plus what COVID-19 taught him about crisis communication, public trust, and the hard tradeoffs leaders make when nobody has perfect information. 

The conversation turns to what’s driving anger right now: cost of living, wage pressure, housing, and food prices. Dexter explains why targeted tax credits and a controversial HST move were designed as practical income support, then takes on the energy debates that never die in Nova Scotia politics: fracking, uranium, renewables, Muskrat Falls, tidal power, and the question of whether public ownership of the utility is realistic. He ends with a strong case for university research and the humanities as the foundation for better leadership. 

If you care about Nova Scotia politics, Canadian public policy, energy policy, and what actually counts as a government legacy, you’ll want this one in your feed. Subscribe, share with a friend who loves politics, and leave a review, then tell us: what decision do you think Nova Scotia will judge differently 10 years from now?

Your Dream Home Does Not Have to Be Just A Dream. Today's show is brought to you by Kimia Nejat of Exit Reality Metro. Kimia is the realtor who knows how to get things done. Buying or Selling? Go to afternoonpint.ca/kimia and we will set up an introduction

Does Your Business Need a Boost With Foot traffic? Hosts for An Event? Or Even Actors For A Production? Or the Production itself? Go to https://www.afternoonpint.ca/services and see some of the services that the Afternoon Pint team offers. 

Transcript

Cheers From Bridgewater

SPEAKER_01 0:14

Cheers. Cheers. Welcome to the afternoon point. That was a record extension. The cheers.

SPEAKER_02 0:21

Cheers, cheers.

SPEAKER_01 0:22

So I'm Mike Tobin. I am Matt Conrad, and who do we have here? I am Daryl Dexter.

SPEAKER_00 0:26

Daryl Dexter, former former premier of Nova Scotia. Very former. I was the 27th. I think they're up to 30 now, aren't they? Or 31. That's right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 0:35

You know what though, Daryl, I gotta say, you are officially like, I don't know if you're familiar with like Marvel or anything, but you are kind of the the last Infinity Stone of Premier. Because we've had the two other colors on, and you are you were, you know, we are completing the Infinity Stone Gauntlet now with uh premiers of colors. Were you the first NDP premier?

SPEAKER_00 0:56

And all this is a very interesting little thing that happens when people say to me, Well, you you were the first NDP premier from Nova Scotia. Yeah. And I always say, Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. No, no, that's not true. No, the first NDP premier from Nova Scotia was Alan Blakeney. Now he was the premier of Saskatchewan, but he was from and and here we are in Bridgewater. He was from Bridgewater, he was he was from Bridgewater. He grew up here and and and of course uh went to law school, was a road scholar, and then went on to work for Tommy Douglas in Saskatchewan, and then eventually became the the premier of Saskatchewan. But for years and years and years, he had would rent a place down here in the Dublin shore, and when I was in political life, I would go down and sit on the veranda with him and talk to him about approaches to government and how you go about structuring a cabinet or how you deal with very difficult issues. And he was a he was a wonderful man. He was a wonderful Democrat. He believed so intently and intensely uh in the democratic process and uh and of course won it New Democrats. I mean he when he was active originally, he would have been at the time of the CCF. So yeah, you know, he saw that whole change from the CCF to the NDP and and yeah, just a remarkable guy. And from Bridgewater. So I was the I was the first NDP premier in Nova Scotia of Nova Scotia, but not from Nova Scotia.

SPEAKER_02 2:21

Very cool. So with that, you said we're in Bridgewater. Yeah. So we're gonna give like do you actually requested this place. So this is the local public house in Bridgewater and it's in the mall, but you know what? You'd never know because this is a cool little scenery. Like it's like a library with the lunch.

SPEAKER_01 2:38

I was wondering if you had a few too many drinks, you could go over and get your Gatorade before you went home. That'd be kind of a neat neat feature. March work warehouse is actually about across the spot. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:50

Yeah, no, it's uh it's a it's a great little location. I often come here when I'm seeing people for lunch. The food is good. Cool. Yeah, I know it's a great little location. Yeah, cool. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:58

We got some local beers, the contest winner, Tanner's. That's yeah, Tanner's you get the IPA. The IPA.

SPEAKER_00 3:03

I get the Tanner's Alt. Yeah. And this is kind of a salute back to my days in Cole Harbor and Dartmouth, and it's nine locks dirty blonde.

SPEAKER_01 3:11

Yeah, that's what's still maybe one of the best performing breweries we got going on in Nova Scotia, like it's doing really well.

SPEAKER_00 3:17

Yeah, I don't know if you've had their their water metal and ale that they put out there in the cellar. That that is just flat out delicious.

SPEAKER_01 3:23

My my spouse, she's a big fan of that one. All the all the fruity beers. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:27

Yeah, but that one in particular, because it's nice and light, and it's just if you're out in this in the sun in the summer, so yeah, I thoroughly recommend it.

SPEAKER_01 3:37

There you go. So we'll kind of start with a big question. Matt and I were talking about getting young. It's like, what are you asked? Daryl like Dexter, because I mean we're really happy you're here. And uh w we remember how popular you were almost immediately, you know, upon getting elected. I mean, uh you you uh you had a pretty well, like I'd say, the majority of the majority, yeah. And then one term. Yeah. And then you weren't the popular, the most popular man in the world, right? I don't know how to say that.

SPEAKER_00 4:02

But politics is a fickle business. A hundred percent. And at that time, what was interesting is like all the premiers in Atlantic Canada were kind of one term. Yeah. You know, Sean Graham was one term, and then David Allward was one term, and it just kept half. Yeah, they just kept flipping over one right after the other. And I think it was like October of 2000. I get we had elected in October or in 2009 and in June. October of 2008, the entire financial world went into collapse, melted down. There was a huge amount of fear and uh discontent, and there was a lot of of uncertainty in the world, and I think people were feeling that anxiety, and they were looking for something that you know was somewhat ephemeral. It was very difficult to kind of get your get your arms around. And and I think that one of the things that I you know wish we had a found a way to communicate better, because the the the narrative that developed was that we were just like other governments, that we there was no real change. Like we were just like the previous conservative or liberal governments, and and I just felt that that was like fundamentally not true. I mean, our approach to government was very, very different. You know, when just as an example, when I set up a Premier's Economic Council, I divided it in thirds. I had, you know, one third from business, one third from labor, and then one third were community-based people because I wanted a broader spectrum to to understand a broader spectrum spectrum of the economy, not just you know, the what I considered a an overly narrow view. Internally, we had you know a clear policy framework that we worked worked off of. We we we were doing planning, we under we understood that there was no money because not only did the financial collapse happen, but the Sable Offshore came to an end as well. And and the the previous conservative government had gotten almost a billion dollars in royalties from the offshore, much of which they used to build program funding, used as as program funding, which meant one of the first things we had to do was kind of backfill all of that program, that program spending. So it meant we really just had little or no money to to kind of do the kind of new big things that we would have liked to have done. So a lot of our emphasis was on policy, right? And how do we go about bringing about new kind of long-lasting policy infrastructure that will make the province a better place? And we did that in immigration, we did that in in uh natural resource extraction, we did that in in economic development, and of course the one that that kind of stuck to people was the economic development piece.

SPEAKER_01 6:50

I'll ask you a funny question. Did you predict your time would be short in office, or did you think that you were going to be there for a while?

Shipbuilding Wins And Hard Tradeoffs

SPEAKER_00 6:56

Well, I I mean, you know, people ask me sometimes, you know, you know, why did why what make what makes you a made you a politician? And I say, well, I was there's two things, right? Two necessary attributes that I I felt I had. One was an overdeveloped sense of optimism and an underdeveloped sense of fear. And so so when you're so when you're in that that position, you know, you're you're optimistic about that. And there are things that you can you can do and control, and then there are things that you cannot control. And and so you you try to control the things that you can. And when it came to economic development, um uh, you know, we we worked so hard to make sure that the ship start here uh program and that that that whole you know we want to be the shipbuilders for the country, uh, that we want it to to win the the federal government uh defense contract to to expand uh Irving Shipyards. And you should remember that Irving Shipyards at the time had about 500 people working there. Uh I think they have 3,600 there now. So just the the impact, and I used to say to people, like getting the the that uh the that um project, despite the fact that we're investing quite a lot of money in it because we invested a lot of money, yeah, it will be the equivalent of winning the Olympics every year for 20 years. And and and it turns out now that it's gonna be well more than 20 years. That that that and and especially with the renewed kind of focus on defense spending, the fact that the Irving Shipyard is the cornerstone of the defense industry in Atlantic Canada means that the opportunities for this province and for this region, you know, given that the the new focus is just kind of exponentially greater than it would have otherwise been. So that that turned out, I think, uh importantly. We invested in making sure that the Port Hawkesbury Mill would continue to operate. We couldn't save Bowaters. We wanted to, we tried. We couldn't save Bow Waters, but we did uh save Port Hawkesbury. Ron Stern, who took over from from New Page, called me two years ago to say uh that uh I had uh I had said to him at the time, in order for Nova Scotians to get their money back from our investment in New Pay in Port Hawkesbury, uh they would have to operate for ten years. And I was counting on him to do that. And he called me to say that ten years was up. Yep, that they that they had repaid every cent that the province had given them, and that they had uh were now investing to ensure that Port Hawkesbury was going to be there for another ten years. Okay. So those are the stories you want to hear. So those are the so so so those kind of things in retrospect, people at the time they just see money going to big companies. Yeah, that's that's the narrative, you know. And but now when you have the opportunity to look back and you say, Oh, well, wait a second, we made an enormous amount of tax revenue out of those out of those endeavors, money that would be used to to support health care, to support education, uh, and and and importantly, the all these jobs are good family supporting jobs. Right. These are jobs where the the people who have them are gonna be able to buy a home, they're gonna have a decent quality of life. So that that uh that was an the important measure for me. And I remember talking to my my kind of long-term friend about this, Mike Savage, who you would have been on the show, yeah. Yeah. Well, Mike, Mike and I went to university together and and have known each other all our lives. And of course, the Savage government was was one term as well. Yeah. And and he said, and I agree with him, that uh the length of time in office is not necessarily representative of the of the success of the of uh of the government uh because because things other things happened.

SPEAKER_02 11:14

Well that that's what I was gonna almost ask you, is like, would you say that the statement is true then that a government's legacy is probably not really gonna be fully known until like a decade or so later? Because I mean I'll I'll say it for you, just so you know you don't have to say it, but the Houston government right now is in I know they have had a back-to-back government, but they're in a govern they're in a situation where they just had an election a year and a half ago, very popularly voted in, and now they're in a situation where they are not looking so popular in a lot of aspects in the in the world, so you know, in our province. Could they end up be at a similar thing? Like, will we not know the investments that maybe even Houston has done or what you have done until decades later?

Transactional Vs Transformational Government

SPEAKER_00 11:54

Yeah, sure. And I you know, every I uh as you as you may know, one of the other things that I that I do these days, other than vice chair of global public affairs, I should have probably said that earlier. My my my my my firm would like me to say that. Yeah. Uh and and you know, we're a large government relations public affairs firms, and we have offices from coast to coast, and and but one of the other things I do is I was teaching at the McKekan Institute, public policy uh and and governance. And I tell people that generally speaking, it's not all it's not, you know, it's one of those things that you can't kind of pigeonholes, but generally speaking, governments find uh fall into two categories. They are either transactional in nature or they are transformational in nature. And if you're transformational in nature, you can sometimes be transactional. But if you're transactional, it's much different more difficult to go the other way to be transformational. I like to think that that was our approach. It was a transformational approach to government. Um and and I think uh that what's interesting about and you and this is where people can argue about this thing. I think the approach that the that the Houston government took was to try and be transformational. And so you look at things like the innovate the Health Innovation Hub, right? I I think that that has the power to be transformational in healthcare. Uh I don't think it's there yet. I think they got some very good people who are you know trying to figure it out. They they've made a lot of inroads.

SPEAKER_01 13:27

I mean, we've had we didn't again, there's something we talked about on a show, and I mean my partner, she's a nurse, and she would talk and we talk. I mean, we're not in a great place, but we're better than where we were five years ago. And we've still got a ways to go.

SPEAKER_00 13:39

That's right. So there are some of those some of those things. Uh I mean, where you can argue kind of the transformational pay pieces kind of on the natural resource side, you know. Do you do you want to have fracking? Do you want to have uranium mining? Do you want you know these but those are those are you can't debate the kind of underlying reason for that, which is that you want to kind of transform your economy. You can argue about whether that's what you want or not, but you can't argue about the intent. True. Right? That's true. So so I uh you know, so when I look at them, you know, I I that's what I see. I I I see kind of what they're intending to do. And so that's you know, n you know, taking advantage of natural the natural resources that we that we have and trying to make the most of the money we have to kind of change the way that that we approach things like healthcare. Yeah. And we did a lot of that. I mean we we we we had the first collaborative emergency centers. I mean we changed the way that emergency medicine was being managed in rural communities across the province. And we set a model in place that that when when we started it, it got picked up by PEI and then by Saskatchewan and other people started to say, okay, so we can we can we can use these kind of smaller rural emergency rooms and we can put kind of you know nurse practitioners and emergency medicine specialists in these plates and provide 98 98 percent of the of the services.

SPEAKER_01 15:08

It makes a lot of sense to do that.

COVID Lessons And Communication Styles

SPEAKER_00 15:10

And and then allow the doctors who would normally be in the emergency rooms overnight to actually be in their offices during the day. Right. And what we found was that the the number of visits to the emergency room actually went down because more people could get in to see their doctor in the in their primary care setting. So so we did a lot of thinking about that, and I and I I I get the sense that this government does that and is doing that. The thing about transformational governments is they they tend to upset people because they're about change. Yeah. And if you and if you are creating change, then somebody's gonna be somebody's gonna be upset about that. Uh it all it's just uh it's axiomatic, right? Change somebody will see themselves as a loser in the equation, right? Yeah, no, that's true. Yeah. So so so so transactional governments actually tend to be longer lived because they're kind of they're managing what's in the windshield. And this is not a criticism at all, because you know, Stephen. It's a good way to think about it. Stephen Mc Stephen McNeil was very good to me when he was in in government. He was, you know, nice enough to actually put my picture in the in the uh in the House of Assembly as the first New Democrat premier. There's a kind of a longer story about why that happened, but but uh you know, very, very I I said at the time that it was a very gracious thing to do, and I and I think that's true. But how much do you blame But I but I found his approach to be far more transactional than transformational. This is what I'm saying. Okay. It was really funny because of course during the run-up to that he just said, I'm never gonna do that. And then it was one of the first things he did. Oh wow. And it was gloves were off. Yeah, no, no, no. No, I mean, uh you know, Steven had a particular kind of approach, and and there was lots of stuff in his in his government as he was man and he was managing it. And like it is that's a perfectly valid approach to government. Like, you know, to kind of manage situations as they arrive, try to kind of you know, uh round off the edges of of kind of the inequalities, and you can do it slowly and kind of below the radar. That's that's that's an approach. It's just not one that I chose. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:53

Yeah. Yeah. I mean later, he did I mean I thought he managed COVID as well as you could for provincial premier at his time. I I mean maybe not agree with everything, but there was a lot there that I mean Nova Scotia seemed to I mean we we we fared better than most, right?

SPEAKER_00 18:06

You know, and you know the funny thing about it is because we were watching all this, uh the McKekan Institute with with Kevin Quigley and then three of our our our junior fellows wrote a book called uh Seized by Uncertainty, which looked at the response to COVID across the country and in different sectors. So what happened in tourism, what happened in seniors with senior citizens, looked at them, you know, kind of in different places. Yeah. Wrote this book, it was nominated for the Donner Prize, and then last year I had the great pleasure to go with Kevin and our other fellows to Toronto for the Donner Prize Awards, where they won. Wow. And uh and so I was kind of involved in that from a different perspective because I I had helped out with that book by convening a lot of the panels when we were talking to experts to get their input. And and what I found interesting, and and it's kind of a little known thing, is that more people died from COVID in Nova Scotia after all of the restrictions were lifted than during the the actual Yeah, the actual period pandemic. Yeah, the pandemic period itself. Because we we had very much prevented that. They unfortunately died after the fact because they're they were compromised in a way that even the vaccine wouldn't have helped them. So so but a very but a fascinating topic. Interesting, yeah. And of course Bob Strang and and the premier, they were the face of that. Yeah, they were the messengers, they were the communicators, and they were doing that every day. It's crazy we live through it. And and and if you want to see a great do a great reflection sometime, go and just download, pick any day, and just download the press conferences from all the premiers across the country and watch how they all presented. Because there were very, very different ways. So, you know, setting at setting at the table and having the the the chief medical officer of health uh with you at the table was our the style. But but if you looked at Doug Ford, for example, he just had a unomic and he was standing out front, so there was no barrier between him and the audience. Oh yeah, right? There was that that that approach. So there were a number of different communications approaches by the various visually that it's it's you nobody would notice at the time, but it's dramatic when you think about it and go back and have a look at it.

SPEAKER_02 20:41

I will say, like, I actually so my wife's from Quebec, right? So we we did obviously watch Legault's like press conferences and things as well, and those were very different, and even the messaging was very different in during that time I noticed. And Quebec was one of the worst performing provinces during that period. Yeah, yeah for cases and things like that.

SPEAKER_01 21:00

And I don't know this, Matt, and maybe our listeners don't, but how was Quebec in compared to Nova Scotia? Were they more lenient or were they more strict, or what would you say kind of generally?

SPEAKER_02 21:07

They they went all over the place because they had actual they had to bring in at some point bring in restrictions at like uh curfews. Okay, they had they had to go more strict, but I think the way that Lego did things had more people resist. And so there was a lot of people. So it was almost too aggressive, which created a backlash. Yeah, maybe that was it a little bit. Like yeah, it was it was an interesting way to go about it because we didn't have curfews, we just had like limits on how you could gather, which to me made sense because it was like I mean, some not all the rules made sense. Like, you know, you could go see a moose heads game, but you couldn't have a family, you know, 10, you couldn't have 11 people in your house. That part didn't fully make sense, but it I understand like you know, limiting the the gatherings and and the changing of houses and things like that, because you know you spread you spread stuff that way.

SPEAKER_00 21:56

I mean it took a while for them even to get to the point where they said, well, you can play golf. Right. Like which when you think about it, like it's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 22:03

Looking back at it now, some of it was foolish, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:07

But but it there was such a huge level of paranoia right off the bat. You remember everybody, you know, wiping down their zucchinis when they brought them home from the grocery store. It was just, it was, it was in it was a crazy moment.

SPEAKER_01 22:19

It changed our way of thinking forever, I think every day.

SPEAKER_00 22:21

Like the humans. But but I I I'm just trying to think of his name, the governor of New York, who was kind of discredited after the case, but he did this enormous job of kind of explaining what they were doing in New York. But at the same time, you had in New York, you had these shots.

H1N1 Memories And Vaccine Backlash

SPEAKER_02 22:39

of these refrigerator trucks just full of body bags that were being loaded into the back of this gigantic burial pit where they were just kind of you know and it was it was so gruesome yeah to to watch that no wonder people had you know had the living daylight scared of it well and I mean it's like you know like if you were a premier so you would understand what the weight of the shoulders of an entire province would be on you and I think people who don't really understand that like the people who are just like oh who cares like why have any restrictions wherever but I can I can probably guess that the last thing a premier would want would be the one that had a a bunch of people die.

Journalist Lawyer Sailor Future Premier

SPEAKER_00 23:16

So like when you go into this you like you make these rules you try to figure it out and you try to limit the the death toll basically isn't it of course of course it's it's and and this is kind of a forgotten piece of my history but the day that I was sworn in this premier was the day that the World Health Organization declared that H1N1 was a pandemic. Right. So we we had a pandemic we did at that time and and the it was very interesting way that that rolled out because there was only one manufacturer of the vaccine at that time in Canada that was in Quebec and there was this question about whether or not Quebec would actually allow the vaccine to be released outside of outside of Quebec until they had everything that they wanted. Right? Interesting yeah so kind of one of my first council of federation meetings I mean that that was I think that was more rumor than anything that Premier Share would have considered or thought of or done but but it was that there was this thought that this might happen and and of course in the end the vaccine that was available was distributed by population across the across the country as it as it ought to have been yeah but there was there was a problem because batches of the vaccine had been spoiled so there was not enough vaccine to go around well and it was a different you might remember this it was a it had a different target that that particular virus if I can put it this way had a different targeting subset. So it affected young people so children yeah pregnant women and people in in indigenous populations were the ones who were considered most vulnerable. My gosh and it was the the death of the young boy in Ontario that kind of really set everything off like that was that was when all of a sudden everything became panic panicked. But you and people have forgotten this now but if you were at the Dartmouth Sportsplex there were lineups going into Dartmouth sportsplex for for vaccinations. Yeah right like we you know we were and we and and when we f first priorized and said these are the people who will get the vaccine first we got some pretty nasty calls from the premier's office. Yeah oh yeah interest it didn't it didn't necessarily restore your faith faith in humanity I mean uh they uh yeah oh interesting yeah no it was it was it was not some of that was not very pleasant yeah yeah yeah yeah you can i it it seems like vaccines be they're a bit of a hot topic even right today uh you know it's we it's weird we're going backwards on some of that stuff I mean it's unfortunate I think it is pretty you know I mean of course you know you don't really know what you're getting all the time until you take it and you hope for the best but uh but you know you gotta trust the medical professionals out there that are have your best interest in heart I think well I think so look there's a lot of people who wouldn't be alive today if it weren't for vaccines and not just the the these ones but of course all the childhood vaccines that we talk about and all and so and and it was it's funny because of course when we were in when I when I was in school they didn't worry much about you know authorizations from parents that just lined all the kids yeah yeah yeah exactly you got your vaccine shot which is what you had to do yeah I mean there was a public health nurse in the in the school right right you know the the and and of course I I after uh after that I was in the Navy for a couple of years when you were in the armed forces they didn't ask you much either you just kind of you were ordered you were just you were just kind of lined up and if you were track if you were going somewhere then and you needed vaccine shots you you got them.

SPEAKER_01 27:08

I actually wanted to go back a bit actually you know uh we were curious like you know we looked at your career before you became a politician and uh as a lawyer and as a journalist right uh also in the Navy right that's quite the trifecta couldn't hold a job yeah so like being I I I mean I could only imagine that being a journalist and uncovering the world will would make you would would prime you for politics. I think that's a that that that makes sense but how do you think all those kind of those three occupations really shaped you for getting into getting into politics.

SPEAKER_00 27:39

Well I don't know about how they shaped me getting into politics I think I mean peak for myself and I don't know what what motivates other people to get in but I but I I always had an interest in kind of public policy kind of what was going on at a very early age when I was in high school I was I was the kid who read the newspaper every day. I had a subscription to Newsweek I had a subscription to Time I I read those things even as a as a kid which is you know I guess you could describe it as precocious but you know because normally that stuff that happens kind of later on but I always had this tremendous interest in kind of what was going on in the world. So that's kind of really what what shaped you know my kind of desire to want to be part of that. But I think all of those other things all of those other experiences including the fact that I grew up in Milton growing up in a very rural community with in a working class family. What did your dad do? My dad was a sheet metal worker and he worked at the shipyards. Okay. And in fact he worked exactly in that shipyard where I made that announcement when we won and I and I had a copy and still have a copy of his paycheck from the Halifax shipyards which I had meant to bring with me that day when we announced the the the the the shipbuilding contract and I really wish I I would have because you know in my view you know having those kinds of jobs which allow people to support their families is extraordinarily important. Yeah full circle moment yeah I was gonna say full circle moment for certainly for for me and and kind of growing up in a working class family where there was no money like there was no and and it wasn't my my parents were not mean with money they just didn't have any right and and so they gave us what they could from what they had. Right? So when I wanted a bicycle I got a paper rook yep and I saved the money and I bought a bicycle because that was how that was going to happen if if it was going to happen. And I think and then when I was in living when when I was living in in Milton because we had moved back and forth between to complicate a story but we moved back and forth my as I said my father was a sheet meal worker worked in the shipyards so we would often come in a school year in Halifax in the summer in Milton and then in my grandfather died when I was in grade eight so we moved back to Milton to look after my grandmother and I went to high school in in Liverpool. Cool the which is a bit convoluted but when I was in high school I uh what did I what do you do in rural Nova Scotia? I had traps I went hunting you know and I I remember I was at some kind of an event and the trappers association wanted to talk to me and so they come over to talk to me and my staff are with me and I start talking about different kinds of traps with them you know you know box traps and light ball traps and all that and they they're they're saying like how the hell do you see that coming from from the yeah I we did trapping when I was a kid like that's one of the things we did yeah uh in in a rural community. So all of those experiences and the hard and especially the hard ones kind of are things you carry with me.

SPEAKER_01 31:20

I've and I've told this story before about I think it's where it's making you a chameleon too in a sense where you can relate to more people by being in these different roles this Navy role and the and the journalism role and uh you can really kind of see where people are coming from with these perspectives.

HST Choices And Poverty Tax Credits

SPEAKER_00 31:34

When I when I was a kid so my family my mother and father had two kids before the Second World War before the second world war. I have a sister or had a sister she's passed away now who had a a daughter who was older than I am. Oh wow okay right so so I my my father came home in 45 and like a lot of ri you know people who uh who stayed on right to the very end and then I wasn't born until 57 and then my sister and my brother after that so my parents had kids around the house for 50 years. Wow and think about that I mean in today's economy so will parents today that's right that maybe that may be that may be true. So they so so they invested you know their lives in looking after their their kids and ensuring that we had clothes on our back a roof over our head and food on the table like that was that was the lives that that they that they live which I have been you know forever grateful for but there was a period when my father was working at the shipyards when he went on strike. And when you're a kid and you're laying in bed at night and you can hear your parents kind of out in the living room and they're talking in very quiet tones because they don't want the kids to hear and it's all about you know where we're gonna get the money for you know food next week. It's it's a one of those things that absolutely shapes you know kind of who you are. Yeah and certainly that that was certainly the impact on me.

SPEAKER_02 33:15

Yeah so is that what made you like go for the NDP because and you can correct me if I'm wrong but you're viewed as a very centrist NDP.

Middle Class Pressure And Food Prices

SPEAKER_00 33:25

Yeah and I and I always think that's funny too because if you look at if you look at Gary Dewar or or you know those folks in in Manitoba or or I mean Tommy Tommy Douglas and and he was kind he was very much transformational at the time in Saskatchewan because all none of these things existed like Medicare didn't exist like a lot of the social programs. The kind of human rights legislation just didn't exist so he was far sighted enough to kind of bring all of those things in but to a large measure it has been you know the NDP and people what we now call progressives that's a that's a yeah I I I always wonder about that word but anyway the the that's the the group of people who have always been charged with the responsibility of protecting that and not allowing us to go you know backwards to the day where you can have as much health care as you can afford. Right. Right because that's you know that's where that ends. Yeah exactly and and so I I used to joke about it myself I mean because it mainly 'cause I knew it would drive the Tories crazy because they would uh they would say you know they were progressive conservatives and I would say you know people used to like progressive conservatives but you know now they want conservative progressives you know it was kind of just a little you know yeah way to a bit of fun. Yeah but I think if you look at our record so I'll give you an example we raised the HS2 by two percent it was controversial we despite the fact that we we had hearings around the province we invited every people people in we said here's the financial state of the province you you you know we can either cut things or we can or we can raise taxes and but you can't really allow the province to run itself deeply into in into debt so how are we gonna how are we how are we going to manage this so we agreed to raise the HST by two percent which by the way was actually backfilling a two percent decrease that the that Harper had taken. So people weren't actually paying more taxes they just weren't getting the the the two percent break right so we were kind of we were filling that that that tax base that had been vacated by the by the federal government. Kind of what happened this week with debt gas yeah exactly what we what we did with that money is we used half of it to deal with the kind of deficit of the of the province and we used the other half to do the poverty reduction tax credit the the disability tax credit the graduate retention tax credit I mean we we it was actually for to that extent it was an income redistribution measure. Right we didn't talk about it in those terms because people always freak out when you talk about redistributing income but it was a re tax it was a redistribution policy. Interesting that that that essentially took the very poorest people in the province and put more money in their pocket. And and and I'll give you another example we had seniors in this province who were received who received the GIS the guaranteed income supplement which is what you're supposed to receive when you're so poor that that your CPP and your old age security does not give you what get you above the poverty line. They were receiving the GIS and still paying income tax. Oh wow still paying income tax so we brought in a program that said if you receive the GIS we will we will rebate the uh the the the federal tax that you pay okay so that you so so at least you're getting what you're supposed to get. Right. And it was so interesting as as these things always are because I would get calls from seniors who would say well my next door neighbor received a check for you know fifty dollars or$75 and and I I didn't I didn't receive one and they and they I and I don't know why. And it would be because they didn't pay tax they they weren't in that group. Right. So they were uh upset about it you know because their neighbor was oh yeah so finally we said look it's it's way too hard to to to describe how this is going to work so people who receive the GIS w regardless of whether they pay income tax on it or not we'll rebake them 50 bucks even if they don't pay anything just so everybody you know just quiet yeah well no just so that they you know that they don't feel like we're somehow picking favorites of you know people in seniors residents and that kind of stuff. Okay. So so it was just a little you know and you learn you know whenever you bring out a program you sometimes have to be a little bit flexible about how that is being implemented.

SPEAKER_01 38:13

But I I think even today the complexity of programs baffle people a whole lot people do not understand what's going in what's going out and why like the and and sometimes too I saw something interesting the other day like right now and I mean this is just speaking off the cuff but you know about this rebate for groceries and I mean as as nice as it sounds I'd love to see the grocery price go down and not have the rebate. Because I mean I don't see the I don't see the the real uh the strategy going forward for stuff like this.

SPEAKER_00 38:39

I mean it's a band-aid for sure but like what are we going to do to get ourselves out of these messes like you know long term or within a year right so you bring up uh I think uh what you're kind of underlining is something that I've been doing a lot of thinking about today and and over the last actually kind of ten years since our Bernard government which is that you know after the Second World War the great sponge of discontent and despair was the middle class. Yeah and the reason for that was that if you were part of the middle class or or trying to get into the middle class you you had hope because you had hope that you could have a home that you could have a house that you could support your family and that your kids would be better off than you. Yes and that that was the the enormous value and it happened for a while. It did happen it did happen and that was the enormous value of the middle class that it was aspirational in nature that it was about kind of building a life having hope. And equity and you know lots of words that you could use to describe what w how that operated yeah what has been happening now for quite a while is that we are collapsing that that sponge of discontent yeah and and and just to use my sponge analogy what you are wringing out of it is despair and discontent. Yes yeah and so people don't have lost that sense of hope they have lost the sense of the notion you see this this enormous income inequality where CEOs are making you know five hundred times what a you know a worker on the line is making right and and it just home costs are astronomical to those confounding to people and and of course and I talked I mean my my son's 35 uh but I talked to you know people you know from twenty five to thirty five and they they really do feel like there there isn't an opportunity yeah for them to kind of have the same kind of life that their parents had.

SPEAKER_01 40:44

Right.

SPEAKER_02 40:44

Even from the fact of going downtown having a few beers on a Friday night and uh getting a getting a burger I mean that was a night that I mean it wasn't that long ago that I did that and it was a you know it could be a$20 or$40 night and I could afford to do that with my paycheck that I got as I did other things and had an apartment and all that but today gosh you know you go out can't do take your family over a burger you're you're in a hundred bucks probably a hundred dollars was like a fancy meal and now that can be like literally lunch with a family of three like I have a family of three and I I like yeah we it was my wife and I went out to a restaurant not that long ago just like this week and it was my four year old so he doesn't eat a whole bunch he's just kidding stuff right and and us and it was it was almost a hundred bucks right right and it's like that used to be a good meal now it's not right but one thing I I'll say though and I think anyone listening and if this shatters you know the glass in your brain there but I don't think there's anything governments can do to bring down food costs. No I think there is nothing and when people go online and they say oh what are you doing to bring the to help bring food costs down I think there's nothing a government can do. Could they not Larry could and I'm asking you this just because you said it like okay I'll correct myself not nothing governments need to take over the all of the food industry and say food is a right and no more competition and we will be a net zero we will not profit off of it at all that's the only way they can do it.

SPEAKER_00 42:15

I think that's my opinion yeah no I I I I guess I I I'm not uh that's just kind of an ungenerous view of the world well I just I just look at my case though like when I look at things in the world what has gone down in price so right ever in history yeah so uh okay that's not true well like you you can buy a car today that in relative terms is cheaper than you could have bought it 20 years ago you can buy a TV today at the at the uh checkout in the grocery store yes that's right like you know there there are there are lots of examples of things that in fact have gone down in price and I'm not using that as a as a kind of stalking horse for for groceries because it's your observation is absolutely correct. But but you know I mean Manitoba just recently brought in and it was actually it was actually NDP in Nova Scotia who who uh kind of brought the legislation in in the last session of the House before the Manitoba government brought it in and I'm not sure if there was some coordination to that or not I doubt it but you know which is that whole question of how you go about controlling that that kind of algorithmic pricing when it comes to when it comes to food. Right. So you know 10 people go online and look at the same food product and instead of saying oh well they're gonna sell more of it and therefore the with the the old kind of idea of demand and supply right you you buy more it becomes cheaper to make because you're making more and therefore you can charge less you know no right now um uh the the the the if they realize there's higher demand they can uh they can charge higher prices because they know that right that you'll that you'll pay it so controlling that kind of stuff and and the that what was the news thing I saw about like behavior of to where you live and how like how close a grocery store is that you if you don't have the ability to go and shop I mean this is crazy.

SPEAKER_01 44:10

Right?

SPEAKER_02 44:10

This is crazy that people that wouldn't have the ability to maybe go to a Costco or to go somewhere else to get something from there is a competition thing that's for sure there is a competition thing that actually uh comes into play but even still it's like I think when people sit there and think like you know like beer's not going to cost a dollar again right it's never going to get to that point. And the thing is is that what we've seen is like wages don't keep up. Yeah that's right and therefore like things get out of proportion. Like cars I would argue have gone down proportion wise obviously dollar wise they've gone up but proportion wise but that's just because they make an insane amount of cars and there's more than enough to be kicking around. Like there's if we had houses like we had cars, houses would be fine like we would not be charging so much for houses 'cause there'd be a bunch of them sitting empty. But look how many empty used car lots like you look at price of gas today.

Fracking Moratorium And Resource Debates

Wind Power Muskrat Falls Tidal Potential

SPEAKER_00 44:56

I mean this talk cost of living and the price of gas and what I think I'm just gonna this is a really offhand remark but you know uh I I watch all of this stuff that's going on in the world escalating price of gas and the way it affects you know everything else in life like the cost of food and the you know all of the delivery costs everything is is being affected by the price of gas and the answer that you hear most often is we gotta we gotta drill we gotta drill more and we gotta have more more fossil fuels we've got more oil and gas and and you think well well just wait a second like surely there's other technology oh yes just wait a second there is you know you know we could have an electric vehicle fleet for trucks we we could do that right yeah you know I mean and there's other avenues to than than just than just natural resource mining for for wealth too for for wealth and culture and life I mean that I'm not saying I'm against it or pro it I the thing is is like I don't I I won't pretend to know what fracking's going to do to an area because I really honestly don't and when I try to research the math is muddy the uh the research is all over the place it's like maybe if my well was perfect and drilled and in good condition but a delay or a collapsed well or an older well might have problems and then is the more you look into it the more complex we had Don Mills on and after Don Mills I went and tried to do as much research on fracking as possible like I had chat chat GBT going I had Google going and basically he's a brilliant guy Don Mills but even ChatGBT basically like came back it was basically inconclusive yeah it can be great it can also be devastating so so we so we we brought in the moratorium on on fracking yeah and we also brought in the ban on drilling on Georgia's bank okay and and then the we brought in a moratorium and not a ban at the time because we said well there might be technology out there someday right that might allow you to kind of safely extract natural gas. I don't know what it is I don't know if it's tracking or but instead of just kind of banning it all together we'll we'll put this moratorium on and we'll let future governments as time goes by reevaluate reevaluate and determine because there were you know all of the earthquakes that were taking place with that seemed to be linking to linked to fracking and all that kind of stuff. So we didn't want to be I mean there's lots of people in the environmental movement who would just say no no no just go right to the ban. Right. And and maybe this is where I get that middle of the road kind of reputation but I was just trying to be thoughtful about it. I think that people generally people have two opinions they have their immediate reaction which is you ask somebody a question they get their immediate reaction. And then when you give people all of the information they have a considered opinion. Yes so you have your initial opinion and your considered opinion I like to try and think that I lean toward the considered opinion which which is what I we we we we knew that we didn't want ever that it would be drilling on the Georgia's bank so I had no problem with that ban I had no problem with the uranium ban which was the first piece of legislation we brought in by the way you know because uranium dust doesn't stay in one place has quite a radius. It has quite a radius and in and can get into water supplies and it's uh and to me it was just danger that we didn't need right so on the fracking thing like I said it just see to me that there might at some point in time be some technology that would be you know possible yeah so so we moved to a moratorium rather than a ban. And to a lot of people that that wording didn't make any difference. Right.

SPEAKER_02 48:41

Yeah so so yeah yeah it's uh yeah it's an interesting thing trying to balance the the prosperity and everything I mean I it's to me I think there is a lot of renewable ideas and like renewable resources that we could go I mean I like the I like the thought process of of Houston with the wind uh energy I think that has some pros like prospects of being something that could be if they can get if they're it's down the road though.

SPEAKER_00 49:10

I mean but that's the thing it's way farther it's down the road and and and and I I think all those efforts I think are absolutely laudable like we ought to be looking at ways to bring more as you know we had the the first real expansion of of renewables in in Nova Scotia so when we when we came into power there was about six percent of the power on the grid was renewable and that was basically the six power dams on the Mersey River. Right that was that was basically we had that in the Pumtico wind farm yeah but other than that there wasn't really anything by way of renewables in the province. So we managed to move the utility from six percent to twenty four percent in four years which when you think about a utility that's a big change.

SPEAKER_01 49:56

And then when you talk about the short term I think I think you you I mean uh the the the the power the electricity itself jumped at that time right when when you guys were implementing these strategies like it it was like the the the consumer probably didn't see that immediately so what and what was happening was that the cons that the fossil fuel prices were were going up and up and up so we were we were hostage to fossil fuel prices.

SPEAKER_00 50:18

The the the difference was there was a three percent calculated increase by bringing in the wind farms. Right. So your overall power bills go up by three percent okay but that was a cap on that on that amount. Once once it went up three percent then it wasn't going to continue to go up any further because it it it's a it's you pay the capital for the the uh for the wind resource and then you're not paying for fuel costs right whereas when you when you have a coal-fired generating station or you're using bunker sea oil or natural gas you're hot you're hostage to whatever the market price is for those those fossil fuels. Makes sense once once you make the investment in a in a in a wind resource it is whatever it is and then you're only paying like maintenance costs and those things uh kind of after the fact right so yes it was an increase but the long term it was gonna be it was it was gonna be better. Yeah and then of course we we we made the deal with Newfoundland to to to do Muskrat Falls and and and I don't think people even look at I'll say this and then people say oh well you've got to be kidding. I mean this was outrageously successful for Nova Scotia. Like I mean we you you the original deal was that we would do 20% of the project costs and we would get 20% of the power. Right. Our 20% of the project cost was the maritime link. Yeah right so we were we were building the cable right and and in calculating it the question was well how far onshore does that cable actually have to go in order to be 20% of the value of the of the project and Newfoundland projected the value of the project right we s eventually we we decided what that was Nova Scotia Power through the Maritime Link Corporation I think it's called built the Maritime Link they did it on time they did it on budget then the project costs went through the roof yeah billions and billions of dollars more so in the in the end I think Nova Scotia ended up paying something like 10 or 12% of the project cost. Of the total project cost after deployed for 20% of the energy. Yeah so so of course Newfoundland looks at that project now and says oh yeah this is great for Nova Scotia not so good for Newfoundland and and if you look at you know people like Seamus O'Regan and other kind of Newfoundland politicians who came in kind of after the fact you know they managed to convince the federal government to put rate stabilization money in place in order to underwrite the cost of the of the of the project and that was all necessary in Newfoundland that didn't affect the Nova Scotia part of the project and and kind of ironically because of the delays there were actually points in which Nova Scotia was selling power into Newfoundland. Oh okay because before the project got finished there was actually a an energy deficit in in Newfoundland where they had to get energy from somewhere so we were actually shipping it the other way shipping it the other way. And and now of course I I I I think they've made up like all of that but it is it is a fixed price of power. And the thing about the Muskrat Falls is depending on how it goes about the you know what its generating capacity is you would be able to backfill additional natural additional resources of from hydropower at spot prices. So you in theory you should be able to get even a better price um for that uh for that power.

SPEAKER_02 54:03

In in your opinion when it comes to the power how can we uh how can we really haven't really used our tidal force here which are the highest and strongest in the world.

Should Nova Scotia Own The Utility

SPEAKER_00 54:15

Yeah yeah more water flows in and out of the Bay of Fundy on a on a on the tides than the flow of all the water in all the in all the rivers in the world. Amazing that's crazy. Just to think about you know how much water goes in and out. Oh Nova Scotia could be lighting up the entire world yeah unfortunately part of that problem is just the power of that tide yeah to have something that actually withstands it that's that's what happened to the first turbine they put down they put the turbine down the the the the tide came in blew all the blades off the turbine and all the engineers everybody went oh wow that's a colossal failure all the engine engineers went wow like that's that means there's even more here than we thought right so I think that will come at some point in time but it's another one of those technology questions. Yeah and I don't and and I'm and I'm really kind of talking out of my hat here because I don't know where that's actually at now. I haven't I haven't followed it but but yeah like like a lot of people I looked at that and thought yes this is another place where we are kind of blessed with a natural natural resource if we can find a way it seems like we're stuck on the oil and like technology's just on the cusp and we're kind of where where are we getting now like like when Muskrat Falls came on it took us to what forty percent renewables and they're and they're supposed to be at 60 I think soon. Okay. And the ISO, the independent system operator and well at least the utility and review board before the ISO said there was actually more room on the grid for more renewables. So you know it's always a mix because of course you you need to have backup. I I absolutely I agree that yeah so and I used to say to people you have to look at it as an energy portfolio like it's a number of different pieces that need to kind of all fit together to work to work right. Makes sense should the province ever get back into being the owner of a power company I don't know why you'd I mean I and I know there's lots of people in my party and and and who would disagree with this. I I honestly don't know why you would want to we toyed around with the idea that some of these wind farms would be like community wind farms so they'd be owned by municipalities or they would be owned by co-ops or other other ways so that they would be connecting to the grid but wouldn't be owned by the power company. Yeah and the problem was that we came in in 2009 after the great financial collapse and there was no money to finance those projects but guess who could Nova Scotia Power exactly so and people you know and I just I know you know in 2013 the liberals were running ads about me and Nova Scotia Power and you know all you know it was part of their their their attack on me was this whole you know kind of what they considered me as kind of very close to Nova Scotia power. And of course that's ridiculous but but not hard to uh to believe when you're the premier because you know you you there are regulatory measures you're involved in the regulation of the utility.

SPEAKER_04 57:28

Right.

SPEAKER_00 57:29

But what I recognized with Nova Scotia Power was well first of all there are are very very few head offices of any corporation in Nova Scotia. You know you can you know yes SOBs has their office in Stalardin I would argue most of their decisions actually get made in Mississauga yeah right you know the the so but but Nova Scotia Power is actually here and is America right and they're a big they're a big utility if you were to look at the pension funds of most Nova Scotians they probably have Nova Scotia Power and Amerira in their pension funds. Oh yeah you know probably yeah so they add more value than people than is than is necessarily apparent to people and I didn't think that I think you needed like good a good regulatory regime that forced them to do the things that they ought to do and that you can do that without having to own them. Now if I went back in time way back when the when the conservatives actually uh privatized it probably wouldn't have made that decision. But it's been made and and it's now we're now 40 years down the road right and how many billions of dollars do you want to pay to reacquire that utility when you could be using that money for other things?

SPEAKER_02 58:55

No that's a that's a fair thought I I I just I have this like you know utopian dream where you know if Nova Scotia or any province not just us but any province could if we could say you know it's 10 years down the road or whatever 15 years down the road and and Tim Houston's wind farm is created and it's producing what he thinks we'll be able to produce with you know basically being able to power all of Nova Scotia and still sell off like literally another 300% of it. And to me I if I was you know the supreme leader of Nova Scotia I would be looking at a spot where I would say I'm selling this power off to the United States or whoever other provinces want to buy it and there will be no bill for people in Nova Scotia for power.

SPEAKER_00 59:41

If Tim Houston wanted to do that he could do that. Yeah but he could I mean you could decide that you're gonna build wind farms and that you're gonna underwrite the cost of those by the provincial government and then you're gonna determine the cost to the consumer you know based on whatever the invested cost by the by the province was in that particular room you you could do that and say we're not gonna get a profit we're not gonna take the the nine percent a year that Nova Scotia Power gets uh on this but you you could do it. The question is what other infrastructure do you have to build to surround that right like what's your what how what what does your accounting look like for and what does your what does your your maintenance program look like. I mean there's a whole lot of stuff. Yeah yeah yeah you know what does your what does your power distribution network look like uh if you're if you if you're gonna do that you you you could I just didn't it it it didn't make sense to me at least at that at that point to do that uh I I if I if you compare the utility to what other utilities make they actually make less as a regulated utility in Nova Scotia than a lot of other utilities in the world. Really and it's a it's a pro it's why their why their credit rate rating has been degraded right and you know I it's it's one of those it's one of those things. I I there are things that I very much want to see in public ownership. I think that particular ship has sailed on that on on the utility. That's fair but but future governments could could make a different decision. Yeah yeah yeah no I I just it's it's just thoughts that you have lying in bed at night right no no no and and and and you it's it's funny it's a funny one because you think well if we just own this I'll tell you what what happened when Nova Scotia Power was owned by the province because it became a political football of course right right so what would happen in the days of Buchanan is the the president of Nova Scotia Power would say Mr. Premier we're gonna have to put up power rights by you know 10% this year.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:53

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:54

And the Premier would say oh you can't do that I'm I'm gonna have an election at the end of this year.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:00

So they would take money out of the provincial coffers which they would send over to Nova Scotia Power to underwrite the power costs to keep the to keep the the the price down. We could do the same thing today. Right. I mean we could underwrite the power costs with with with taxes.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:17

Yeah but that's not even what I meant I was kind of meant like like let's sell our power like almost like what Saudi Arabia does like Saudi Arabia like if you have excess power to sell yeah that's what I meant yeah absolutely get to a point where we have excess power sell it on it sounds a little Trumpian it's like we're gonna have power going to make other people pay for it no no if you can do that it's it it it's fine.

Universities Innovation And The Humanities

SPEAKER_00 1:02:39

The the history of power in Nova Scotia is one of the most consequential political issues for government after government after government going back for 60 years. Yeah right like so it's it's you know is it going to be resolved the next little while I doubt it. My advice to whether they're my colleagues or aspiring opposition leaders is to not make promises about what you're gonna do with respect to things like power that you're then going to find out that you're not going to be able to do. Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:16

Yeah that's a I think that's a fair answer a fair fair thing to say because we we really yeah it's like you said you know you know the the transfer of that power whether it's wind energy they still know how they're doing it yet. It's so far away and it's like you know we're you know it's it's you gotta start now you gotta start now but you don't start you know you have to do more with what you what you have right and you know maybe lean into your arts community a bit man start Hollywood. There you go there you go.

Ten Random Questions With Dexter

SPEAKER_00 1:03:41

No but anyways really the the the the future of Nova Scotia is in doing the tough things. What's that yes it's in doing the tough things and and we need you know whether it's in defense or in other kind of innovative research I mean we need to I I I believe this more now than ever that we really we have these enormous resources in in our universities that we really have to take advantage of and you know Dalhousie is an immensely you know just a this enormous collection so many things that we don't even talk about. Battery technology so many other countless there's a little there's a little firm here that does cube satellites oh yeah that were that started in a lab at Dallas there in Halifax and I mean when I think of of satellites I think of something the size of a of a Volkswagen but now dish but now of course they're they're they're literally these they they they they weigh them in grams right so they you know and and even when you think when when I first thought about the kind of satellite launch facility in Canto I I I vision you know Cape Canaveral and of course they're they're they're putting up the rockets that are size of those cruise missiles. Like they're true yeah they're they're just it's a different technology has provided a different scale but I think in in the university environment we have tremendous resource there that we that we really need to take advantage of. And I'm I'm fortunate right now to be on the on the board of governors of of University Kings College which is my alma mater and Kings is a wonderful institution that focuses a lot on the humanities. Of course we have the journalism program and the and the fine and the uh the uh fine arts program and you know all of the other stuff that we do but the the humanities are important for this reason I'll I'll pitch this here so maybe other people will hear I'll pitch this here. All of the things that we do at universities many of them have a vocational aspect to them. So if you're taking accounting or if you're taking you know you're in oh you're you're you're being taught things that you're gonna use when you go into the workforce. When you learn the humanities when you take the humanities you're learning the things that you're gonna know need to know for leadership and that's the difference. You learn about you learn about philosophy. You learn about ethics you learn about the the kind of the the critical thinking that comes from the great thinkers of of of history so it is the humanity should not be undersold and we should be encouraging people that yes it's really important to prepare yourself into the workforce but some point in time you're gonna want to be in a leadership position and you need these other skills too that that will be provided through the humanities.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:42

I love that yeah that's great. That is good you know yeah that's a better ender than I could have asked before we got into our stupid questions here. But uh perfect segue. So we do did you want to do anything before we do our ten questions, Matt? Like we usually do ten questions at the end of our show. They're random and they're silly a bit of fun Or did you have anything first? You're ready to go.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:59

You know what? I had something, but I'll let it go because that was a good move into this. It was a perfect closer. Yeah, it was a good perfect closer.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:05

Let's get into our silly 10 questions round. I'll kick them off, Matt. And uh so okay. Question number one. These are just you answer these, you you talk philosophical, so now you're gonna get to use a little bit of phil philosophy on this one. So in the near future, do you think politics could be better done with AI, artificial intelligence to replace human politicians?

SPEAKER_00 1:07:27

Well, yes, really good question because people think of AI as artificial intelligence. I think of it as alien intelligence. And we do not know kind of where that is going. And I am deeply concerned about it. If you know, if you if you think that politicians can be replaced by alien intelligence, the answer might be yes, but you have to ask yourself, would you really want that to happen? What was it? There was a country in the Middle East.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:55

A country in the Middle East that has a first minister that is an AI minister.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:59

100%. Yeah, yeah, I read the same article. Right. And you're absolutely right, it is scary. They're locking some AIs behind doors right now because of how powerful they are.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:07

So keep in mind though, that that particular minister was not like, you know, I think in a lot of cases when you're making decisions, you have to make decisions with heart. This was uh the way they did this was like it was like a scheduling type of minister, so it was like, okay, sure. All right, but yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:20

Well, if you haven't read it, Uval Hurari's book, Nexus.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:24

This is this is it's become recommended before in this show, and yes, that might be the second or third time we've heard that book.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:30

Yeah, so read it because it'll scare the living daylights right out of you.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:35

All right, all right, question number two. Question number two. So if politics had like walkout music, like in wrestling, what would your entrance song be?

SPEAKER_00 1:08:44

Oh, I actually had to do this at one point in time. I used born to run. I don't know. I mean, I don't it was an off the top of my head uh kind of thing. You know, what probably were you in a wrestling ring? Is that what happened? Probably should have used something with like uh you know the dropkick Murphy's or something.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:01

There you go, great song.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:02

Great, great group. Um The Ledge is kind of like a wrestling ring. Yeah, no, it's true. Okay, so you just recommended people read Nexus, but what's another book, movie, or show you think people should go back to in and maybe if it's just again like just to kind of reflect on the world of of where it's going? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:23

That's that's a good question. I don't know. I read a lot. I I just read Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann, which is kind of written, I think, in the 1920s or 30s. Oh it is a deeply kind of philosophical book, and it addresses kind of many, many questions of of kind of ethics, and and it was very controversial for its time, as you can quite imagine, because it had all kinds of overtones, what we would consider to be kind of progressive uh progressive overtones today. Right. But uh but it's it's it's a big it's a big read. Like it's one of those ones that it will take you, it took me a month to to be because it's so dense. Yeah, and it's so dense with very thought-provoking pieces that it's it takes a it takes you a while. I mean, i I would find that I'd be reading it and it would exhaust me. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:25

So so that's kind of fun though, right? I mean everyone looks to get their kind of their their mind rocked a little bit when they read it. I I just read a man's search for meaning for the first time. Yes, yes, yes. And I mean that's an old book, but uh and I fell into it by accident.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:36

And uh So this is the one that was written in the in the concentration camp. 100%, Holocaust Survivor. Yes, and I remember that.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:43

And and I rem one that I remember that book sat with me for days after I read it. I couldn't stop thinking about it. It was so cool.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:50

I mean, not cool, but like it talks about how people would give themselves deadlines and say, Oh, we're gonna be out by this month, or we're gonna be free by this week, and then when it wouldn't happen, they would die. Yes. Because they had set up these kind of artificial deadlines for themselves. And they die a day after.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:08

Yeah, it's like they they thought they thought everything all the problems would be fine.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:12

Extremely disturbing book, but yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:17

He was a doctor that ended up going into the concentration camps and just being ridiculed every day was amazing. Yeah. So sorry, I usually don't share books, but I just thought, you know, where you're talking about philosophy now.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:29

Yeah, he got me going. Yeah. Alright, so question number four. So, what's a place in Nova Scotia that still surprises you every time you visit?

SPEAKER_00 1:11:37

Well, there's a lot of you gone to the Marguerite Valley lately. I mean, it's just it's just so beautiful when you kind of uh go up through it. It's uh I mean I I I used to always say like I love the So Shore in Nova Scotia. This is where I grew up. I I ran the roads here and worked in all the little towns and and played baseball up and down, whether it was in Yarmouth or or or Clark's Harbor or any of those little places up and down the shore. But the but Cape Breton is still like it all like you say, it surprises me every time I go there. It's so extraordinarily beautiful. It is and and whether you're just driving around or you stop in Mabu or you know play golf at Cabot lengths or go up to Ben Yon. I mean, it's yeah, it's it's fascinating.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:25

One of my favorite places in Nova Scotia, not and really honestly, some in some respect the world is at Glenn, uh the Glenora Distillery. Oh, yeah, yeah, I think. I just love being there. I just love being in there, sitting inside, listening to the water run through it, and have it launch. It's just amazing. It is very peaceful. Cool.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:42

Okay, so here's a weird one. What's the weirdest thing you've ever had a pretend to understand while in a meeting? So someone's giving you lots of details and you have to pretend to understand in a meeting.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:54

God, I don't know that I could actually answer that. I uh I like to think I was pretty well briefed on things before I went in. There were obviously there are there are things there are you know kind of deeply technical stuff, especially with respect to like computers. I remember you know talking to people about blockchain when it first came out and thinking, like, why are they explaining blockchain to me? Like I don't really know how computers work. Like when I buy a computer system, I don't go in and say, I'd really like to see your code on the you know. I mean, I just want to know that I can, you know, I could use it. But with blockchain, for some reason, everybody feels like they have to know what how does this actually work? Right instead of, you know, what is the result? What what is the application that's this is gonna allow me to do? So probably that's a good answer. Probably blockchain. There you go.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:50

That's good. All right, so we're gonna ask you this because we also asked McNeil this. If you were to die and be reincarnated, what animal would you come back as?

SPEAKER_00 1:14:00

Oh god. I don't know. You can pick. I will say I will say a horse. And the reason for that is because if you ever read the if you ever read Animal Farm, Boxer was the horse. Okay. And his motto was I must work harder.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:21

Right. I was gonna say because they had big personalities. Yeah, there you go. Okay, next question. What's the biggest surprise? No, you skipped one. Sorry. Did I? Yeah, you did. Which one is it, Matt? Then the one on top of that. Oh, thank you. Oh. Cool. What's your ideal way to spend a day off?

SPEAKER_00 1:14:42

Yeah, that's uh that's that's a good question. I like to play golf. I my my wife and I love to travel. Uh we were in Spain and and we went to Granada. Oh, cool. Uh, if uh you've ever been to Granada, it is uh it's got this fascinating uh castle there that was built, uh, by the Muslims back in the 16th century. Uh and I found out an interesting thing about the Alhambra, which was the the ceiling and a lot of the decorations in Alhambra was what inspired M. C. Esher. Oh, really? Okay. If anybody are you know knows all the funky stuff that that MCC Escher uh drew, but he took his inspiration from that uh palace in Grenada.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:36

Yeah. Very cool. Okay. Grenada, they had a one-day war or something like that.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:42

No, that's I think you're thinking of somewhere else.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:44

Wasn't it I thought they have like a war? It was like one day or something in there. I'm not sure, man. I don't know, can't remember. I could be remember something different. Either way, so what's the so what was the biggest surprise to you going from opposition leader to premier?

SPEAKER_00 1:15:59

Well, I think the biggest surprise is especially I mean I was leader of the opposition for eight years. So I'd been through a number of minority governments, I had been the I had been the health critic before that. And there are times when you're setting when you've been around that long where you are convinced that you know the files of the ministers and maybe even some of the files the premier's handling better than they do. Because you've just been around so long and you've and you've examined the the you know, in public accounts, you've examined the bureaucrats and all that kind of stuff. And and and what you very fick quickly find out when you cross the uh aisle is that the the actual job is nothing like what it appears to be from the opposition benches. Because when you're in the opposition benches, you can pick an issue and you can spend a day just on that issue. And when you're in the premier's office, you've got uh 250 emails in your inbox before you get to work in the morning. Right.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:03

So you just don't have the you know the the capacity to be able to spend as much time as you'd like on every every issue. So it is m a much more difficult, much more exhausting job than than I think you even though you recognize how hard people in those positions ministers are working, it's it still surprises you when you get into that job and realize that this really is you know 18 hours a day, seven days a week.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:37

Wow, okay, yeah, good answer. Very good. Okay. Easy question, maybe a compliment or a strange compliment you've received from a stranger.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:47

No, there's just all kinds of things that people, you know, come up and thank you for. You know, I'm always surprised what people remember, you know, because it might be something that was very, very minor to you. Or sometimes people will talk about something I didn't know. I don't really remember. I don't remember that. Uh so it's that kind of stuff that that when people are thanking you for things that that you don't actually remember. So maybe that maybe that maybe that's the answer.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:20

That's a fair enough answer.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:21

Yeah. All right, I think this is the last one. Last question. So if if someone made an action figure for Daryl Dexter, what would be the it can be ridiculous, not ridiculous, but what would be the accessory that would come with it?

SPEAKER_00 1:18:37

I don't know. That's a good question. You're allowed to say that's a dumb question. Okay, it's a safe space. It would probably be a book of some kind. Yeah, you know, I mean that's you know, I used to always get a kick out of the fact that you know, my staff would come to me and they would say, like, we know we've been working you hard, and we know that you know, you've been on the road now for 14 days straight. So you got Thursday off, right? You have Thursday off. Okay, great. And so on Wednesday night, my the guy who used to drive me around would drive me off, and before I would get out of the car, he would hand me these massive, great big briefing books. Oh dear. And I would think to myself, so I don't actually have tomorrow off. I'm just working from home tomorrow. Oh my gosh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because that's the that's just the reality of it. Like you just you, you know, it's you're you're constantly uh having to address either things that are going on. I got up one morning and opened the open my wife opened the curtains. It was like six o'clock in the morning. She opens the curtains and she closes them and she said, like, is there a reason like there's a C B C van in front of our house? And I just said, could be many reasons. So I literally call my communications uh guy and say, Look, there's a C B C van out in front of my house. Any idea what that's about? And he says, Yeah, you haven't listened to the news yet today. And I said, It's 20 after six. No, I haven't. Yeah. And he says, Oh, there was a shooting on your street. Oh, oh geez. And they just, you know, I mean, obviously you live on the street, so they're gonna be interested in what you think about that. So my God.

Final Advice And Closing Cheers

SPEAKER_02 1:20:21

So premiers are living in dangerous areas, eh? Yeah. Well, there you go. But then you know what, that speaks to the fact that I often say that, you know, when people get upset that people aren't, you know, in the house or in the ledge. Eighty percent of the work is not done in there.

unknown 1:20:37

Right?

SPEAKER_02 1:20:38

Oh yeah, no, for sure. It just, you know, there's lots of work that comes along that doesn't you don't have to be sitting to be working.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:44

Oh yeah. The I used to say that the premier's office was a little bit like an airport. Like, you know, things kind of kind of flew in through the door that landed on your desk. You had to deal with them, and then they took off, and they were, you know, to to hopefully they were to get to their destinations, right? So but it was yeah, it's it was at the same time one of the most exhilarating and most exhausting jobs I've ever had in my life.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:10

Well, kudos to you, and thank you so much for your time. We we we part every episode with uh a piece of advice you were giving in your lifetime, it could have been from anyone, that you'd like to share with us and our listeners today, and then we'll that's it, we'll land the plane.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:23

Okay, so I don't know who said this, but it is about how you think about uh other people and yourself. And that is there is just uh so much good in the worst of us and so much bad in the best of us that it don't behoove none of us to talk about the rest of us.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:43

Hell yeah, I like it. I like it. Great, great. Cheers.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:46

Cheers to you, my friend. Thank you very much. We are thank you. And thank you to uh the public uh the local public house. 100%. Cheers, guys, cheers, cheers. Thank you.