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adam_mcphee 's review for:
Nova Scotia Politics 1945-2020: From Macdonald to MacNeil
by Graham Steele
Truly appreciated this book, even if it is very barebones and only begins to cover the topic.
A popular history of Nova Scotia's premiers. There's a good deal on Macdonald and Stanfield, our first postwar Liberal and Conservative premiers and probably the most important. For everyone else, it's a few very brief pages on their political rise, what they did in office (if anything), and their downfall. The interim premiers are lucky even to get a mention.
If there's an ideological difference to be found, you might say one side is the Macdonald approach (public works, mostly building and maintaining roads) and the Stanfield approach (attracting outside businesses to set up shop in Nova Scotia with things like tax breaks and anti-union legislation). But every premier uses both approaches. The downside of the public works approach is that it led to a wide scale petty corruption in the form of patronage jobs. The downside of the Stanfield approach is that millions are spent on businesses that don't take off, don't employ as many people as they say they will (and because of anti-union legislation, the jobs end up paying less), and in the end the government is on the hook for cleaning up pollution (as at the Pictou pulp mill) or takes over a failing business and keeps it running just to keep people employed (the Sydney steel mill). Ironically, as Steele points out, the economy stays about the same either way: Nova Scotia can usually be expected to do a little bit better than the rest of Atlantic Canada, and a little bit worse than the rest of the country.
The chapters on petty corruption and road politics were fascinating and far too brief.
Steele was a minister in Darrell Dexter's NDP government, but the book isn't partisan at all. If anything he's too fair and sympathetic to the premiers. There's a tendency to gloss over scandals with technical aspects as simply being controversial, and I would argue with his assertion that there are few or no political multigenerational political dynasties in Nova Scotia (part of this is that he's only counting MLAs who are related to other MLAs--but there are dynasties at the federal level as well as various business families--essentially oligarchs--whose members don't seek elected office but who end up playing a role in our political fate all the same).
Still, these are small quibbles. The book is straightforward and readable and, given how underserved Canadian history is, much-needed. I plan to seek our Steele's previous books and I hope he's able to write about Nova Scotia again in the future.
Oh, and I did a twitter thread of interesting bits here.
A popular history of Nova Scotia's premiers. There's a good deal on Macdonald and Stanfield, our first postwar Liberal and Conservative premiers and probably the most important. For everyone else, it's a few very brief pages on their political rise, what they did in office (if anything), and their downfall. The interim premiers are lucky even to get a mention.
If there's an ideological difference to be found, you might say one side is the Macdonald approach (public works, mostly building and maintaining roads) and the Stanfield approach (attracting outside businesses to set up shop in Nova Scotia with things like tax breaks and anti-union legislation). But every premier uses both approaches. The downside of the public works approach is that it led to a wide scale petty corruption in the form of patronage jobs. The downside of the Stanfield approach is that millions are spent on businesses that don't take off, don't employ as many people as they say they will (and because of anti-union legislation, the jobs end up paying less), and in the end the government is on the hook for cleaning up pollution (as at the Pictou pulp mill) or takes over a failing business and keeps it running just to keep people employed (the Sydney steel mill). Ironically, as Steele points out, the economy stays about the same either way: Nova Scotia can usually be expected to do a little bit better than the rest of Atlantic Canada, and a little bit worse than the rest of the country.
The chapters on petty corruption and road politics were fascinating and far too brief.
Steele was a minister in Darrell Dexter's NDP government, but the book isn't partisan at all. If anything he's too fair and sympathetic to the premiers. There's a tendency to gloss over scandals with technical aspects as simply being controversial, and I would argue with his assertion that there are few or no political multigenerational political dynasties in Nova Scotia (part of this is that he's only counting MLAs who are related to other MLAs--but there are dynasties at the federal level as well as various business families--essentially oligarchs--whose members don't seek elected office but who end up playing a role in our political fate all the same).
Still, these are small quibbles. The book is straightforward and readable and, given how underserved Canadian history is, much-needed. I plan to seek our Steele's previous books and I hope he's able to write about Nova Scotia again in the future.
Oh, and I did a twitter thread of interesting bits here.