Start Your Engines!

Start your engines! PC MLA for Yarmouth Richard Hurlburt resigns. Premier Dexter, while in opposition committed his party to filling vacancies in a timely manner if elected, although he may prudently wait a short time in case more dominoes fall.  With the outrage spread evenly among the three sitting parties, the Green Party of Nova Scotia, as the only provincial party to remain untainted by this scandal, has an opportunity to increase its vote share and show the citizens of this province that the Green Party does things differently. 

"Fixing the MLA expense issue is merely addressing a symptom, not the problem", said John Percy, Leader of the Green Party on Nova Scotia.  "We need a wholesale change in thinking about how we conduct government business in Nova Scotia, starting with the electoral system."

Mr. Percy went on to say, "The first past the post system is an antiquated and irrelevant system that worked for a two party system controlled by white male landowners 250 years ago.  Our society has changed radically, but our electoral system has remained static."

"The non-voter is the largest and fastest growing demographic in the province.  Out of 714,675 registered voters in Nova Scotia, 186,556 voted for the current government, or 26.1%.  Approximately 301,000 chose not to vote.  So by appealing to 1 in 4 voters, a party can have a majority government without the will of the majority, and can have free rein to rule this province as a personal fiefdom.  Currently 26% of the voters gave the government 60% of the seats.  This is NOT representative, accountable government.  We need to move to some form of proportional representation and enshrine the use of online voting into law to offset an ever growing apathy and sense that taxpayers have no control over a system that is out of touch with reality."