Avalon

Did you Know?
Did you know that almost all votes in the Nova Scotia Legislature are NOT recorded, that is they are recorded anonymously? You have no idea how your representative is voting or even if your representative is present in the house. This is a disgrace. The Parliament in Ottawa records all votes, so too should Nova Scotia’s Legislature. The Atlantica Party is committed to bringing in legislation that requires all votes on bills to be recorded and disseminated to the public both in print and electronically in a timely fashion along with information that makes house activity transparent giving the voters of Nova Scotia the power to assess and hold accountable those who vote in their names.

The Atlantica Party is launching a campaign in collaboration with the Know How They Vote website to have all bill votes recorded. Join our new campaign to have all votes recorded in the Nova Scotia Legislature!
http://www.atlanticaparty.ca
http://knowhowtheyvote.wordpress.com/

Did you know?
HealthLink 811, the province’s new 24-hour, seven-days-a-week telecare service, was launched on July 29. When a person dials 811 from any phone registered in Nova Scotia, they will be directed to an experienced registered nurse who will ask the individual to describe the symptoms they or their family member are experiencing. The nurse will then assess the urgency of the caller’s symptoms or health condition and advise them on the next steps, such as appropriate self-care, or to seek services from a family physician or another health-care provider, or to visit an emergency department.

News
Two By-elections were held on Tuesday, October 20 2009 in Antigonish & Inverness counties. For complete results visit Elections NS here:
http://www.electionsnovascotia.ns.ca/byelection/default.asp

Riding associations have been formed in Halifax Clayton Park, Halifax Bedford, Halifax Fairview and Glace Bay. The Atlantica Party will be registered as Nova Scotia’s newest party by the new year. More are ridings are to follow shortly. If you would like to help contact us, info@atlanticaparty.ca

Be part of the solution. Party memberships are only $10 and a click away!

Events:
The Green Party of Nova Scotia will announce the results of its leadership race on October 31.

What we are reading:
Hobbes, T. Leviathan. London, Penguin Books.1985.

As of January the first of 2010 political parties in Nova Scotia will only be able to accept donations from individual donors, meaning that corporate and union donations are no longer allowed.

The Atlantica Party supports and applauds this change. Until now it has never been clear why organizations, non-persons without a vote, could make a monetary donation to a political party. This change will help move the nature of political donations back to the individual where it should always have rested.

However the Atlantica Party does not think this move goes far enough. Currently individuals are restricted to a maximum of $5000. The Atlantica Party would remove this cap and allow complete freedom to all individuals to donate amounts of their choice without interference from government. Along with eliminating the cap would come a strict disclosure rule requiring public disclosure (print and electronic) within 24 hours of any and all donations received, both the amount and the private individual making the donation. Currently this information is reported many months later after any election.

The Atlantica Party would also eliminate public funding of political parties to level the playing field. The Atlantica Party’s political reforms are designed to encourage many different types of political action, with political parties being just one of many vehicles for the expression of the political will of the citizen, for instance Citizen’s Initiative, Recall, referenda, and free votes. So despite what political parties may think, the political party is not and should not be a privileged vehicle for political discourse, especially at the exclusion of other political avenues, and as such should not be supported by taxpayers.

Currently the police can only administer a breath test if they have a “reasonable suspicion”. The current Conservative bill will allow the police to dispense with this and automatically demand a breathalyzer test.

Does this intrusion go too far? Frank Addario, president of the Criminal Lawyers Association, says the proposed law would be “doomed” if subjected to a Charter challenge. Section Eight of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms protects individuals from unreasonable search and seizure. For a search to be “reasonable” it must be authorized by law, the law itself must be reasonable, and the manner in which the search was carried out must be reasonable (R. v. S.A.B., 2003 SCC 60).

On the other hand the government claims the bill will save lives and already we are subject to search at airports. However, at the airport you have the choice to decline (and miss your flight), not so in this case.

The Liberal leader, NDP leader and PC leader have all pledged to support this bill. In a free legislature where our representatives would work to protect the rights of citizens from infringement by government this bill would not pass. But since parliament is a creature of the party leader’s wishes and only serves as a theatrical backdrop to party positioning this bill will likely pass and Canadians’ rights will be infringed upon. And then in all likelihood a lengthy process will be started resulting in the bill being struck down at some future date, similar to the process currently on the go for hate speech.

If only our legislatures were free to strike down these partisan inspired defective bills at the source Canadians would be much further ahead.