Contract last straw for Steele /Ex-finance minister quit after deal with NSGEU MICHAEL GORMAN PROVINCIAL REPORTER mgor [email protected] @CH-mgor man A former Nova Scotia finance minister says he resigned from cabinet in 2012 because then premier Darrell Dexter was taking the government in a direction he could not follow. In his book, What I Learned About Politics: Inside the Rise — and Collapse — of Nova Scotia’s NDP Government, Graham Steele writes that he was becoming disillusioned with the intensely partisan nature of politics and feared becoming a career politician . But what pushed him over the edge, writes Steele, was Dexter’s decision to agree to a contract with the Nova Scotia Government & General Employees Union that Steele believed the province could not afford. “The impact of that settlement was wage restraint did not take hold under the NDP government, Steele said in an interview Wednesday. Dexter could not be reached for comment Wednesday. That day 2 1 ⁄ 2 years ago ended very differently than it started, with the NDP caucus agreeing to introduce and pass what was an essential-services-style bill to prevent Local 42 at Capital Health from going on strike. Steele writes that Dexter “was at his best as he convinced caucus such a bill was the right thing to do and everyone — with the exception of Howard Epstein — left the meeting in agreement. “We knew it wasn’t going to be easy, Steele said Wednesday. “We knew that this was a time when we had to take a stand, that it was necessary to achieve other things that we wanted to achieve. Within hours, the legislation was scrapped and Steele and the rest of his caucus colleagues learned Dexter instead agreed to a richer deal with the union, one the government side — including Steele — rejected during previous negotiations. Dexter made the decision without consulting caucus or treasury board, said Steele. “At that point, it was clear to me that I couldn’t continue. I think, more than anything else, it was just disappointment that it had come to this, that something so important was decided on the seventh floor of One Government Place without consultations.” After two years of holding the line at one per cent increases, Dexter, facing a health-care strike, agreed to a richer deal with the union . “The boys in the Premier’s Office had gone to work on Darrell, and they didn’t care what anybody else thought,” writes Steele. “Once the offer was made to the union, it couldn’t be pulled back. And the premier had told his boys to make the offer.” Steele writes that then-health minister Maureen MacDonald was equally unhappy, to the point the two talked about holding a news conference to resign together. MacDonald ultimately had second thoughts and would become finance minister. She declined comment Wednesday, saying she had yet to see the book. With the NDP now out of power, Steele said there is no reason to keep his views to himself. He said MacDonald persuaded him that “resigning in the wrong way would do more harm than good.” He ultimately made the announcement a month later, around the same time as former transportation minister Bill Estabrooks, who resigned for health reasons. “I came to accept that, that my objective was not to mortally wound the Dexter government, it was to express my lack of support for that particular initiative.” Aside from MacDonald, Steele said he isn’t certain if other colleagues felt the same way. He shared his views with very few people. “Within the NDP caucus, there was a lot of head-scratching over how we could leave a caucus meeting with one understanding and a resolve to move in a direction, and a few hours later, something different was being done. People were puzzled.” Steele said he never really asked Dexter for an explanation. In the face of a health-care strike, where so many people would be affected, Steele said even today he isn’t sure if Dexter was wrong. “What I would say is my judgment was we needed to hold the line and his judgment was different.” Steele’s book is available today
Posted on: Thu, 04 Sep 2014 18:23:33 +0000
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