N.S. premier defends appointing business friends as Crown executive chairs

Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston shrugged off allegations of political patronage and nepotism from opposition leaders on Friday.

Houston admitted to appointing friends to take over two new Crown corporations, which the government announced earlier this week.

The premier says the best candidates were chosen for the job and he couldn’t help it if they were his friends.

“The fact that they are my friends and I know them, when you are going through a transition like this, I believe it’s important that you can hit the ground running,” said Houston. “And as people that you understand and know their qualifications, that’s what’s happened here.”

On Tuesday, Houston announced the government was merging five Crown corporations that account for $100 million in annual spending into two new entities known as Build Nova Scotia and Invest Nova Scotia.

Houston appointed businessmen Wayne Crawley as executive chair of Build Nova Scotia, which combines the former Nova Scotia Lands and Develop Nova Scotia corporations.

Tom Hickey will serve as executive chair of Invest Nova Scotia, replacing Nova Scotia Business Inc., Innovacorp, and the Invest Nova Scotia fund.

Both will be paid $1,500 a day for their work and start in their positions immediately.

The appointments don’t sit well with opposition leaders.

“I am, frankly, rather shocked that the premier comes out here every day and says ‘Yes, I hired my friends,’” said NDP leader Claudia Chender.

“I would ask Nova Scotians to pause and consider the impact of that statement from the man who is running this province.”

Houston doesn’t deny the appointees are close friends, but says they are also the most qualified and defends his decision by stating they are only interim positions.

“As we transition through, it’s certainly our intention to have full time and permanent CEOs within a few months,” said Houston. “They are short term, interim positions.”

Chender said the hiring and appointing of friends in private business might be acceptable, but in government there’s an understanding of open competition and merit based appointments.

“At a private company it might fly,” said Chender. “But it does not fly in government. It’s generally accepted that we want a merit-based civil service where we hire the people who are most qualified for the specific job.”

Dalhousie political science professor Lori Turnbull says it’s within Houston’s power as premier to make these appointments.

“The premier hasn’t done anything wrong by the rules,” said Turnbull. “Tim Houston might be thinking, ‘You know what, I can answer to these questions, I’m fine with that, there are harder things you could ask me that I’m not having to answer because we’re taking about this.’”

The Liberals say a pattern is emerging of partisan appointments under the Houston government and point to Houston's decision to quash the Nova Scotia Health board of directors and the firing its CEO Brendan Carr last September, who he replaced with lawyer Karen Oldfield on an interim position.

“They fired health care professionals and replaced them with a partisan lawyer who had no experience to run our health care system and we’re seeing how bad our health care system is and now,” said Liberal leader Zach Churchll. “Now we’ve seen him fire independent boards and independent CEOs and admittedly put two of his friends in charge.”

Turnbull says it’s a fair point for the opposition to draw attention to the fact that Houston is appointing people with whom he’s comfortable on a personal level to fill government jobs, but it's not going to make a difference politically for Houston right now.

“This is something that they can invest in now and maybe in a couple years time if Houston makes a habit of this, they can say ‘Houston is treating the taxpayer’s money like it's his personal fund to hire his friends,’” said Turnbull. “But at this point, it's not going to change much.”