Houston government's 2nd term is likely to be harder than the first
'Whatever honeymoon period they may have had is probably over,' says political science professor
Premier Tim Houston's ninth sitting as premier — his longest since taking office — could foreshadow what the next three or four years will be like for him and his Progressive Conservative government.
Traditionally, re-elected governments face stronger political headwinds after their inaugural terms.
"I think second terms are always harder for governments," said Lori Turnbull, who teaches political science in the faculty of management at Dalhousie University.
"Whatever honeymoon period they may have had is probably over and voters are expecting more results."
The Houston government strode into Province House this session with the kind of tax relief budget the PCs promised during the recent election campaign, but it was quickly overshadowed by a completely different political agenda.
The PCs tabled legislation to pave the way for hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, and uranium mining in Nova Scotia, a bill that would have allowed the party in power to fire the auditor general without cause, and changes to the access to information law that would have allowed senior officials to simply ignore some requests.
The public outcry forced the government to ditch or modify some of those plans.
Because it won a record-breaking majority in last November's general election, the premier and his team also changed the rules of the House, giving themselves the power to limit debate and shorten the time opposition members have traditionally used to delay the bill-making process.
The fact the party in power didn't need to wield what is sometimes referred to as "the hammer," is a testament to how quickly this government reacted to the public backlash.
Having a 43-member caucus also means the PCs have more people around the table bringing their constituents' voices forward — voices that are harder for the government to brush off as simply opposition posturing.
Although the Houston government continues to blame previous governments for what they did or didn't do, it's the PC record that will increasingly be scrutinized during this second term.
Turnbull pointed to Houston's promise to "fix health care" in the 2021 election.
She said most Nova Scotians probably saw that as aspirational rather than an achievable first-term goal.
"I think people kind of appreciated that that's where [Houston's] head was, but nobody thought that within four years' time Houston was going to solve the family doctor problem," said Turnbull. "But in the second term, now you've actually had some time to figure out where the problems are, what you need to do.
"Now people are out of patience and they want to see where your results are."
Trying to fix health care has been a costly endeavour, but the Houston government's effort has been buoyed by billions of dollars in unexpected revenue that have filled provincial coffers in recent years thanks to record numbers of people moving here.
Turnbull said that money and beefed-up transfer payments are no longer a given because of the plateauing population growth.
"I certainly don't think that it's going to be possible for provincial governments to count on some windfall, count on something coming in that maybe we didn't see," said Turnbull. "It doesn't seem like that's the way the wind is blowing.
"In the context of [U.S President Donald] Trump and the tariffs and the trade wars and the uncertainty, it's a hard time to be a premier of a small province."
Turnbull noted that two premiers — Newfoundland and Labrador's Andrew Furey and Dennis King of Prince Edward Island — have left or announced plans to leave politics in recent weeks, an indication of the kind of uncertainty facing Canada's elected officials.
"We're looking at four years of erratic, crazy, bonkers behaviour by the president of the United States," Furey said Feb. 25, the day he announced his plans to resign once a successor is selected.
"This is going to be a pervasive problem for Canadians for the next four years."
That reality likely isn't appealing to Houston, but it's what the man who won the largest majority in the province's history is facing 3½ years after winning the premier's job.
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