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Today's rally follows the Government of Nova Scotia under Premier Tim Houston attempting to enact authoritarian U.S.-style measures such as: - Limiting media access to elected leaders. - Giving the government the power to fire civil servants without cause. - Making it harder to find out what the government is up to via access to information requests. - Making it impossible to propose amendments at a government committee formerly called Law Amendments. - Lifting bans on fracking and uranium mining (without consulting the Assembly of Nova Scotia Mi’kmaw Chiefs), protections adopted after consultation and engagement with Nova Scotians and backed by health and economic research. - Giving the government the power to appoint 50% of the Board of Governors of Nova Scotia universities and requiring universities to align their funding priorities with that of the government: a threat to the independence of academic institutions in the province. All this also comes after moves to enable the government to fire the Auditor General without cause and to hide the Auditor’s findings from the public were yanked recently. It’s the same approach we are seeing in the U.S. itself to centralizing power and is reminiscent of the approach of the Government in Alberta as well. “What we are witnessing here in Nova Scotia is alarmingly similar to what happened in the U.S., the concentration of power in the hands of a few people on behalf of corporate interests and the erosion of accountability measures,” says Gretchen Fitzgerald, National Programs Director with Sierra Club Canada. “People today made it clear, we won’t stand by and let Nova Scotia go down that path. Clean air, clean water and healthy ecosystems are needed more than ever and wonderful to see so many people standing united to protect them.” #NovaScotia #Halifax