Originally published in the Chronicle Herald on Saturday, Aug. 9, 2025
Tell me if you’ve heard this one before:
A man asks his friend “What’s the definition of insanity?”
His friend replies, “Trying the same thing over and over again but expecting different results.”
“No,” says the man. “That’s just government policy.”
All jokes aside, the issues facing Nova Scotia – skyrocketing cost of living, U.S. tariffs, worsening environmental crises and more – are complex. Addressing them will require courage and creative thinking. Simply put, if we don’t try something new, we’re just going to end up right back where we started, or worse.
Unfortunately, the Houston government seems stuck on old ideas. From fracking to uranium to offshore oil and gas, they’ve spent the past several months aggressively pushing outdated economic plans and risky, dead-end industries – ones that Nova Scotians have repeatedly said no to.
And to make matters worse, they just can’t seem to stop gaslighting us about it.
Last week, the province released the 2025 progress report on the Environmental Goals and Climate Change Reduction Act.
First off, credit where credit is due. It’s good to see some ambition on offshore wind and strengthening electricity transmission. But aside from this, the report shows a worrying lack of progress on key goals. It’s a veritable masterclass in greenwashing and utterly devoid of the courage needed to lead with transparency, sincerity and an ability to have the “mature conversations” the Houston government keeps talking about.
The report dismisses the failure to ban oil-fired heating equipment in new buildings by 2025 and, despite the high cost of home heating oil, uses affordability as an excuse. It says the government is focused on the 2026 interim target of protecting 15 per cent of Nova Scotia’s land and water but fails to mention that they haven’t protected a single new area in the past year. It frames recent changes to the environmental assessment process as a win in the fight against climate change, but these changes fast-track carbon-heavy industries like gas-powered reliability generators and large-scale biomass burning. It even spends nearly two pages talking about the goal of implementing Coastal Protection Act regulations without mentioning that the government abandoned the act.
At the same time, the province still refuses to release important reports and strategies, such as the Provincial Active Transportation Strategy, the Environmental Racism Panel recommendations and the Electric School Bus feasibility study. Despite the shine they try to put on it, the Houston government is actively working against their own goals and doing their best to keep the public in the dark.
Nova Scotians deserve better.
The issues our communities are facing are very real. They deserve forward-thinking solutions from our leaders, not the same old tried-and-failed, corporate-centered ideas of the past.
As a first step, we need to move away from thinking about these issues as separate, unrelated problems. We can’t try to solve one crisis by worsening another, as if addressing the varied needs of our communities was some sort of zero-sum game.
All these issues are connected, and so are the solutions. Investing in a community-focused transition to clean energy would create tens of thousands of jobs every year while helping us meet our climate commitments. Removing barriers for underserved communities entering the trades can support a diverse energy efficiency sector and lower energy costs for Nova Scotia households. Investing in local food producers and supporting low-impact industries like kelp farming can boost our economy and help address food security without threatening cornerstone industries like fishing and tourism.
In communities, classrooms and workplaces throughout the province, the roadmaps to a better future are being built, and it’s all available to the government any time they’re ready to stop selling our province off to the highest bidder and get serious about helping everyday Nova Scotians.
In the end, it all comes down to the kind of a future we want to build for Nova Scotia. Outdated economic thinking – the kind our government seems so attached to – would have you believe that sacrificing the health of our communities and our environment is the only path to meeting our basic needs.
But Nova Scotians know better. It’s time for courage and new ways of thinking about our future. No more undemocratic power grabs and ignoring our communities. No more false promises. No more dead-end industries and lazy economic thinking. We know that we don’t have to choose between economic prosperity and a healthy environment. We can build a future where our people, our communities and the natural spaces we all rely on can truly thrive.
All it takes is some courage, and a little bit of creative thinking.
Maggy Burns is the executive director of the Ecology Action Centre.