NDP Leader called for the sale to be immediately halted
Lyndsay Armstrong
The Coast
September 4, 2021
New minister of renewable and natural resources Tory Rushton says he “needs to understand” how the sale of Owls Head Provincial Park happened before taking next steps.
“You’ve heard us speak at different times about Owls Head. We need to understand what was signed in the contract by the previous government,” said Rushton, the MLA for Cumberland South and newly sworn-in minister, following Thursday’s first meeting of the Nova Scotia’s new cabinet. He added he “hasn’t been fully briefed” on the file, and will need further meetings before saying more.
During the summer campaign the Progressive Conservatives pledged to pause the sale. NDP leader Gary Burrill says the new government should immediately cancel it.
“The government needs to send a signal in this moment of twin emergencies: biodiversity and climate change… conservation is not some peripheral matter or a sidebar,” Burrill said to reporters Thursday, following Rushton’s post-cabinet remarks. To Burrill, brand-new premier Tim Houston’s government “could signal a concern and interest for transparency and openness going forward by simply reversing the mistaken decision that the previous government made. I think that’s what the government ought to do.”
