Liberal Keith Colwell made his debut as chairman of the public accounts committee last week, but needed just a little more time with the MLA lineup.
When the questioning came back around to the New Democrats, Colwell gave the floor to "Mr. Burchill."
Colchester-Musquodoboit Valley MLA Gary Burrill was unfazed and pressed on.
Colwell ran things pretty smoothly overall and gave a couple of stern reminders to MLAs about tabling the documents to which they referred.
The Preston MLA took over from Halifax Clayton Park’s Diana Whalen, who moved to the chairwoman of the Grit caucus in a shakeup of roles last month.
Whalen maintains her role, though, as champion of a February holiday for Nova Scotians.
It would be a three-day weekend, if she had her druthers. She’s been lobbying for a holiday on the third Monday of February since 2005.
She added a little flash to her campaign this year, releasing a video last week in which she outlines her case while visiting several sites around metro, including the Emera Oval, where she laced up her skates.
"I really did feel that it was time that we tried different methods to get people engaged," she said. "It was fun."
She points out five other provinces already have a February holiday and British Columbia adds one next year.
Economic activity wouldn’t come grinding to a halt — a concern of many businesspeople — because people would still go out to coffee, dinner and spend money elsewhere, Whalen said.
Whalen favours calling the day Joseph Howe Day, after the famed 19th-century Bluenose politician and journalist.
A new batch of ministerial expenses showed up in the legislature library recently, outlining items from the fall. Among them:
•Deputy premier Frank Corbett filled in for Premier Darrell Dexter at a symposium called Rebuilding the North American Economy Together: Driving a New Era in Canada and U.S. Relations in Chicago in October. Dexter had been invited to speak at the event, an initiative Dalhousie University is involved with. The symposium was hosted by the Urban Transportation Center at the University of Illinois. The flight cost $1,280.04 while the total cost of the overnight trip was $1,672.75.
•Communities, Culture, and Heritage Minister Dave Wilson’s trip to Seattle in October for a national conference of regional state/provincial organizations came in at $2,529.93 for the flight and $3,727.37 in total. The bill included four nights in a hotel. Wilson said he found the fare online himself and it was cheaper than what his officials had found.
•Also in October, Agriculture Minister John MacDonell was in Quebec City for a day for a meeting with Quebec environment officials on biosolids. The trip cost was $810.76.
