My expectation for any politician is that they conduct themselves with integrity and be fully transparent about their views on matters of public concern. If Mike Kelloway doesn't understand the NSEF's position on Equalization, he should say so. We elected an MP who admitted during the campaign that he didn't understand one of our most vital issues, and it would be a good time to find out if he's now done his homework... or if he has instead focused his time on memorizing the gov's approved speaking points on the topic. If he disagrees with the NSEF or general Equalization supporters and rejects their position, he should say so. Rodger Cuzner hosted a meeting, agreed to the video recording, and during that meeting was at least bold enough to state his disagreement. He put information on record for any member of the public interested in the topic to see what he said. Even Cecil Clarke did the same, and the NSEF gained video confirmation that he was, indeed, no advocate for increasing resources for the CBRM, or any other struggling municipality in the province. These political folks will take all kinds of private meetings where they can be safe from scrutiny. I.e. they can tell the room whatever the room wants to hear. And they can disagree with anything that spills outside of the meeting because the public can't verify what actually happened. Plausible deniability. Which party is describing what happened at the meeting most accurately? Mike Kelloway inherited a strong Liberal MP seat and he's making an outstanding effort at building support throughout Cape Breton Canso. He's building a great deal of political capital. But it's only fair that if he's not supportive enough on Equalization that it be one of the things that differentiate him from other MP candidates in the next election who will work to unseat him. If his seat was 100% guaranteed, he'd never take a single meeting with anyone that held a negative view of his position on any topic.

From the 20-years of accommodating and being overly considerate towards our politicians, NSEF has not received any favourable forward movement regarding the Equalization funding. That being the case, the NSEF board members have passed a motion that all future meetings with government has to be recorded. The Liberal Party “policy” of no recording of meetings now being stressed by M.P. Mike Kelloway is to deny his constituents their democratic right to view and hear what he has and is currently saying on their behalf about a constitutional benefit government has been denying them for over two decades. But the sudden introduction of this “policy” should be regarded by citizens as nothing more than the government shielding itself from the transparency and accountability, which are the perquisites for any government that says it is democratic. In the last three-years with the help of more media-savvy people, NSEF’s message - which is the government’s own data that has filtered down to more people - is simply being played back to government. But, somehow, this government information is now threatening to politicians, according to some people. The reason this Equalization injustice continues to be politically manipulated by government is because enough of those being denied their constitutional benefit have continued to reward with re-election those very politicians who have been responsible. This long-standing injustice cannot end if those responsible are never held accountable but, instead, rewarded