HALIFAX — Nova Scotia’s former justice minister says her successor filed a code of conduct complaint with the province barristers’ society over questions she asked as an Independent in the legislature. Becky Druhan said she recently learned through an email the regulating body for Nova Scotia lawyers sent in May that Justice Minister Scott Armstrong had filed the complaint against her. The professional order dismissed the complaint. Druhan, who is a lawyer, said she was disappointed a cabinet minister would use a professional complaint to target a member of the legislature for doing their work as an elected official. “My job as an opposition MLA is to hold Premier Houston and his government to account, and that means asking hard questions,” she said in an interview Tuesday. “Sometimes those questions make the government uncomfortable, but it is disappointing to me that they would try and engage the professional complaints process in response to me doing my job.” Druhan joined the Liberals in May after leaving the Progressive Conservative party in October 2025. She declined to share further details of the code of conduct complaint, but said it had to do with questions she had asked the government in the legislature, before she joined the Liberals. In an emailed statement Wednesday, Armstrong said he contacted the barristers’ society in the spring “to seek their guidance about the professional obligations of a former attorney general, particularly solicitor-client privilege.” “We had an unusual situation with a former attorney general who crossed the floor, sat as an Independent, and made statements in the legislature containing innuendo. Certainly, because of her previous role as attorney general, those comments could be taken as her having knowledge of something that she would have only gained in that capacity,” Armstrong said. He did not immediately respond when asked which of Druhan’s questions in the legislature contained innuendo or prompted the complaint. In February, Druhan had asked the government about whether there was political interference in police investigations, prompting heckling from Premier Tim Houston. Although she addressed the question to Armstrong in February, multiple people present said the premier could be heard heckling as Armstrong responded, saying “she should go out there and say it,” while pointing to the doors of the chamber. Parliamentary rules in Canada allow politicians to speak freely inside the chambers of legislatures, without fear of being sued for defamation, but they can lose that protection if they repeat something outside. Druhan asked the premier to waive cabinet confidentiality so she could share more information, but the premier said no. Armstrong said Wednesday a lawyer “potentially using their role and confidential information they gleaned in that role for the purpose of attempting to embarrass or disadvantage a former client and gain political advantage for herself is concerning at best.” The minister said the Nova Scotia Barristers’ Society dismissed the issue because it did not want to take jurisdiction over matters in the legislature. This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 23, 2026. Lyndsay Armstrong, The Canadian Press
