If you’re on income assistance in Nova Scotia, you’re eligible for pharmacare – unless, that is, you’re a refugee claimant. The Department of Community Services’ Employment Support and Income Assistance policy contains misleading information on medical expenses for refugees, says Gillian Zubizarreta, Settlement Coordinator at the Halifax Refugee Clinic. As a result, she says, Department...
The latest neo-liberal buzzword: Resiliency
How academics at Dalhousie University unwittingly started a movement that punishes people for being poor and says capitalism is the solution to all our problems. How did this gaggle of liberals measure this mental toughness of resilience? One common tool to measure resilience is called the Children and Youth Resilience Measure (CYRM-28). The CYRM-28 is a 28-item questionnaire...
Will Nova Scotia take environmental racism seriously?
Indian Brook used to have the best water for miles around, said Dorene Bernard. But no one likes to drink it now. The change came in 2012, when the community’s water table was contaminated by digging at the nearby Nova Scotia Sand and Gravel pit. The community was issued a do-not-drink advisory, and the Department...
International Students Give N.S. Universities a Failing Grade
At the public consultation on universities that took place in the Fall of 2014, international students participating in a consultation session in Halifax were asked whether they would recommend the province’s universities to peers in their home countries. The answer was a resounding ‘no,’ according to students who attended the session. “Many of them said that the amount of...
Mapping the Social Arctic
For most, it’s hard to imagine a harder environment to navigate than the Arctic. 19th century British explorers certainly thought so; British ships trying to find the Northwest Passage were frequently trapped or destroyed by the ice, including Sir John Franklin’s doomed vessel, recently discovered in the waters off King William Island in Nunavut. But what if...
Convoluted Regulations Prevent Students from Accessing Income Assistance
A student in Dalhousie’s Transition Year Programme has had her income assistance cut by the Department of Community Services, prompting the Dalhousie Student Union and community groups to call on the government to revise the Employment Support and Income Assistance Act. Section 67 of the Employment Support and Income Assistance Act states that anyone attending...
Racist Graffiti a Symptom of Systemic Problems at Dalhousie
When Kalkidan Gebre found graffiti on a desk in Dalhousie’s Killam library reading “no n*****s allowed #whitepower”, her first response after taking a picture was to scratch it out. She didn’t want anyone else to stumble across it and experience the same shock she had, and in any case she didn’t think anything would come...
‘An attack on one of us…is an attack on all of us’: Bill 100 provokes national condemnation
Over the weekend, delegates attending the annual meeting of the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) voted unanimously to condemn the Universities Accountability and Sustainability Act, otherwise known as Bill 100. With that vote, CAUT – which represents staff and faculty at universities across the country – committed to initiating a process of censure if a...
Academic Freedom Under Threat from Bill 100
On Thursday, a steady stream of students and academics presented to the Law Amendments Committee on the ways in which Bill 100 would strip them of constitutional rights while undermining academic freedom and the integrity of universities. Bill 100 would allow university administrators anticipating financial difficulties to trigger a ‘revitalization period’. Presenting to the committee,...
Building on Sand: Master’s Thesis Proposes Design for Sable Island
Sable Island exemplifies rootlessness. Made entirely of sand, not only is the surface fluid – the island is itself on the move, as sand is washes away from the Western side and builds up on the East. Not an ideal location on which to build, one would think. But when Matthew Griffin-Allwood was developing a thesis project...
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