The Halifax Examiner is providing all COVID-19 coverage for free. Long ago and far away — which is to say on March 22, 2020, while much of the known world shuttered in place against the new and frightening worldwide COVID-19 pandemic — Galen Weston, the executive chair of Loblaw Companies Ltd., better known to you […]
Northwood Inquiry? No need. McNeil and Delorey have this. Uh…
Fifty-three residents died in Northwood's long-term care home during COVID-19. Long-term care residents accounted for 92 per cent of all COVID-19 deaths in Nova Scotia. And yet the premier sees no need for a public inquiry, legislative oversight, legislation... anything. Does that make you feel better?
The Halifax Examiner is providing all COVID-19 coverage for free. Nothing to see here folks. Nothing to talk about. Nothing to know you need to know because… well, you know. And even if there was, we shouldn’t. We can’t. Know. You know… “Our committees unanimously voted to adjourn and suspend committee meetings,” explained the Explainer-in-Chief […]
Councillors cancelled the tank contract. Good. Now what?
We are in a moment. It has forced us to rethink what we mean by policing, and by public safety, and to begin to reimagine a world in which public safety does not necessarily mean a cop with a gun killing someone with whom he is supposedly conducting a “wellness check,” or six cops with guns subduing an unarmed 23-year-old woman navigating two kids through a Walmart because someone thought she might be shoplifting because... well, because she’s Black.
Is this “a moment?” It depends. On what we do next. And the next after that. It has been a stunning week in a shocking month in a stranger-beyond-strange year. And it is only the middle of June. On Tuesday, our city councillors voted 15–1 to overturn a decision they’d made by a vote of […]
Police brutality? Think globally, act locally
We're right to speak out about the murder of George Floyd and about the global pandemic of state violence against black people, but we — white people — also need to act locally. There's plenty for us to do right here in our own backyard.
Call it the dance of the dodge. • We need to wait, we need to respect the process, we need to make an informed decision based on the appropriate investigation…” — Halifax Police Chief Dan Kinsella, Jan. 20, 2020. • “After some initial investigation, it has been determined, based on medical records, the matter meets […]
Shiny budget surpluses versus investing in long-term care
Our current crisis in long-term care, now in the spotlight because of COVID-19, is the result of lots of choices governments have made. We need a public inquiry to hold them accountable, and to make sure our long-term care future is better than its past.
The Halifax Examiner is providing all COVID-19 coverage for free. Choices? Crushing health care unions versus investing in long-term care? Slashing $8 million from the provincial budget for grants to long-term health care facilities versus investing in long-term care? Boasting about shiny budget surpluses versus investing in long-term care? Cutting taxes for corporations versus investing...
Dear Mr. Premier: I know you’re busy but…
You need to appoint a public inquiry into the recent mass murders in Nova Scotia. Now. Yesterday. It needs to be open and transparent and broad-based. I have a few suggestions. You're welcome.
Dear Premier McNeil, I know you’ve been busy, telling Nova Scotians to stay the blazes home and telling our legislators to stay the blazes out of affairs that are none of their business. Such as government spending. I mean, what gives elected MLAs the right to hold online committee hearings to ask awkward questions about […]
Lloyd’s Ferry Fairy Tales, Spring 2020 edition
Instead of waiting for the inevitable end to a ferry season that will never begin, why doesn't the government simply stop pretending, cancel its subsidy to Bay Ferries and redistribute those millions to local tourist operators who really need help? And then begin contemplating a different, more sustainable, less uncertain future for rural Nova Scotia.
My. Oh my. Really? You don’t say. Lloyd? Again? Still. Do tell. No, wait, please don’t… Last Thursday, for the first time since the provincial government declared us all in a state of suspended animation in March, our politicians came back out to play with reporters — at a politically safe distance, of course. After...
Welcome back, Peter
I’ve spent a good chunk of my columnist’s career mocking Peter MacKay without ever having spent time in his company. And then I did. He seemed generous, thoughtful, far more complex than I'd given him credit for. But then he got back into politics. And became 'that' Peter MacKay again.
Is it the person or the persona? The person or the party? The campaign or the campaigner? Does it really even matter? I’ve spent a good chunk of my columnist’s career mocking Peter MacKay without ever actually having spent time in his company. MacKay was always just a dependable target, a talking contradiction, inevitably doing...
Random thoughts from a random week in the middle of a random time…
On Westray and Portapique, naming names, suing Trump, making media great... someday, pressing legislature business, comparing Cuba's COVID-19 numbers to Nova Scotia's, and, oh yes, Franco is still dead...
Random thoughts from a random week in the middle of a random time… Just before dawn on the morning of May 9, 1992, a methane gas explosion rocketed through the underground tunnels of the Westray mine in Plymouth, NS, killing all 26 miners working underground. That’s just four more than were killed last month in...
Portapique tragedy: We need a full public inquiry
It isn't about assigning blame. But there are questions we need to answer, and it isn’t good enough for the RCMP to conduct an internal investigation into what happened and why, and then tell us what they decide we’re allowed to know.
Late on the afternoon of Sunday, April 19, I sat in front of my television waiting for an RCMP briefing I fully expected would help me make sense of the confusing cascade of disjointed, disconcerting, increasingly frightening news bytes and bulletins that had tumbled out and over one another all that day. I’d woken to […]
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