I’ve never been a fan of press-conference journalism. It may be a marginal improvement on canned-quotes press-release journalism when it comes to public accountability, but most press conferences I’ve attended are little more than carefully staged theatre pieces designed to control and direct the flow of information and emotion in ways favourable to the presenter....
Jen’s choice is no choice at all; why not?
Jen Powley is smart. She has four degrees. She’s a prize-winning author with an eclectic CV and a significant record of ongoing accomplishment. She’s still only 41. So why does she face a government-imposed Hobson’s life choice: go into a nursing home to be warehoused and “removed from society” for the rest of her life, or accept care that isn’t even adequate to meet her most basic needs?
Jen Powley is smart. She has four degrees: a BA in Social Sciences (with Distinction) from King’s University College in Edmonton in 2000, a one-year post-baccalaureate Bachelor of Journalism from the University of King’s College in Halifax in 2001, a Master of Planning degree from Dalhousie in 2008 and a Master of Fine Arts in […]
Let us eat cake
Since 1971, Nova Scotians have been paying the price for Michelin's success. And not just with grants and loans and the rest. We've been paying with our sovereignty and self-respect too.
Granton, Nova Scotia: Michelin North America (Canada) Inc. today announced two new projects at its Michelin Pictou County site… These projects, valued at $9 million and $12 million respectively, will add 150 new positions at the Michelin Pictou County site, and will make permanent 200 temporary positions that were slated previously to end in 2020. —Michelin...
Cannabis is still legal
And the story is still news. Sorry, it will be for more time than you might like. It's what happens when you become one of the first countries in the world to admit it's OK to smoke pot. Just sit back, relax and...
Cannabis is still legal. In the months, weeks, days, hours, minutes and, yes, seconds — “5-4-3-2-1! … Light up! It’s legal!”— counting down to the legalization of cannabis in Canada last week, you could be forgiven for imagining there was no other news worth noting in this country, or the world. Or you might assume...
Why the pre-legalization crackdown on medical cannabis dispensaries?
Why have our police forces suddenly become the Hell’s Angels of medical cannabis, badge-toting, tough-guy enforcers of the government’s price-fixing monopoly on the pot business?
On Wednesday, Oct. 17, recreational-but-fun-free cannabis finally becomes legal in Canada. Before we go there — and we should — let us first take a step back and ask how and why our police forces have suddenly become the Hell’s Angels of medical cannabis, badge-toting, tough-guy enforcers of the government’s price-fixing monopoly on the pot […]
Do P3 hospitals offer value for money spent? None of your business, says Stephen McNeil
What does Deloitte — the company we paid $500,000 to analyze the wisdom of P3s for new hospital infrastructure — have to say in its report? We don't know. Why not? Because “your Liberal government,” which, since 2013, “has been dedicated to being the most open and transparent government in the country, tirelessly working to improve public trust, increase citizen engagement and enhance government services for you, the taxpayer,” won’t tell us.
The ever-expanding, ongoing plan to drag Nova Scotia’s healthcare infrastructure into the 21st century — by tearing down and replacing three well-past-their-best-before-date buildings in the QEII hospital complex, expanding the Dartmouth General Hospital and constructing new outpatient clinics in the Bayers Lake business park and on the site of the former CBC building on Bell...
Don’t tax the rich: They won’t pay
How is it possible our formerly best-to-do taxpayers, who paid $33.1-billion into federal coffers in 2015 could only pony up a paltry-by-comparison $26.3-billion in 2016? What really happened? We thought you’d never ask. And what will happen as a result? Don’t ask.
Did you know Canadian taxpayers earning more than $250,000 annually — them’s the “one per cent” to me and thee — paid $6.8-billion less in federal taxes in 2016 than they did in 2015? But… uh… wait a minute. Didn’t Canada’s shiny new Liberal government create a whole new bracket in its first 2016 federal […]
Stephen McNeil: Read his lips. Just don’t believe a word he says
Here in Stephen McNeil’s Nova Scotia, we should mark Right to Know Week by lowering the flag to half-mast and lighting a mourning candle in honour of the quaint notion citizens have some fundamental right to know what its government is doing.
Happy “Right to Know Week!” It starts today in case you hadn’t noticed. Why would you? And, oh yes, in case you’re counting, this Friday, Sept. 28, will mark the 16th annual “International Right to Know Day,” a day set aside in 40 countries around the world, including Canada, “to raise global awareness of individuals’...
Rick Mehta: Acadia clarifies, commingles, confuses
The Mehta case isn't about free speech. And it's not the exercise of academic freedom. It is a professor in a position of power publicly bullying his own students for his amusement and the adulation of his followers. Reason enough to fire him. But...
Start with this. I am no longer conflicted about Acadia University’s decision to fire psychology professor Rick Mehta. The university had plenty of good reasons to dismiss him. On the other hand, I am still troubled by Acadia’s willingness to stir its own self-interest — “damaging the reputation of the institution” and the implicit notion...
Rick Mehta: a firing offence or just offensive?
Last winter, Acadia University said it was investigating Mehta “for the manner in which you are expressing views that you are alleged to be advancing or supporting and, in some instances, time that you are spending on these issues in the classroom.” We need to parse that sentence. It appears the university says it was investigating Mehta, both for his personal views (freedom of speech) and also for what he was saying in his classroom. Did that violate his academic freedom?
I will confess I’m conflicted about the news Acadia University has fired Rick Mehta. On Friday, the university confirmed it had terminated the controversial psychology professor, effective August 31, but then refused to say why or “provide any elaboration” about what it called “a personnel matter.” Acadia also wouldn’t release the results of an investigation...
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