“We care,” says Northern Pulp on the website it has created to spread the word that it “cares about forestry families of Nova Scotia.” The site is a vehicle for the company’s letter-writing campaign to get people in the forestry sector to contact Premier Stephen McNeil, their MLA, MP, or even Canadian Senators to ask […]
Alex Richman: R.I.P.
When Alex Richman's son "did not survive" the 1991 crash of US Air Flight 1493, his and his wife's grief turned to frustration, then anger and finally resolve as they set out to make flight safer for all of us.
“Alex was laid to rest beside his son David in Shaarey Zedek Cemetery, Winnipeg on Sunday, February 3rd.” —Obituary, Alex Richman Halifax Chronicle-Herald, February 8, 2019 While researching Flight 111, my book about the 1998 Swissair crash off Nova Scotia, I first stumbled across the story of Alex Richman. At first blush, there wasn’t much...
By Any Other Name: Nova Scotia’s Department of Lands and Forestry just made “Clearcuts” disappear
Nova Scotians who signed up to receive proposed harvest plans on Crown land might have noticed some disturbing changes recently. As of a few days ago the maps no longer specify whether a proposed cut is a “clearcut” or not. The word was removed from the legend and the list of harvest prescription types. This […]
“Paving the streets with gold”: Why Halifax council turned down a look into raising standards for sidewalk snow-clearing
One of the more telling moments of budget season in Halifax was not even a part of city council’s official budget discussion. At a regular council meeting on January 29, Councillor Shawn Cleary asked for a report assessing the costs and benefits of tightening up the standards for snow-clearing in Halifax. His fellow councillors, seemingly...
The Cat can’t come back… to Portland
But the money-sucking ferry service will continue to suck Nova Scotia tax dollars. That's good news for columnists, bad news for taxpayers.
The good news for need-to-always-be-even-more-shocked-and-yet-more-appalled columnists is that the Yarmouth ferry is the gift that keeps on giving. The bad news for taxpayers is that it is also the ferry that keeps on taking. I’ve been writing about the always-sinking-but-never-finally-sunk ferry service between Yarmouth and assorted ports in Maine since at least 2007. “Ferry Bad...
Now that the Fangless Five have become the Insensate Seven, it’s past time for…?
Stephen McNeil’s Liberals have made a mockery of the notion of public accountability. So the opposition parties need to step up and do their job. It is past time.
I have more than once described the Liberal members of the standing committee on public accounts — Vice Chair Gordon Wilson and MLAs Brendan Maguire, Suzanne Lohnes-Croft, Hugh MacKay and Ben Jessome — as the “Fangless Five” for their unfailingly fearless failure to do their job of holding the government to account. Someone on social...
A White People’s Guide to Black History Month
It’s February, the most dangerous month of the year for free speech and free expression in Canada. A good way to start off the month if you’re white is by a bunch of white people having a conversation among themselves about how important it is to have a conversation about whether blackface is racist or […]
Encounter re-encountered, with lessons for today
In 1970, a dozen outside experts came to Halifax for a week to turn the city 'upside down.' This week, you can see excerpts from 'Encounter on Urban Environment,' the NFB's documentary on that cataclysmic week in Halifax, and discuss whether it's time for another upside-downing.
I must admit I was surprised — and delighted — to Facebook-find a group I’d never heard of that is staging an event this Thursday to sit around, watch excerpts from a 50-year-old NFB documentary and then discuss, with Councillor Lindell Smith, HRM planners, and others, “parallels between the development happening in the 1970s and the...
“Racist, Full Stop.”
In his book, Interim Dalhousie President Peter MacKinnon downplays and excuses the wearing of blackface while mischaracterizing and sidelining those who object to it. But MacKinnon ignores the vast scholarship on blackface, so let's hear from the scholars.
INTRODUCTION On Monday afternoon, Dalhousie students protested the welcoming reception for incoming president Peter MacKinnon. As Tim noted on Tuesday, “The students are particularly riled over MacKinnon’s book, University Commons Divided: Exploring Debate & Dissent on Campus.” One of the serious issues students identified in their press release is MacKinnon’s declaration in the book that blackface […]
How and why electric buses will (probably) come to Halifax
Halifax’s first electric buses won’t hit the road as soon as planned, but don’t blame your local city councillor or the leadership at Halifax Transit for the delay. Blame Doug Ford. Among Ford’s many post-election climate change policy reversals was the cancellation of two funding contributions to electric bus pilot projects in York Region and […]
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