Say, here’s an idea. My idea isn’t quite the Chase-the-Ace, get-us-on-national-TV, fun-and-games scheme Tim suggested a few months back. “Simply toss 20 dollar bills from a helicopter above downtown Yarmouth,” he proposed as his own common sense alternative to pouring still more millions of our tax dollars into that bottomless ocean that is our from-nowhere-to-no-way-not-now...
The Archaeology of Loss
How industrial logging in the Mi’kmaq heartland is destroying a lot more than trees
“We were in wonderful moose country now.” At least this is how Albert Bigelow Paine described the Nova Scotia landscape he and three others journeyed through in his 1908 book The Tent Dwellers. The book tells the true story of a June trout fishing trip led by two guides, Charlie Charlton and Del Thomas, who […]
Studenting While Black: another example of calling the cops on Black people for simply existing
Despite the outsize media coverage devoted to the idea that universities are filled with Black and brown people oppressing the free speech of white men, in fact, universities remain overwhelmingly hostile to Black people.
On June 2, Black graduate student Shelby McPhee was accused by two white women of stealing a laptop while he was attending the Black Canadian Studies Association session at the 88th annual Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences held at the University of British Columbia. The white women, Congress attendees, asked to see proof that […]
And promises to break…
Stephen McNeil promised us the most open and transparent government ever. He lied. Now as our information and privacy commissioner retires, the premier's wannabe replacements will talk a good game. Should we believe them?
I have no reason to doubt Catherine Tully when she told the subscriber-based business website allnovascotia.com last week she would have retired from her job as the province’s information and privacy commissioner this summer even if Premier Stephen McNeil had offered to extend her five-year term. She didn’t ask his plans before announcing her own....
Crisis? What crisis? Just a(nother) ‘new (lack of) direction’ for healthcare
Last week's "mutual" firing of the province's deputy health minister shows just how unwilling our premier is to acknowledge our healthcare crisis — let alone do something about it.
Last week, when Premier Stephen McNeil “mutually” agreed to fire Denise Perret — the deputy minister of health he’d hired just two-and-a-half years ago — he explained it was because “we’re now re-setting and moving in a new direction.” He did not explain what he was re-setting from or to, or in what new yellow-brick-road...
City Hall tried to crawl through a loophole on gender discrimination
When last week's human rights commission hearing on gender discrimination in Halifax's fire service began, lawyers for HRM tried to get the complaint tossed on a technicality. The good news is that they lost. The bad news is that they tried.
In lawyer terms, it probably made sense. Scrounge in the legal underbrush for a technicality, a loophole to crawl through to derail potential litigation against your client. Save your client some unwanted publicity, maybe even a little — or a big — cash settlement. All good, all standard-issue Litigation 101. Unless, of course, your client...
Sexual assault in prison: vulnerable women prisoners have few protections and face reprisal for reporting attacks
On May 22, three women incarcerated at the Nova Institution for Women federal prison filed civil suits against the Attorney General of Canada, alleging they were each sexually assaulted by correctional officer Brian Wilson over the course of the past five years. The allegations included in the lawsuits are harrowing: when the first of the […]
“Do right by me”: by not addressing the systematic racism of street checks, the white power structure is doubling down on Nova Scotia’s well-earned reputation for ignorance, stigma, and stench
“Until you do right by me, everything you think about is gonna crumble.” Voiced by Whoopi Goldberg in her role as Celie in the film adaptation of The Color Purple, the line has recently wafted, repeatedly, through my mind. To be sure, the thought has been prompted by the magnificent production of The Color Purple […]
Ka-ching. Ka-ching. Your tax dollars at work covering government butt
As Justice David Farrar summed up the appeal court ruling in the Alex Cameron case: “It would be manifestly unfair to allow the province to hide behind solicitor-client privilege while at the same time impugning the conduct of its solicitor.” But that didn't stop the McNeil government from trying. And trying.
Last week, the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal instructed the McNeil government to stop hiding behind the skirts of solicitor-client privilege in order to hobble a lawsuit brought against it by a former government lawyer who claims the government impugned his conduct and attacked his character and reputation. Alex Cameron, a 26-year veteran of the...
Ramadan in jail: prisoners in Burnside are being denied the right to practice their religion
Malik is calling from the jail asking for the numbers of any Muslims he can contact just to talk to, maybe hear some Quran from. The last time he prayed with community was during Ramadan last year, and since then, his requests for spiritual services have been denied. Last year, Muslim prisoners at Burnside (Central […]
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