It is not just a done deal. The deal, in fact, is almost certainly already past the point of reconsideration. But that shouldn’t stop the rest of us from demanding answers from those who made the deal, or accountability from those responsible for allowing it to happen. On Nov. 7, the Parole Board of Canada...
60 years ago, Springhill Mining Disaster hero Maurice Ruddick went to Georgia, where he couldn’t stay with his fellow white miners
Travelling near Springhill recently, I thought about Stacey Abrams, the Georgia politician who, in a bitter gubernatorial race against a white male opponent, lost her bid to become the first African-American woman to lead a state. The annual dispatch of a Christmas tree from Nova Scotia to Boston commemorates the province’s ties to Massachusetts residents […]
Proposed city budget pulls the wheels off bike network
I really, really wanted to write part two of the update on bikeway projects this week. But perhaps it is wiser to step back for a moment from documenting the planning progress around bike infrastructure, to consider whether or not this municipality actually has the intention to follow through and build what’s being planned. This...
Burned: Are Trees the New Coal?
A review of the new film that illuminates Nova Scotia's failed biomass policies
In the opening scene of the documentary Burned: Are Trees the New Coal?, Jeff Turner patrols the dark, tannin-stained waters of the Blackwater and Nottoway River system in Southampton County, Virginia. He’s a “river keeper” and has been doing this for nearly two decades, keeping an eye on threats to the health of the rivers...
Race in Nova Scotia: one small step forward, another giant leap into the past
Back in the fall of 1968, Stokely Carmichael’s mere presence scared the hell out of Halifax. Are there lessons for today?
Last month, the Bank of Canada released its new $10-banknote featuring an image of Viola Desmond, the iconic Canadian civil rights pioneer who refused to give up her seat in the whites-only section of the Roseland Theatre in New Glasgow in 1946, and touched off this country’s modern civil rights era nine years before Rosa...
William Shrubsall: gambling on American justice, gambling on public safety
The parole board agrees dangerous offender William Shrubsall is still a danger. So why grant him full parole? Good question. Bad answer.
“After considering the following information, the Board has decided to take no action on your day parole and to grant full parole for deportation. The Board explains its reasons below…” Start with this. When considering 47-year-old Ethan Simon Templar MacLeod’s request for parole earlier this month, the Parole Board of Canada already had plenty of...
Home for the holidays: the racist bullshit white people say to each other
It’s the start of the holiday season, and white people, you know what that means! It’s the time of year where your racist relatives say terrible things to you over the dinner table. To get into the holiday spirit, I decided to do some field work, and find out from white people just how racist […]
Catherine Tully’s power to persuade vs government’s power to ignore
If you’re denied access to information even after the information and privacy commissioner has reviewed your request and deemed it legitimate, your only recourse is to take the government to court. At your own expense, of course. It doesn't have to be that way. It is because it's in the government's interest to keep you from knowing.
Nova Scotians deserve modern access and privacy protections including effective oversight of their rights. Our current laws are no longer up to the task. Consistent with my recommendations last year, I once again recommend that the laws be modernized to ensure that Nova Scotia and Nova Scotians are ready and able to meet the challenges...
The president versus the press. Or should that be the president thanks the press?
The day after the US mid-terms, Donald Trump staged a rambling 90-minute press conference to spin the dross of Republican electoral loss into the gold of never-ending Trumpian triumph, and thus re-establish his personal ownership of the news cycle. The press made it easy for him.
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 […]
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