No! Really? Couldn’t be. But there it was. In virtual black and white. “If Yarmouth ferry sailed even once this year, it would be productive: official,” read the headline over CBC reporter Jean Laroche’s piece last week about the latest twisty turn in the long since careened-off-the-rails story of the Yarmouth ferry. You would think...
Janet Knox: helping people develop a healthy lifestyle would be a better investment of health care dollars
About 150 people turned up for the annual general meeting of the Nova Scotia Health Authority in Truro yesterday. The NSHA oversees a yearly budget of $2.1 billion used to operate the province’s hospitals and ambulances, deliver diagnostic tests and mental health treatment, recruit family doctors and nurse practitioners, as well as provide wellness programs...
Was Trevor O’Neil’s death preventable?
In March, firefighter Skylar Blackie died when pressurized equipment failed; last week, O'Neil, a worker at the shipyard, died while operating a pressurized sandblasting machine. But the shipyard worker didn't learn from the firefighter's death because of Labour Department secrecy.
The Herald’s shipping columnist Peter Ziobrowski writes movingly this morning of a workplace fatality at Irving Shipyard last week. Forty-year-old Trevor O’Neil died three days after he was struck on the head by the lid from a pressurized cylinder that came off the sandblasting equipment O’Neil was using. He fell several feet to the ground […]
Northern Pulp Mill’s missing environmental data
The mill says its effluent comfortably meets federal regulations, but a new study published by Dalhousie researchers suggests there is no way to know.
Cover photo courtesy Gerard James Halfyard. If Premier Stephen McNeil is wavering on the Northern Pulp / Paper Excellence file, entertaining notions on amending the Boat Harbour Act so that effluent from the Pictou County pulp mill can continue to flow into the lagoon after January 31, 2020, he would do well to put off...
Don’t worry. Be happy. That’s only your tax dollars you see sinking
Nova Scotia Transportation Minister Lloyd returned from Washington last week bubbling over with optimism for a summer season — albeit much, much shorter — for the Yarmouth-Bar Harbor tourist ferry. Don't hold your breath. But do hold on to your wallet.
So Lloyd “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” Hines has returned from his airplane flight-of-fancy to Washington — the ferry portion of his trip having been unavoidably delayed/canceled/“soon” to be resumed — bubbling over with optimism. Perhaps it was just the summer humidity. During three, pre-July-4th-holiday days in the US capital — in the long foreshadow of...
Shelburne School for Boys: Good intentions gone wrong? Or…?
Was the government's compensation program crafted out of a well-intentioned desire to allow victims to tell their story “without a public spectacle” that would re-victimize them? Or in a desperate attempt to keep the public from ever learning the real story behind the abuse of children in care?
While pursuing something else entirely yesterday, I was reading through back copies of The 4th Estate, the lefty Halifax newspaper of the 1970s, and stumbled upon repeated references to the Shelburne School for Boys. —Tim Bousquet “Morning File” June 27, 2019 I was a reporter then. And there. But I’d forgotten — forgotten that...
Iain Rankin promises big changes in forestry management, but the province is moving slowly
Give Lands and Forestry Minister Iain Rankin credit for trying. Last November, Rainkin accepted all 45 recommendations from Bill Lahey, a former deputy environment minister and university president hired to figure out how to make Nova Scotia forests healthier and more productive. Lahey’s recommendations were aimed at improving biodiversity and reducing the amount of...
After the gold rush
Nova Scotia is ignoring the toxic legacy of past mining manias while rushing headlong into the next
If learning from past mistakes were a government tradition in Nova Scotia, the current government would not be exhibiting all the symptoms of gold fever. But it is, and it looks like a raging bout of the affliction. In the past few years, it has amended legislation based on recommendations made by the industry’s cheerleader-in-chief,...
The Sackville-Cobequid byelection: seeking meaning in the meaningless
It is way too early to read anything of significance from a single constituency byelection in the muddling middle of any government’s mandate. But let's give it a shot...
“Steve Craig won the byelection for MLA in Sackville-Cobequid… The district has long been solidly NDP, so a PC victory is notable, but I wouldn’t read too much into it.” —Tim Bousquet June 19, 2019 Tim is right, of course. It is way too early to read anything of significance from the political leavings in...
Yarmouth ferry may not sail this year
Nova Scotia Business Minister Geoff MacLellan admitted under questioning from reporters following a Cabinet meeting Thursday that the province has no idea if or when the Yarmouth ferry will operate this summer. “Certainly we are worried about this season and our tourism operators,” said Minister MacLellan. “All we can say is we have done everything […]
- 1
- 2
- 3
- …
- 44
- Next Page »