Nova Scotia Power (NSP) was before the Utility and Review Board yesterday asking for a rate increase that will see residential customers pay 1.5% more on their power bill in each of the next three years. Businesses and large industrial users could see their bills go up between 2 and 4% each year. NSP blames...
Tomorrow, a ship carrying wood chips from Sheet Harbour will arrive in Rizhao, China. That’s terrible news for Nova Scotia’s forests
According to Marine Tracker — and apparently unbeknownst to the provincial government — Nova Scotia is now exporting wood chips to China, something that’s new for 2019. The “wood chips carrier,” the FP Wakaba, loaded up with chips and left the port in Sheet Harbour Nova Scotia at the end of August. With a transit...
Gold fever is coming to Halifax
Mineral exploration companies have staked claims next to the Halifax and Dartmouth lakes that are the source of our drinking water
Cover photo: Touquoy open pit gold mine at Moose River. Photo courtesy Raymond Plourde On October 17 and 18, mining industry representatives and between five and 10 government officials will gather at the Alt Hotel at the Halifax Airport for the province’s first-ever “gold show.” The gold show is being organized by the Mining Association...
The curtain falls on this year’s ferry follies… but there’s always next year
Transportation Minister Lloyd Hines had to sort-of admit his ferry universe hadn’t unfolded exactly as planned, or… well, at all. “We're really disappointed on behalf of the operators that we haven't been able to mount a season…” On behalf of the operators?! The operators are making out like bandits. What about the rest of us?
So it’s finally, Thanksgiving-ly, over. For now. We hope. But don’t hold your breath. And do hold on to your wallet. Tightly. “There will not be any commercial crossings in 2019,” Mark MacDonald, the CEO of Bay Ferries, emailed a CBC reporter Friday in response to his question about whether the Yarmouth-Bar Harbor ferry would...
The Climate Emergency
Part 2: Why growth, even if it is green, is not enough
This is the second of a four-part series. Read Part 1 here. The day before the recent global school strike for the climate — where 10,000 people, mostly young, took to the streets in Halifax demanding climate action — there was a two-hour “emergency debate” in the Nova Scotia legislature about the “global emergency,” in...
Pictou Landing First Nation to Stephen McNeil: Honour the Boat Harbour Act and No Pipe in the Strait
The day-by-day countdown to the closing of Boat Harbour happens on a large painting erected in front of the Pictou Landing First Nation band council office. The painting depicts Boat Harbour as it was before it was dammed (and damned) in 1966, transformed from a healthy tidal estuary to a stinking lagoon for the toxic...
The perils of being progressive
Thanks to our first past the post system — thanks, Justin — progressives in Halifax still face a Hobson's choice when it comes to the federal election.
I get it. I even sympathize. You have only one vote and you don’t want to waste it. But how to choose? That is the question without easy answer this federal election. Let’s assume for the moment you see yourself as a moderate political progressive, likely more progressive than partisan. You know what you don’t...
Neither the Town Clock nor the Citadel Hill fortress have working sprinkler systems or fire hydrants
The Citadel and the Old Town Clock in Halifax actually merit that over-used adjective, “iconic.” Both are stand-out examples of the built heritage that defined the port city before high-rise developments shot up to overshadow their distinctive architectural features. The fortifications at the top of the Hill overlooking the harbour date back to the founding...
If we build it, will they come?
The stadium that refuses to die has returned. Last week, HRM released most of its private sector proposer's pitch for public sector funding to make its dream of a CFL team reality. But it's worth asking ourselves: what else could/should we spend that $180 million over the next 30 years on?
“Premier Stephen McNeil reiterated Thursday that no money from general revenue will go toward a stadium.” Uh-oh. Not “uh-oh” that our premier told the Chronicle Herald he didn’t intend to pluck any money out of our general revenue and dump it into the latest $110-million stadium-in-the-sky scheme, but “uh-oh” that he qualified his no with...
Elizabeth May and the Greens reject Nova Scotia’s negotiated settlement to keep coal plants open until 2040
Green Party leader Elizabeth May, flanked by her candidates in HRM, unwrapped the costs of their election promises in Halifax yesterday. There are some substantial ones: an estimated $27 billion a year for universal Pharmacare, $18 billion a year to provide dental care for poor Canadians, and $1 billion more each year to support daycare...
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