NEWS
1. McNutt
“A Halifax man who says he was a victim of serial sexual abuser Michael McNutt is suing the Halifax Hawks Minor Hockey Association,” I reported yesterday:
In June 2020, McNutt pleaded guilty to 35 charges related to the sexual abuse of 34 boys from 1971 to 1987. The boys ranged in age from 10 to 15. They were abused in cars, in hotel rooms, in McNutt’s apartment, in hockey arenas, at parks. In August 2020, McNutt, then 67 years old, was sentenced to 15 years in prison on those charges.
It has always seemed probable that McNutt’s crimes extended beyond those 34 victims, and beyond the years outlined in the conviction. A police investigative report obtained by the Halifax Examiner in 2017 was looking at the possible abuse by McNutt of boys as young as eight years old.
…
The man who has filed suit against the Halifax Hawks Minor Hockey Association says that he was a player for the Halifax Hawks in 1990, and McNutt was his coach.
I’ve been following this story since 2017, and from the start I realized that this was not just the case of a lone predatory stalking Halifax’s north end and Dartmouth.
To begin, police files indicate that other men were sexually assaulting boys along with McNutt. As I reported in July 2020, a man who lived in the trailer park on Gaston Road introduced McNutt to one of his victims, a 10-year-old boy. And police were investigating two other adult men who were suspected of trading boys among themselves and with McNutt. One of the allegations involved the men taking boys to Montreal.
But outside the circle of direct criminal assault, there was a much larger culture of complicity — adults who surely must have known about McNutt’s assaults of children, and yet took no concrete action beyond covering their own asses.
For example, the Agreed Statement of Facts in McNutt’s 2020 conviction starts with this background:
McNutt worked in a permanent teaching position at Sir Robert Borden Junior High School in Dartmouth between 1977 and 1983. As a result of parental complaints regarding his behaviour with students, he was given the opportunity to resign in 1983, which he did. He resumed teaching as a substitute with the Halifax District School Board in May 1985. This employment continued until a sexual offence complaint was made to the police in 1994.
So evidently, parents alerted school officials to McNutt, and rather than ask for a police investigation, those officials merely gave McNutt the “opportunity to resign,” which allowed him to start teaching again two years later. This protected the reputation of Sir Robert Borden Junior High, but at the cost of dozens of more boys being assaulted at other schools — the very definition of “passing the trash.”
Throughout his teaching career, McNutt additionally coached about a dozen different sports teams, and accompanied boys on out-of-town trips to tournaments, where he assaulted them in hotel rooms.
I am not commenting on the specific allegations alleged in the lawsuit against the Halifax Hawks, because I have no direct knowledge of them. That’s up to a court to decide. But McNutt’s behaviour was so outrageous, so out in the open, that it must have been seen for what it was by many, many other adults, including those connected to sports leagues.
I’ll repeat what I wrote in October:
…the Globe & Mail reported on the existence of previously secret Participants Legacy Trust Fund at Hockey Canada — in which the “legacy” was sexual assault:
Several years after Hockey Canada began using player registration fees to build a large financial reserve known as the National Equity Fund to cover sexual assault claims and other lawsuits, it channelled a significant portion of that money into a second multimillion-dollar fund for similar purposes.
Known as the Participants Legacy Trust Fund, the reserve was created by the organization and its members with more than $7.1-million from the National Equity Fund. The money was earmarked “for matters including but not limited to sexual abuse,” according to Hockey Canada documents obtained by The Globe and Mail.
The trust, with its vaguely worded name, is another example of a large financial reserve created by Hockey Canada and its member branches to cover sexual assault claims, among other things, with funds gathered from hockey registration fees, without fully disclosing to parents and players how their money was ultimately being used.
In response, Hockey Nova Scotia issued a statement yesterday:
Members of the Hockey Nova Scotia board of directors have been closely monitoring the actions of Hockey Canada in recent months and have expressed concerns to the national governing body during this period of time.
In their latest step, Hockey Nova Scotia’s board of directors met today for an emergency meeting.
Following that meeting, the board issued the following statement:
Hockey Nova Scotia has lost confidence in Hockey Canada’s senior leadership.
Hockey families and non-hockey families alike agree: Change is needed at the highest levels of the game.
Therefore, Hockey Nova Scotia is formally suspending the transfer of participant assessment fees to Hockey Canada for the 2022-23 season.
Until our values at Hockey Nova Scotia are reflected by Hockey Canada’s senior leadership, we simply cannot support hockey’s national governing body.
Hockey Nova Scotia remains committed to working with our dedicated network of volunteers across the province to offer the best programs possible for our membership.
The CBC reports that “Hockey Canada has engaged with what it feels ‘is an effective insurance carrier who knows the needs of our organization for policy coverage in the areas of commercial general liability, sexual misconduct liability, directors and officers liability, and accidental death and dismemberment coverage.’”
Insurance payments to victims of sexual assault are not by themselves a problem — for a variety of perfectly legitimate reasons, not all victims will want to involve police in the matter, although some do. People who fall in both categories should be able to obtain financial recompense — it doesn’t cancel out the pain, but it might help with receiving care and rebuilding, and it should (although evidently doesn’t) prompt Hockey Canada to better control players.
What the problem is, however, is that the insurance payments were secret. No one wants the victims to be named, of course, but the totality and extent of the payments should have been public knowledge.
Hockey Nova Scotia is now taking the right move, but as I read these statements and articles I can’t help but recall Michael McNutt, the Halifax school teacher and hockey coach who sexually assaulted dozens of boys over a 20-year period. As I reported in 2020:
While McNutt was a teacher, from 1977 to 1994, he additionally was the coach on many sports teams. The Agreed Statement of Facts lists some of them, but notes that there may be others; they are:
Sir Robert Borden Hockey Team
Pee Wee and Bantam football – Fort Needham Minor Football Association
Dartmouth Minor Baseball
Dartmouth Minor Baseball, Bantam A
Dartmouth Minor Baseball Team
Halifax Capitals Bantam C Hockey
Halifax Hockey
Summer Hockey League
Brunswick Invitational Hockey Tournament
Dartmouth Baseball Team
Halifax Capitals HockeyThe Halifax Examiner had previously obtained an investigative report about the McNutt case mistakenly released by the Halifax Regional Police Department. At the department’s request, we agreed not to make details of that report public. We will, however, note that it contains an allegation by a witness that McNutt was “removed” from his position with one of the sports organizations, presumably because its officials were aware of McNutt’s abuse of children. So far as can be determined, that organization did not call the police.
I’m having a hard time squaring sports officials ignoring the long history of sexual assault of players with the current rightful concern about sexual assault by players. They seem of a kind. Yes, McNutt’s sexual assaults are “historic,” but that doesn’t mean they should be ignored, and so far as I know, no one associated with Hockey Nova Scotia or the team named by police has made any public effort whatsoever to redress the team’s knowing decision to “pass the trash” from its coaching staff to another team. That conscious, informed decision allowed McNutt to continue to sexually assault children.
Of course, the hockey team is not alone in this regard. Churches, schools, other sports teams, etc. regularly avoid alerting police to known sexual predators with the perverse calculus that the public reputational harm to the institution would be worse than continued private sexual assaults of individual children.
Back to the present…
It’s not too late for adults who were aware of McNutt’s actions in the 80s and 90s and did nothing to make amends. For the sake of the many, many broken men who were victimized as children by McNutt, do right and come forward to tell your story.
(Send this item: right click and copy this link)
2. Taylor Samson’s family sues William Sandeson for wrongful death
“Taylor Samson’s mother and brother are suing William Sandeson for wrongful death,” reports Zane Woodford:
Samson disappeared in 2015, and Sandeson was charged with first-degree murder. A jury convicted Sandeson in 2017, and the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal overturned that conviction in 2020.
Sandeson is in custody in the Northeast Nova Scotia Correctional Facility in New Glasgow. He’s applied for bail three times, and he appealed his latest denial. The court threw out that appeal last month, Global News reported. A new jury trial is scheduled for January 2023.
While the criminal proceeding is underway, Samson’s family is launching civil action against Sandeson.
Click here to read “Taylor Samson’s mother, brother suing William Sandeson.”
(Send this item: right click and copy this link)
3. Teen’s family alleges racial profiling
“A Black teenager’s family says police singled him out after he tried to break up a fight outside a junior high school in Dartmouth this week,” reports Matthew Byard:
The teen, who can’t be named because he’s 16, said he was the only Black male among the group and was arrested at gunpoint when the police showed up. The teen said he had a knife in his hand. He said it wasn’t his, and that he didn’t pull it out during the altercation.
Though he was present among a group of his friends and another group of teens involved in the altercation, he said he was not actually involved in the dispute and was trying to de-escalate the situation.
The teen, his mother, and his girlfriend’s mother all spoke to the Halifax Examiner in separate interviews. The Examiner is not naming them to protect the identity of the teen.
Both mothers said they feel the teen was profiled and treated with a double standard because he is Black.
(Send this item: right click and copy this link)
4. Housing
“A non-profit that supports unhoused women and children is looking to partner with landlords in the Halifax Regional Municipality to provide temporary emergency housing,” reports Suzanne Rent:
Adsum for Women and Children created the landlord partnership program as part of its Diverting Families program, which it started in 2017. In a tweet earlier this week, Adsum said it was looking for more landlords across HRM to “give the gift of a new home.”
Rylee Booroff, a housing support manager with Adsum, said what they’re looking for is more emergency housing where women and families can live until they find more permanent, stable housing.
(Send this item: right click and copy this link)
5. COVID
Nova Scotia is reporting 13 new deaths from COVID, recorded in the most recent reporting week, Nov. 29-Dec. 5, but all occurring before Nov. 19. (Reporting of deaths lags considerably, so we can expect COVID deaths from the reporting week to be counted in future reports.)
In total, through the pandemic, 670 people in Nova Scotia have died from COVID, 558 of whom are considered Omicron deaths (since Dec. 8, 2021).
The age and vaccination status of the newly recorded deaths won’t be released until Dec. 15, but in general over 90 of COVID deaths in Nova Scotia have been people 70 years old or older, and unvaccinated people are about three times as likely to be hospitalized or die as are vaccinated people.
Also in the reporting week (Nov. 29-Dec. 5), 32 people were hospitalized because of COVID.
Nova Scotia Health reports the current (as of yesterday) COVID hospitalization status:
• in hospital for COVID: 25 (4 of whom are in ICU)
• in hospital for something else but have COVID: 124
• in hospital who contracted COVID after admission to hospital: 38
The current hospitalization figures provided by Nova Scotia Health do not include any (if any) children hospitalized at the IWK.
(Send this item: right click and copy this link)
6. Telehealth
“This week, Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston was the opening speaker (and apparently only Canadian) invited to address a one-day Washington ‘summit’ organized by CTel, an American non-profit focused on research related to virtual care, or telehealth,” reports Jennifer Henderson:
CTel started in 1995. Its conferences are attended by executives from companies, governments, hospitals, and universities who pay $4,000 each to discuss policy issues. Presumably, attendees go to the conferences in part to discuss potential deals, although CTel does not accept corporate sponsorships for its conferences.
The agenda for this week’s conference charmingly referred to Nova Scotia as a “providence” of Canada, but CTel hadn’t returned messages asking if the meeting was open to news media.
We also do not know what Houston told the attendees in his allotted 10 minutes. The Halifax Examiner asked Houston’s press secretary for a copy of Houston’s remarks, but that request was unable to be met. Catherine Klimek said Houston would not be reading from a prepared text but sticking with talking points contained in the province’s Action Plan on Health.
In the absence of solid information, it’s likely Houston was invited because of the rapid and purportedly successful expansion of virtual care in Nova Scotia.
In fact, the very day Houston was talking off the cuff to companies eager to sell their services internationally, the Nova Scotia Minister in charge of Mental Health announced the province would be paying a private company called Tranquility to treat people with low-level anxiety and depression. There is now literally “an app for that” developed by an entrepreneur who started at Volta Labs in Halifax.
Click here to read “Mr. Houston goes to Washington.”
This article is for subscribers. Click here to subscribe.
(Send this item: right click and copy this link)
Government
No meetings
On campus
Dalhousie
Analyses of microeukaryotes rewrite the “rules” of genome evolution derived from studies of macrobes (Friday, 10am, Theatre B, Tupper Building) — Laura A. Katz from Smith College will talk
Saint Mary’s
The SMU Writers Meet (Friday, 10am, Room 225, in the building named after a grocery empire) — informal gathering where poets, songwriters, and fiction writers from the fall creative-writing classes meet and share their work
King’s
Sing Choirs of Angels (A King’s Christmas) (Friday, 7:30pm, St. George’s Round Church) — Neil Cockburn directs the Chapel Choir of the University of King’s College; tickets $15 to $55, more info here
In the harbour
Halifax
Friday
07:00: Vayenga Maersk, container ship, sails from Pier 42 for sea
08:00: Queen Esther, container ship, arrives at Fairview Cove from Baltimore
11:00: Oceanex Sanderling, ro-ro container, moves from Pier 36 to Pier 41
12:00: Atlantic Sail, ro-ro container, arrives at Fairview Cove from Norfolk, Virginia
15:30: Queen Esther sails for sea
16:30: Nolhanava, ro-ro cargo, sails from Fairview Cove for Saint-Pierre
16:30: MSC Angela, container ship, sails from Pier 41 for New York
18:00: Oceanex Sanderling sails for St. John’s
19:15: X-press Irazu, container ship, arrives at Bedford Basin anchorage from Genova, Italy
Saturday
01:00: Atlantic Sail sails for Hamburg, Germany
04:00: CMA CGM Adonis, container ship (154,839 tonnes), arrives at Pier 41 from Colombo, Sri Lanka
Cape Breton
07:00: Arctic Lift, barge, and Western Tugger, tug transit through the causeway to Mulgrave, arriving from Georgetown, P.E.I.
Footnotes
Thank dog it’s Friday.
