News
Views
Government
In the harbour
Footnotes
News
1. By-elections
Elections are held today for the ridings of Dartmouth South, Whitney Pier and Cape Breton Centre.
Dartmouth South voters may find the Hello Dartmouth candidates forum useful:
Here are the candidates’ web pages:
Independent candidate Charlene Gagnon.
PC candidate Gord Gamble.
NDP candidate Marian Mancini.
Liberal candidate Tim Rissesco.
The Green Party is not running candidates in any of the three ridings.
2. Drugs
“I feel very strongly that a harm reduction philosophy is a good philosophy, but it’s really taken out of context,” Maureen Allen, the director of emergency services at St. Martha’s Regional Hospital, told the CBC. “There’s this sense of safety that if they just screened these drugs for impurities that we’re going to make the rave safe — that’s inaccurate.”
Allen told the ceeb that the emergency room was kept busy throughout the Evolve music festival:
According to Allen, 16 patients between the ages of 17 and 32 came to St. Martha’s Regional Hospital with problems symptomatic of multiple drugs — including cocaine, ecstasy and alcohol during the festival.
[…]
Allen said the severity of symptoms seen this year — including hyper-vigilant states, confusion, agitation and seizures — could have been deadly.
“We had at least three kids come in one cluster with seizures, and this would be a grand mal seizure that was associated with the drug use,” she said.
“That seizure, that altered delirium, is the state that can actually take their life.”
3. Union vote delayed
Halifax Water workers did not vote on a tentative deal to end their strike yesterday because union officials are looking for a hall big enough to hold the vote. They hope to find a place by Wednesday.
4. Death Watch 2015
5. Mermaid
Raina, Halifax’s mermaid, is profiled in the Globe & Mail.
6. Spitfire Arms
The Spitfire Arms Pub in Windsor is on fire this morning, and has “sustained significant fire and smoke damage throughout,” reports King County News.
7. Dead cat
Metro Housing is giving Charlene Meisner grief because she buried Raz, her dead cat, behind Isnor Manor:
Raz, short for Raspberry, recently fell seven stories from the Gordon B. Isnor Manor.
Owner Charlene Meisner says the screen was unlocked, but she didn’t expect her cat to fall.
“I came home to an awful, awful disaster. It was very difficult,” she said.
A neighbour helped Meisner buried Raspberry’s remains in the building’s backyard, despite the Department of Community Services request tenants take their dead pets to a vet.
Rules about pet burial aside, I thought cats could survive a fall from seven storeys.
Views
1. Cranky letter of the day
When I was president of the Dominion Command in 2012, I visited Vimy Ridge. I was in the company of David Johnston (Governor General of Canada), MP Peter Stoffer and Stephen Blaney (Minister of Veterans Affairs).
While we toured nine different grave sites it was heartbreaking to see a maple leaf on the top, a cross in the middle and unknown across the bottom of the headstones. We knew they were Canadians because of the maple leaf. These are the men and women that left their families to never come home again.
Not everyone can afford a trip to France to see where a loved one lays to rest. By erecting the ‘Mother Canada’ war memorial, loved ones can go and see the name of the family member they have lost and feel honoured that they have not been forgotten.
The war memorial will have the 114,000 names of the veterans who lost their lives in the First World War, the Second World War, Korean War and other conflicts.
Green Cove is the perfect site for the this monument this is because it will be facing the memorial in Vimy Ridge that has the names of the veterans who lost their lives so we can be free. If it wasn’t for these brave veterans, one could only imagine what Canada would be like today.
The community surrounding Green Cove supports this project and the few that do not support it are not from the immediate area. To state information such as Parks Canada giving $100,000 toward the project is misleading and not true. No monies were given by Parks Canada nor has the Canadian government contributed any monies toward this project. It will be a privately funded initiative and it is being spearheaded by Tony Trigiano, a businessman from Ontario.
This project will also help the economy of Cape Breton. There are cruise ships that will pass this memorial five months of the year and no doubt some of the passengers will book tour buses in order to visit. There will also be tourists coming from all over the world to see the memorial which will boost tourism and will create jobs. How can anyone say no to this when looking at the whole vision?
In 2012, I was contacted by Helen Robichaud (former superintendant of Parks Canada) who informed me of Trigiano’s plan for the ‘Mother Canada’ war memorial. She asked me what place I would suggest it be erected and I suggested Green Cove would be the perfect place.
Robichaud sent Trigiano a picture of Green Cove and after making a trip to the site he agreed. Green Cove is the perfect spot for the this memorial.Neil McKinnon
Immediate Past President of Dominion Command
ANAVETS in Canada
President of the C.B. District Veterans Comfort Fund
Government
No public meetings.
In the harbour
Hollandia, cargo, Cartagena, Colombia to Pier 31
Atlantic Concert, ro-ro container, New York to Fairview Cove West
Bishu Highway sails to sea
Stadt Cadiz sails to sea
NYK Romulus sails to sea
Foresight sails to sea
Footnotes
We’re in the dregs of summer, and there’s not a lot of news. I am catching up on paperwork, however.
I have two cats.
One would make that jump with a double twist and three backflips and land on one paw for a whiskas treat.
The other would go thud.
Really depends on the cat, how agile they are, how in shape they are, etc.
Many years ago my cat fell out of an unsecured 7th-story window and he survived. He was just young then, 6 months or so, and I think that may have been reason he fared so well. In fact he went on to live another 17 years. I suspect that Raz was older when he fell.
The problem with unilateral decisions or closed door decisions being made about the siting of monuments or any other kind of infrastructure, is that professional processes exist (in this case via Parks Canada) and they are in place to ensure a wide range of factors get considered including site development costs, environmental integrity, economics, etc. If these processes are not followed, then anybody can be an instant expert at siting anything at all, like those who sited Mother Canada or the Victims of Communism Monument in Ottawa. As an urban planner who has overseen site selection processes for $500 million worth of facilities in Nova Scotia (including the Speed Skating Oval, NSCC Waterfront Campus, Colchester Regional Hospital and others), I know the value of rigorous site selection method. When there is a lack of method, everything else should be simply categorized as pinning the tail on the donkey.
I get your point, but I sure wish they had putt the NSCC in downtown Dartmouth. Would’ve done wonders for the downtown economy, and would be especially transit friendly. (Sure, the ferry goes to the waterfront campus, but my sense is most people drive.)
Before NSCAD moved to the South end of Halifax, consideration was given to siting it near Dartmouth Cove (the warehouses). WDC talked them out of it. Seems to me this would have been a better choice than the one made. Dartmouth would have benefited from the presence of students in downtown area, enlivening the whole area, and NSCAD might not be as broke as it is.
“Green Cove is the perfect site for the this monument this is because it will be facing the memorial in Vimy Ridge” – You could build Mother Canada anywhere in the world and still have it face Vimy Ridge. As they’re not at the same latitude (Green Cove=46.7, Vimy Ridge=50.3) Vimy lies about 275 miles north of Green Cove. Maybe St. Paul Island would be a better spot? It is the graveyard of the gulf.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Paul_Island_%28Nova_Scotia%29
Is there any word about the bikes at the Spitfire Arms?
There was a gorgeous Triumph and another couple (I think) of bikes on display inside there. This is a disaster!
Also, when I saw “Neil McKinnon” I thought of Neil Livingston, a solar advocate, and was thoroughly confused.
(No *close* relation to Barry, above. We Boyces just all have things to say.)
“Dregs” of summer? Take that back,sir. We are in our prime. And…
Test for impurities, sure, but the lady’s right. Bad trips will happen.