Ghostly memories of the Chronicle Herald: Morning File, Monday, April 24, 2017

News

1. Environmental Bill of Rights

“Nova Scotia needs nothing short of an Environmental Bill of Rights if it wants to ensure its citizens can drink clean water, breathe clean air, and hold their governments accountable to make polluters pay,” reports Jennifer Henderson for the Examiner:

That’s the position of a coalition of Nova Scotia environmental groups which celebrated Earth Day by unveiling a Environmental Bill of Rights designed to protect future generations from a repeat of the environmental problems which have afflicted Shelburne, Indian Brook, Lincolnville, and Pictou Landing.

Click here to read “Environmental Bill of Rights proposed for Nova Scotia.”

This article is behind the Examiner’s paywall and so available only to paid subscribers. Click here to purchase a subscription.

2. Examineradio, episode #108

This week we talk with noted historian and labour activist Lynn Jones, who recently donated a rich archive of material focusing on African Nova Scotian history to the Saint Mary’s University library.

Also, we dig into the Liberal government’s ongoing spending spree across the province as the likelihood of an election looms, and more damning criticism is aimed at Gregory Lenehan, the judge who acquitted Halifax cabbie Bassam Al-Rawi of charges of sexual assault.

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(direct download)
(RSS feed)
(Subscribe via iTunes)

3. Teachers aren’t happy with Liberals

Judging by two recent incidents, Nova Scotia teachers aren’t happy with Liberal politicians.

The first incident was reported by Elizabeth Chiu for the CBC:

The newly minted candidate for the Nova Scotia Liberals in the riding of Dartmouth East has ruffled feathers at a local school after a teacher complained she felt “duped” into a photo op used for political purposes.

Edgar Burns was one of several volunteers who participated Wednesday in the Rotary Club’s Read a Long program at Brookhouse Elementary, which is in the riding.

He read to the Grade 3 class, answered questions and a photograph of him reading to the children was snapped. Hours later the picture was posted on the Dartmouth East Liberal Association Facebook page.

The teacher of the class was not in the photo but posted on social media that she was upset about it, saying she felt “duped into a photo op for the Liberal Party.” The photo has been taken down.

The second incident was reported by Mark Hodgins for News 95.7:

A fundraising group at Beechville – Lakeside- Timberlea school agreed to pull an advertisement paid for by a local liberal MLA after teachers at the school took issue with it.

Lori Ann Farris, a member of the school’s Parent-Teacher Coalition, says a flyer was to be sent home with students reminding parents of the need for donations to “class basets”, a fundraiser as part of the upcoming Spring Fair.

But the flyer featured a paid advertisement for Timberlea-Prospect MLA Iain Rankin, and Farris says she was contacted by the school and told it would not be sent out over “political concerns” from teachers.

What’s a “class baset”?

4. Pedestrian Struck

A police email to reporters from last night:

At 1:58pm [Sunday], HRP officers responded to a motor vehicle versus pedestrian collision at the intersection of Dresden Row and Spring Garden Road. The vehicle involved was travelling Southbound on Dresden Row and was turning Eastbound onto Spring Garden Road and the pedestrian was crossing Spring Garden Road in a marked crosswalk heading Northbound. Post-impact, the 18-year-old female pedestrian was taken to hospital with non-life threatening injuries and the 59-year-old female driver of the vehicle was issued a summary offense ticket for failing to yield to a pedestrian in a crosswalk. Traffic at the intersection was held up for a short time until emergency services attended.

5. Splash Pad for Dartmouth

Dartmouth resident Rick Mayuk wants a splash pad to be built somewhere in Dartmouth, and has started a Facebook page to generate interest, albeit he managed to misspell “splash pad.”

Sure, why not? There’s something wonderfully whimsical about building splash pads in Nova Scotia. I mean, you could get the same experience by simply walking outside on any of the 300 days of the year when it’s raining, and it seems kind of excessive to build an entire facility in expectation of the week and a half in August when you might actually want to cool down. But then again, people still plan outdoor weddings for Nova Scotia’s June monsoon season, restaurants set their air conditioners at a perpetual 15 degrees, and there are already at least seven splash pads around HRM, so what do I know? If Dartmouthians want a splash pad, have at it.

There’s a discussion of the idea here.

6. Erratum

Last week, I linked to Mary Campbell’s report on lie detector tests, which included a discussion of their use in HRM. Campbell updates her article:

Brendan Elliott, senior communications adviser with Halifax Regional Municipality, contacted me to say that “lie detector tests are not used in the recruitment process for our firefighters.” I’ve asked when the process was discontinued and why and will update the story when I receive an answer. For the record, I assumed they were still used because the recruitment page of the HRM web site says they are.

Campbell links to this HRM recruitment page, which as of this morning still contains this information:

Views

1. Lyle Howe and the bar society’s Plan B

Writes Stephen Kimber:

If the panel hearing the professional misconduct charges against Howe decides he is guilty of any, some, or all of the original seven charges against him, he could be disbarred. If, on the other hand, the panel decides he isn’t guilty of all — or most — of those charges… well, what then?

Click here to read “Lyle Howe and the bar society’s Plan B.”

This article is behind the Examiner’s paywall and so available only to paid subscribers. Click here to purchase a subscription.

2. Ghostly memories of the Chronicle Herald

Former Chronicle Herald reporter and columnist Peter Duffy recounts “his life and times at what was then a quaint provincial paper” in a four-part series written for Local Xpress.

In Part 1, Duffy remembers his early days at the paper.

In Part 2, he discusses his displeasure at being assigned to the politics beat.

I’m so hoping that in the forthcoming Parts 3 and 4 Duffy will talk about his encounter with the ghost:

When I got home, I poured myself a finger of Scotch and sat reflecting on the evening.

Then I went to bed. It was midnight, late for me.

And that’s when it happened.

I became aware of a strange presence in the bedroom, something emitting waves of malevolence.

And then I saw it; something was rearing over me.

I don’t know how, or why, but instinctively, I knew it was a demon of some kind.

I recoiled in horror, trying to make myself small, unable to tear my eyes away.

There was no face. The thing had a human form but it was swathed in a black cowl-like covering, like some kind of monk.

And then it was on top of me, soundless and unstoppable, smothering me, assaulting me.

There’s no delicate way to put this; I was vividly aware of this creature violating me.

Please, please, please Peter! I want to hear how the editors and staff reacted to this column. I want to know if it was fact-checked: did an intern attempt to get Mr. Ghost’s side of the story, or were these unproven, untested-in-court allegations of sexual assault allowed to run in the paper of record without the opportunity for dissenting comment? Did a lawyer review the column?

3. De-clawing

“It’s time the declawing of cats was outlawed in Nova Scotia,” writes Pat Lee for Local Xpress. “Or, here’s a radical thought: if your couch is more important than your cat’s paws, then get a goldfish.”

Government

City

Monday

Police Commission (Monday, 12:30pm, City Hall) — the Human Rights Commission has asked the commission to have a “collaborative effort to open a discussion on the use of street checks.”

Advisory Committee for Accessibility in HRM (Monday, 4pm, City Hall) — lots of updates, but no action items on the agenda.

Integrated Mobility Plan Presentation (Monday, 6pm, Presentation Theatre, NSCC Waterfront Campus) — info here.

Tuesday

Halifax Regional Council (Tuesday, 10am, City Hall) — there’s a lot going on tomorrow. I’ll try to write up something later today or for tomorrow’s Morning File.

Province

Monday

Law Amendments (Monday, 3:30pm, Province House) — public hearing on the Accessibility Act.

Tuesday

Legislature Sits (Tuesday, 1pm, Province House) — the budget will be dropped on Thursday, and most people are guessing an election will be called soon after.

Human Resources (Tuesday, 10am, Province House) — merely collecting that per diem.

On campus

Dalhousie

Monday

How Two Coordinate Actions and Learn from Each Other (Monday, 2pm, Room 264, CHEB) — Tim Welsh, from the University of Toronto, will speak. The event description explains:

The vast majority of research in perception, cognition, and action has focussed on the processes that lead to an individual acting alone to achieve personal action goals. Human experience, however, is clearly not limited to situations in which individuals work alone. Humans are social beings who observe, interpret, and use the actions of other people to achieve a variety of individual and group goals. In this talk, Dr. Welsh will review separate lines of work that converge on the theme of action in social contexts. The results of these investigations indicate that action in social contexts is facilitated by a series of inter-related processes that include: action imagination, prediction, and perception; the understanding of other people’s bodies; and the coding of both lower-level kinematics and the higher level goals of the actions (such as effects and intention). Implications for motor learning through observation and imagery will also be discussed.

… The main objective of [Welsh’s] research is to gain a comprehensive understanding of the cognitive and neural mechanisms that shape the goal-directed actions of people from average and special populations such as autism, Down syndrome, and dystonia. His uses both behavioural and neurophysiological approaches to explore three main areas of investigation: the interactions between attention and action; perception-action coupling; and, action in social contexts.

Senate (Monday, 3pm, Theatre A, Tupper Medical Building) — the Institute for Research in Materials wants to change its name. The agenda doesn’t say what the proposed new name is, but I’m guessing they’re going to try to shoehorn “innovation” in there somehow, because that’s how things roll.

Tuesday

No events scheduled.

In the harbour

5am: YM Essence, container ship, sails from Fairview Cove for Bremerhaven, Germany
6am: AHS Hamburg, cargo ship, arrives at Pier 42 from Philipsburg, Sint Maarten, which is a country on the southern half of Caribbean island named Saint Martin, and is part of the Kingdom of The Netherlands. The Northern half of the island is the country of Saint-Martin, which has an impossibly complex history and is now an overseas “collectivity” of France.
6am: Louis S, container ship, arrives at Pier 41 from Montreal

8am: Mary, container ship, sails from Fairview Cove for Cagliari, Italy
3:30pm: Amadea, cruise ship with up to 624 passengers, arrives at Pier 22 from Lunenburg
This is the first cruise ship to visit Halifax this year. The Amadea is on a 24-day one-way cruise from Nassau, Bahamas to Hamburg, Germany, which evidently doesn’t include much in the way of shore visits — although passengers had up to 12 hours to explore eastern US ports and will have 10 hours in St. John’s, the Lunenburg and Halifax shore excursions are scheduled for just five hours each. If it’s Monday afternoon, this must be Halifax…
3:30pm: Louis S, container ship, sails from Pier 41 for sea
4pm: Crawford, oil tanker, arrives at Berth TBD from IJmuiden, Netherlands
4pm: Torino, car carrier, arrives at Autoport from Southampton
4pm: Bishu Highway, car carrier, sails from Autoport for sea
10pm: Amadea, cruise ship, sails from Pier 22 for St. John’s

Footnotes

Monday already?