News
1. Post-strike Chronicle Herald
Stephen Kimber:
Now that the strike is over, Herald management desperately needs to rebuild — or perhaps simply build — its newsroom capacity, which is the only “value-added” that will really matter if it is to have a journalistic future. The question is: can this management do that?
Click here to read “The Herald strike is over. Now what?”
This article is behind the Examiner’s paywall. Click here to subscribe.
Also, in this week’s Examineradio podcast, we speak with former Journal de Montreal reporter Valerie Dufour, who experienced a bitter, two-year long job action. Her advice to Chronicle Herald reporters now going back to work? “Do yoga.”
[iframe style=”border:none” src=”//html5-player.libsyn.com/embed/episode/id/5632509/height/100/width/480/thumbnail/no/render-playlist/no/theme/legacy/tdest_id/259399″ height=”100″ width=”480″ scrolling=”no” allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen oallowfullscreen msallowfullscreen]
(direct download)
(RSS feed)
(Subscribe via iTunes)
2. Lunenburg Harbour
“The Dayspring, N.S., teenager whose school science project helped shine a light on pollution in the LaHave River says Lunenburg harbour is even dirtier,” reports Anjuli Patil for the CBC:
“It makes the LaHave River look cleaner, which is pretty bad because the LaHave River is not clean,” said Stella Bowles.
The 13-year-old said she was compelled to test the harbour water after tour operator Bill Flower recently spoke out about thick, brown sludge he said was coming from a sewage plant into the harbour and below a busy wharf.
The results of Bowles’ tests were posted to her Facebook page Saturday evening.
3. Mi’kmaq and Acadians at Grand Pré
“Assembly of First Nations Vice-Chief Morley Googoo said he got the idea to hold a celebration gathering for both Mi’kmaw and Acadian people during a walk through Grand Pré National Historic Site at Grand Pré, N.S. two years ago,” reports Maureen Googoo:
On Thursday evening, Googoo’s vision became a reality as hundreds of people gathered at the historic site in Nova Scotia’s Annapolis Valley to take part in the opening ceremony to kick off Grand Pré 2017 – A Celebration of Peace and Friendship.
The celebration began with the grand entry of Mi’kmaw leaders, veterans, drummers and dancers. They were followed by Acadian dancers and performers carrying large paper mache heads.
“I was really touched,” Marie-Claude Rioux, who serves as co-chair of Grand Pré 2017 with Googoo, said following the ceremony.
“I was really emotional because I was thinking as an Acadian, I was walking through the teepees, you know, and I was thinking well that’s probably how our ancestors felt when they first met the Mi’kmaw people,” Rioux, Directrice-générale with the Fédération Acadienne de la Novelle-Écosse, explained.
“It touched me very deeply. It’s very emotional. It’s very significant,” she added.
Googoo is a common name among Mi’kmaq people. So far as I know, Maureen Googoo and Morley Googoo are not closely related.
4. Goose memorial
“Dozens of mourners marched in the rain to pay their respects to two foul-tempered fixtures of a Halifax community — a pair of geese who were run down at a crosswalk,” reports Adina Bresge for the Canadian Press:
They braved a downpour Saturday evening in Dartmouth to memorialize the fallen geese of Sullivan’s Pond, in the heart of the Halifax suburb.
“It feels like a small tear in our spirit, and a little bit of loss,” organizer Katy Jean eulogized. “Our geese are not just the geese. They’re part of the community.”
5. Five-year-old dies in ATV rollover
An RCMP release from yesterday:
August 13, 2017, Scotch Hill, Nova Scotia…Pictou County District RCMP is investigating a fatal ATV crash in Scotch Hill.
This afternoon at 12:05 p.m., RCMP responded to a report of a youth-model ATV roll over in a wooded area on Scotch Hill Rd. A five-year-old child was pinned underneath the vehicle.
Officers and EHS responded. The child was removed and transported to hospital however a short time later, was pronounced deceased.
An RCMP Collision Analyst is on scene and the investigation in ongoing.
Government
City
Monday
No public meetings.
Tuesday
Halifax Regional Council (Tuesday, 10am, City Hall) — here’s the agenda.
Province
No public meetings until September.
On campus
Dalhousie
Monday
No public events.
Tuesday
Thesis Defence, Process Engineering and Applied Science (Tuesday, 10am, Room 1016, Kenneth C. Rowe Management Building) — PhD candidate Wei Xia will defend her thesis, “Determination of Epoxides and Alcohols in Edible Oils.”
Thesis Defence, Pharmacology (Tuesday, 10am, Room 3107, Mona Campbell Building) — PhD candidate Matthew Harding will defend his thesis, “Characterizing the Role of Atrial Natriuretic Peptide Signalling in the Development of the Embryonic Ventricular Conduction System.”
Thesis Defence, Psychology and Neuroscience (Tuesday, 2pm, Room 3107, Mona Campbell Building) — PhD candidate Jamie-Lee Collins will defend her thesis, “The Role of Drinking to Cope in Impacting Alcohol-Related Behaviours and Outcomes Among Undergraduate Students.”
Saint Mary’s
Monday
Thesis Defence, Business Administration (Monday, 11am, AT 216) — PhD candidate Cara-Lynn Scheuer will defend her thesis, “Maximizing the Potential of Age-Diverse Work Groups and their Leaders in Contemporary Workplaces.”
In the harbour
5:30am: Centaurus Leader, car carrier, arrives at Autoport from Derince, Turkey
6am: Bomar Rebecca, container ship, arrives at Pier 42 from Philipsburg, St. Maarten
7am: Seven Seas Navigator, cruise ship with up to 550 passengers, arrives at Pier 23 from New York
7:45am: Maasdam, cruise ship with up to 1,510 passengers, arrives at Pier 22 from Bar Harbor
9:30am: Insignia, cruise ship with up to 800 passengers, arrives at Pier 20 from Bar Harbor
11am: Pinara, container ship, arrives at Pier 41 from Lisbon, Portugal
11:15am: Centaurus Leader, car carrier, sails from Autoport for sea
2:30pm: East Coast, oil tanker, arrives at Irving Oil from Saint John
3pm: YM Essence, container ship, arrives at Fairview Cove from New York
5pm: Seven Seas Navigator, cruise ship, sails from Pier 23 for Sept-Iles, Quebec
5:30pm: Maasdam, cruise ship, sails from Pier 22 for Sydney
10:30pm: Insignia, cruise ship, sails from Pier 20 for St. George, Bermuda
Footnotes
This is a short Morning File. I had a long weekend, and the news from the U.S. is too depressing… I’m going back to bed.
When the public loses the opportunity to fish and swim in a harbour, much has been given up. Shouldn’t there be a close correspondence between what a municipally-run sewage treatment facility is permitted to discharge and what would be safe to have on your skin or be ingested , if one were to eat fish from the water?
People do not swim in Pictou Harbour, nor do they swim any more at Lighthouse Beach, at the east end of the harbour; girl guides do not swim at MacLellan’s Girl Guide Camp anymore either; that is well east of Lighthouse Beach. Look how much people have given up.
Immediately there comes to mind this question- where will the effluent that is now “treated” at Boat Harbour going to be dumped? A new site has to be in place in the next few years, and the effluent has to have a new ‘home’. There are different regulations for pulp and paper operations when it comes to their discharged material; why doesn’t it make sense that their discharge of material has to be at such a level that it does not necessitate people not getting the water in the discharge zone on their skin?
The revelations by Stella Bowles, her mentor , and by Mr. Flower put it out there for us to ask questions and to demand answers,and for us not to accept dismissive comments about meeting the standards set by whomever. The standards may be the problem; they certainly appear to be getting in the way of what some would consider ‘real solutions’ as opposed to excuses. There is a need for leadership on this that reveals a cognizance of the impacts and a visionary drive to fix things properly. Thankfully, one twelve year old is cognizant and visionary, and when she uses the word”disgusting” people perk up as they should.
Yes they do. Both are living beings that we should grieve that were lost to motor vehicle folly, in one case animals hit in a cross walk, in the other a too young child on an ATV that flipped and took their young life. . And with the geese, while the motorist in question acted the proper way after hitting them, it does not excuse the fact that driver inattention was the cause of this. And it could easily have been a small child, rather than the geese, which should be remembered always.
Out rage and sorrow over geese, no one seems to blink as more kids are killed on ATVs…
Apples and oranges. One has nothing to do with the other.
Our wastewater treatment plants here in northern NB are getting major upgrades because of what I was told are changes in federal requirements on what can be discharged.. Much of the money for the upgrades is coming from the federal government.
Part of the issue up here is that some storm sewers flow surface rainwater into the treatment lagoons rather than directly into the bay. Not only does this bring gravel from roads and shoulders into the lagoon that has to be cleared out occasionally, but when there are heavy rains the lagoon can’t handle the flow and untreated or less-than-optimally treated wastewater flows into the bay. I’m not sure what Lunenburg’s problem really is, but I assume the town is subject to the same federal requirements as everyone else.
Of course, when I was a kid, none of it was treated and it just flowed directly from the sewers into the Baie des Chaleurs. As did the effluent from the paper mill. And folks swam in it..