NEWS
1. Riley trial
This item is written by Tim Bousquet.
The Randy Riley murder trial continued yesterday, but consisted of a voir dire — a “trial within a trial” without the presence of the jury, and so is covered by a publication ban. The voir dire continues today.
Such voir dires are not at all uncommon, and typically involve the Crown and defence making arguments about what can and cannot be presented to the jury. I’ll be able to report on what happened in the voir dire after the trial is over.
The trial is taking place in the Mellor Avenue courthouse, which was created for the purpose of holding trials while maintaining the separation required during COVID restrictions. It’s an odd, sterile place, in the same building as the Halifax police facility, which strikes me as presenting an inappropriate association for jurors and the public, but I’m certain no one will care about that opinion. There is a bus passing the courthouse every 15 minutes, but it’s still not particularly easy to get to.
Even though the courthouse is brand new, the court recording system crashed yesterday, adding an unexpected delay to proceedings.
The jury isn’t scheduled to return until Friday.
(Send this item: right click and copy this link)
2. Lee
This item is written by Jennifer Henderson.
Nova Scotia Power will open its Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) Friday at noon, ahead of the forecast storm. The EOC coordinates planning to respond to the storm and works with the province’s Emergency Management Office.
“We are expecting winds to be the biggest challenge with this storm, both from a safety standpoint and impact on our equipment. We are taking every precaution and will be ready to respond as safely and efficiently as possible,” said Matt Drover, Nova Scotia Power’s storm lead.
The power company suggests people prepare an emergency kit in case of power outages. A list of items can be found here.
To report outages and get estimated restoration times, go online here or call 1-877-428-6004. That assumes your computer battery is fully charged and telecommunication providers such as Bell, Telus, and Rogers are able to maintain cellphone service during and following the storm.
Earlier this week, NDP leader Claudia Chender issued a news release calling on the Houston government to act quickly to improve how alerts can be used to notify citizens during emergencies.
“The floods and fires this summer were tragic and devastating for our province. In both cases, there were concerns with and delays in the emergency alerts, a system that is meant to help people stay safe,” Chender said in the release.
“The flooding in July was another wake-up call for our province; Nova Scotians expect their government to have learned and improved the system before another emergency. As we reach peak hurricane season there cannot be any more delays.”
The NDP statement quoted Samson Learn, a resident whose rural Mill Village home in Queens County was flooded in July. With no power and limited access to cell service, Learn said he did not receive the emergency alert.
“The night of July 21 and morning of July 22 were incredibly difficult. In the span of a few hours nearly six feet of water entered the basement of our home and at 3 a.m., with water still rising, we decided we had to leave before we got cut off by flooding and washed-out roads,” Learn said.
“If we had received emergency alerts we likely would have evacuated sooner into town, or a comfort station, and had a safe place to wait out the storm. Instead, we slept in our car at a carpool parking lot worried the roads in either direction would be washed out and too afraid to go further. Rural residents feel abandoned in extreme weather like we’ve seen the last few months, at the very least we need reliable information earlier.”
(Send this item: right click and copy this link)
3. Nova Scotia Power
“The agency that regulates electricity prices in the province has ordered Nova Scotia Power to submit a detailed action plan by Dec. 31, 2023 explaining how the company intends to transition from coal to renewable energy sources by 2030,” reports Jennifer Henderson.
The directive is part of a written decision by the Utility and Review Board (UARB) that approved capital spending totalling $166 million for 2023-24. The decision states:
There was much discussion at the hearing about the legislative requirement for NS Power to retire its coal plants and achieve 80% renewable energy by 2030. The Board has directed Nova Scotia Power to file a detailed and specific plan outlining how the Company will achieve the 2030 obligations, what specific steps are required to meet these obligations, how the proposed steps will accomplish that goal, and when these steps will be taken. The Board notes that a specific plan can always be modified if circumstances change in an unexpected way. A specific plan based on what is known today is still required to provide some comfort to all stakeholders that the goal can be achieved, and progress monitored.
Nova Scotia Power had told its regulator such an order was unnecessary because the company will submit a five-year capital spending forecast later this year.
(Send this item: right click and copy this link)
4. Alehouse
“The lawyer representing a downtown Halifax bar facing liquor control act charges after a patron died last year is arguing the matter should be kept confidential,” reports Josh Hoffman with CBC.
Nova Scotia’s Alcohol, Gaming, Fuel and Tobacco Division launched an investigation into the Halifax Alehouse following Ryan Sawyer’s death in December.
The investigation covered several incidents throughout 2022 involving the bar and its staff, a spokesperson for the division told CBC News in May.
The Alehouse allegedly allowed activity that’s “detrimental to the order of the control of the premises” and did not report criminal charges laid in relation to an incident on or around its property, the spokesperson said.
Documents released by the Nova Scotia Utility and Review Board show the lawyer representing the Alehouse asked at a preliminary hearing last month for all evidence to be kept confidential and upcoming hearings to be closed to the public.
Evidence made public in the hearing could prejudice the Halifax Alehouse and former staff in ongoing court cases, Victor Goldberg argues.
Goldberg does not represent the accused in any of the other matters.
In August, thirty-seven-year-old Alex Levy was charged with manslaughter and criminal negligence causing death in relation to Ryan Sawyer’s death outside the Alehouse last December. Levy and another man, Matthew Day, face assault charges in connection with two other incidents at the bar last year. Levy and Day pleaded not guilty to those charges.
More from Hoffman:
The lawyer for the Alcohol, Gaming, Fuel and Tobacco Division agreed the request for confidentiality was reasonable, documents say, but the Utility and Review Board believes the matter is of public interest.
The board noted “the unique nature of the confidentiality request” at last month’s preliminary hearing, documents show.
It gave the parties until Thursday to submit arguments for or against the request. The board has until the end of the month to reply to the submissions.
Last week, the Globe and Mail published this article by Lindsay Jones and Colin Freeze about legislation introduced by the NDP in 2009 to licence and regulate bouncers that was never enacted. Jones and Freeze spoke with two families, including the Sawyers, for the story.
(Send this item: right click and copy this link)
5. Yarmouth ferry
“An economic impact study on the ferry service between Yarmouth, N.S., and Bar Harbor, Maine, has begun,” reports Megan King with Global.
Over two sailing seasons, data will be collected to help determine if the service is providing good value to Nova Scotian taxpayers.
“For the first time there is a government that is actually going to do a broad impact study that needed to be done, which has never been done to this depth,” N.S. Public Works Minister Kim Masland told media on Wednesday.
“Finally, a government that is going to do that, so that Nova Scotians understand the value that they’re receiving in their tax dollars.”
Masland announced the contracted consulting firm for the Yarmouth ferry study (the CAT) will be newly-formed group 21 FSP.
The team is made up of Thomas McGuire and Ron L’esperance — the latter having served as deputy minister of the Department of Community Services under premier John Hamm.
The report will continue for the next year and cost $180,000.
(Send this item: right click and copy this link)
VIEWS
Slut-shaming, victim blaming, and rape culture on campus and beyond
Over the past few weeks, we’ve been sharing stories from survivors about their experiences when they reported their sexual assaults to police. And two weeks ago, Yvette d’Entremont wrote this story about sexual assaults and the rape culture on the Church Point campus of Université Sainte-Anne. A group of current and former students from that school started a campaign sharing a stories from survivors of sexual assaults. That same group wants the university president to take action on the issue; d’Entremont reported on this on Tuesday.
I’ve read all of these stories, of course, and I got thinking about Meredith Ralston’s book, Slut-Shaming, Whorephobia, and the Unfinished Sexual Revolution. Ralston is a professor of women’s studies at Mount Saint Vincent University, and now on sabbatical.
I interviewed Ralston about her book in May 2021. Then last March, on International Women’s Day, I attended a talk she gave at Saint Mary’s University (you can read that here).
I spoke with Ralston on Wednesday about the the issues of rape culture, slut-shaming, and victim blaming, what we can all do to challenge sexual double standards and support women who’ve been sexually assaulted.
Here is our interview, which has been edited for length and clarity:
Halifax Examiner: Can you explain to me the definition of slut-shaming and of rape culture?
Meredith Ralston: There is an example of the news right now with Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher. I read the article from Sainte-Anne and one of the young women said the perpetrator was a popular guy. That is an example of one of the six main rape myths. Slut-shaming is part of that and victim blaming is part of that, but I just thought that was a good illustration of a “good guy can’t rape, good men don’t rape.”
[Kunis and Kutcher] are two famous people in Hollywood who were in this show called The 70s Show, and they wrote letters to a judge to ask for leniency for their friend, Danny Masterson, who was convicted and sentenced to 30 years. What really strikes me about that example is that they are using one of those myths. Ashton Kutcher is an anti-trafficking, anti-rape activist. He’s very proud of that, but yet [Kutcher and Kunis] wrote letters asking for leniency because [Masterson] is a good guy. That is a great example that, unfortunately, these kinds of crimes get perpetrated because in the general population, rape culture is within the media, within our court systems, and so people just accept these things without thinking about them. Even people who really see themselves as anti-sexual assault activists. There are a lot of myths about that.
One of the big myths is that victims bring it on themselves. And that is the slut shaming part: “Why did you go to his house?” “Why were you so drunk?” “Why did you wear that?” So, rather than again put the blame on the perpetrator for what they did, it’s about what the victim didn’t do or what the victim did do. I was really struck by those examples in the Sainte-Anne case that both of those things are coming up. A lot of victim blaming, a lot of slut shaming, and also this idea that good men don’t rape.
HE: Where does that good-men-can’t-rape-myth come from, because certainly people can have two sides?
MR: That is what a lot of commentary about the Kutcher-Kunis thing is all about. He was a friend, this person could be a good guy in certain circumstances, but hello, he could also be a perpetrator. Unfortunately, what that example does with the two of them [Kunis and Kutcher], it undermines the victims’ testimony. They are saying, “Oh, we believe victims,” but the fact that you asked for leniency for quite a violent crime in this case — he drugged, violently raped women — whether it’s inadvertent or not, you’re undermining the victims. You’re saying you don’t believe the victim. If you believe the victim, you wouldn’t be saying this is a good guy so give him leniency.
HE: Does it surprise you that these cases are still happening and people are saying things like, ‘well, he was a good guy’?
MR: I am surprised by this particular example because of the hypocrisy of them putting themselves out there as anti-rape activists and then writing this letter for their friend. The young people at Sainte-Anne grew up in this culture, this soup of sexual assault and rape culture, and that doesn’t surprise me they aren’t self-aware enough to say “Oh, someone is accusing somebody…” They are not seeing there are two things going on there.
One of the young women in that article, it was very interesting, she said one of the worst things was [the university] brought in a young woman to say, “Oh, I studied with him. I’ve been alone with him. There were no issues.” Oh, come on.
HE: These stories from these young women at Sainte-Anne are horrific, but they also spoke about the slut shaming and the victim blaming, so what needs to be done to deal with that?
MR: The universities are doing a lot. Almost all universities now have frosh week activities where they do consent education. They’re doing a lot of work that needed to be done 10 years ago in the school system. So, that just needs to continue, that education about what consent is. As one of them said, ‘Well, we have signs all over the place that no means no and drunk means no’ but it’s still out there in the culture. It’s a difficult one for the universities too because there are these procedures that people go through and yet, as one of the professors said, we still believe in innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, and it’s very difficult to prove that in a criminal court situation, which then opens it up to some of the doubt.
But what I think all universities are trying to do, and I assume Sainte-Anne is as well, is have some kind of trauma-informed process meaning the [victims] aren’t having to tell their stories over and over, and over again to different people. That they have someone they can talk to who will believe them, who will support them, and have a record of what was said.
HE: This is at the university level, but at what age should we be talking with young people about this?
MR: Again, it has to be age appropriate. You don’t want to scare kids into thinking that all relationships are going to go bad. But there are different sexual health clinics out there in Nova Scotia that are trying to do the work, again, at an age appropriate way to say what is consent? For example, your parents say you have to go hug and kiss Uncle Teddy and the kid says, “I don’t want to kiss Uncle Teddy.” Just to have that notion of bodily autonomy that a child would have to say no, “I don’t want to kiss Uncle Teddy” for whatever reason, to say yes or no to that interaction. And to have sessions in schools about healthy relationships, what you need to have a healthy relationship. There is so much information out there in the anti-trafficking domain in Nova Scotia, the idea of grooming and what does that mean, and there is a big worry about that. But really, it’s about healthy relationships. So, I think that work needs to be done way before they get to university.
It can happen like the example of Carrie Low, a woman in her 40s who was drugged and sexually assaulted. The police didn’t believe her. This is a huge issue. It’s not just happening in universities, for sure.
HE: What about the police? Any suggestions on what they need to do?
MR: I think the same thing. To have people who are trained to deal with victims who are not dismissive of victims where they don’t have to tell their story over and retraumatize them. And have some kind of confidence that the nurse examiners who do the sexual assault examinations that they are available. I know that’s a resource issue, for sure. That just the basic things like taking the clothing, taking the samples, those kinds of things that didn’t happen in [Carrie Low’s] case. It’s just kind of astonishing given all the media, given all the information we now have about the trauma to victims. It’s like the universities… they’re trying to deal with one aspect of it. The police are trying to deal with another aspect of it. It’s tough. It’s going to have to take a real multi-prong approach to fix this.
HE: Do you think they need to all work together more on this?
MR: The Mass Casualty Commission recommendations basically said that we need to have more organizations working together so one does not overlap, that there’s more resources for the rural areas. All of these different organizations, of course, they all have limited resources, some are doing this, some are doing that, some overlap. There is a model where you could have different groups be involved in action that they need regularly so people know what other organizations are doing.
HE: The victim blaming and the slut shaming after a sexual assault is just another trauma for these women.
MR: You look at the case of Rehtaeh Parsons and her dad [Glen Canning] always talking about how the worst part of it after the trauma itself, and she didn’t remember that part of it, but the trauma then was about the students in the school, girls who she thought were friends, slut-shaming her, the name calling. She’d move to another school and it would happen again. That’s 10 years ago, but obviously that is still going on. Maybe the schools are attempting to deal with it, but again it’s very interesting to me that students now at Sainte-Anne, because that’s the example we’re looking at, having probably gone through our school system, the instinct is still, “Oh, he’s a good guy. He’s really popular. He couldn’t have done it.” They go right for one of those rape myths. To be fair, the school system is not looking at the academic literature and saying, “Okay there are six rape myths and we’re going to go through them to make sure they know what they are.”
HE: What are the six rape myths?
MR: The one I’ve been talking about, the one that is very popular, is that good men don’t rape. That is really impactful in universities because it’s got the athletes, the very successful students. The boys accused of rape, especially in schools known for athletics, why are they trying to ruin this poor boy’s life? So that is a big one.
The other ones are that women lie about being assaulted. It’s the victim’s behaviour that led [to the assault]. That’s the victim blaming and slut shaming we’ve been talking about. Another one is… that men can’t control themselves. Another one is the “othering.” That goes with the “good men don’t rape” where a lot of the media coverage is about the “other.” It’s about an immigrant or someone who is not a white, middle-class male. And then, the last one is about when you hear titillating stories about female perpetrators. So, there is a very, very small amount of female teachers having sex with their students, that kind of thing.
HE: In all of your research on this issue, have you ever seen any hope that things are changing a bit?
MR: Yes, I do. I do think that, even in the example of Sainte-Anne, the students are doing something. They are attempting to make change. You see that all over universities all over where students do see there is something wrong and they are trying to change it. They’re trying to unpack a whole system, but at the same time they are trying.
And I think the universities, to give them credit, really are trying too. They know. They don’t want their students being sexually assaulted on campus. And I don’t mean just the reputational issue. If you’re talking with the head of student services, that is a huge issue for them, the counsellors, the people who work at universities.
HE: What does the average person like me or someone reading this interview need to think about understanding how rape culture works?
MR: I would ask the reader that when they read a story about something that has to do with sexual assault, or harassment, or #metoo, to really reflect on their reaction to it. So you’re reading something and you think, “Oh, why did she go to the bar? Why was she in the bar?” You really have to think about that. Why is that the first thing you thought of? That is a tough one. That self-reflection piece is important to think about. Your own reactions to a story tell you a lot about what your values and beliefs are. Now, some people think that… they shouldn’t be going to bars. Or they shouldn’t have been wearing that short skirt. What it means is then you have to really look at what you’re saying. What you’re saying about women’s bodily autonomy about wearing what somebody wants to wear or that she is able to go into a public space, you have to be careful about what you’re actually saying and maybe what the implications are on you as a woman, or as someone who loves women, or who has friends who are women. To be really careful about what you’re saying when you blame the victim.
HE: What did you learn about slut shaming and victim blaming through all your research?
MR: Well, my book, the research it was based on, it was based on the most marginalized women, who are sex workers. And what I was really struck by, they face tremendous victim blaming and slut shaming, and then I realized it was a continuum. You have the sex workers on the one hand, who are so disbelieved and so marginalized; I don’t mean that in terms of the person may be doing very well, financially, they may not be a marginalized sex worker. I don’t mean that. I mean image of a sex worker is someone who is marginalized and who has brought this on herself, anything bad that happens. Even more worrisome thing in my mind, it’s almost like if you’re a bad girl in this culture, then it gives licence for other people to treat you badly. That one I was like, “Oh, my goodness.” That’s why you have to think about the consequences of that slut-shaming, that when you say things like “Why was she wearing that skirt, why was she drunk?” You’re actually giving licence for those perpetrators, who know it too, to treat her badly. They know they’re going to get away with it and they already have those ideas in their heads as well.
HE: That bad girl image really does a lot of damage.
MR: The fact that we still have a distinction between good girls and bad girls is a huge problem. We don’t have that same kind of bad boy-good boy kind of thing that tries to control men’s behaviour. That good girl-bad girl thing is so much related to the sexual double standard, which we still have. Men can do whatever they want sexually, and it’s not an issue. If women act the same way, it’s a problem.
HE: Is there any way to address that?
MR: In my lifetime? It’s about recognizing when we are putting people into these categories of “she’s bad” or “she’s good.” Parents and grandparents do it subconsciously because they know, maybe they are trying to protect girls or controlling their behaviour without seeing how that control will then affect them later on. Or they buy into the sexual double standard. That the boys in the family can do whatever, stay out late. There are worries about women’s physical safety, too, which I understand, but that is a big one. To really recognize when the sexual double standard is happening and to confront it and challenge it every time we see it… like if it’s dress codes at school. Schools have more knowledge about that. You don’t see it as often. And about that double standard that boys can wear whatever and girls have to dress more modestly. I think that’s changing a bit, and I think the girls know it. They know and they fight back against it, which is awesome.
HE: Any final thoughts?
MR: I do like the part of the story where the students [at Sainte-Anne] are attempting to do something about it. I see that at the Mount. The students are very engaged with these issues, they know it’s a problem. They are doing that consent education, they are doing peer bystander training. That always gives me hope for sure that things will change.
(Send this item: right click and copy this link)
NOTICED
Getting the information we deserve
A few weeks ago, Jimmy Thomson, a freelance investigative journalist and journalism teacher in Victoria, had this article in the Globe and Mail about accessing information from government experts in Canada. Thomson wrote about calling up a government biologist in the U.S. and actually getting her on the phone. No emailing or calling a public relations person first. Thomson writes:
But she picked up because she works in Montana, where government experts are encouraged to share their expertise with the public. Meanwhile, when I e-mailed a Canadian counterpart of hers in the British Columbia government – a biologist who is an expert in his field – he replied with a familiar answer he’s likely given dozens of times before: “Yes I would have time but you would have to touch base with the public affairs folks first.” It would take more than a week to get approval to schedule an interview.
We’ve all been through this here at the Examiner. We’ll contact an expert requesting an interview or to get answers to questions only to get a crafted and meaningless statement from a spokesperson instead. Stephen Kimber wrote about this last month:
Perhaps it’s time we in the media stopped carrying official statements that intentionally don’t respond to our legitimate questions. Maybe we should simply report that the accountable official declined to answer our questions. “The department instead sent a statement that didn’t answer the following questions…” and then we should repeat the questions instead of the non-answers. While we should include a link to the official statement for transparency’s sake, we shouldn’t give it credence by including it in the story.
Perhaps then those in authority would get the message.
It can feel like there are more PR people managing the experts than there are experts or ministers to be managed. These PR folks aren’t managing experts’ calendars, but their answers, too.
Thomson writes that it’s by design that journalists don’t get to “talk directly to the people who know what they’re talking about without first talking to those who don’t”:
When image management is the primary concern of decision makers, there’s an implied reputational risk if they’re seen to be ignoring their own expert staff – never mind that that’s what our elected governments are routinely doing, on files ranging from the Greenbelt to salmon farms. The most important thing isn’t to give citizens the information they are rightly owed, particularly if it involves the government they elect and the decisions it makes that affect their lives; it’s not getting caught making a mistake.
Sept. 25 to Oct. 1 is Right to Know Week in Canada. You wouldn’t think it, given how tough it can be to get even the most basic of information we all have a right to know about. Two years ago, Joan Baxter wrote a two-part series on this. You can read those articles here and here.
The solution, Thomson writes, is a simple one:
Leaders, from politicians to local managers, need to pro-actively empower their expert staff to answer questions from the media directly. The answers they give may not always support the government’s agenda, but they will add to Canadians’ understanding of what governments deal with every day, and how they make trade-offs between the values that we all know are behind their decisions.
(Send this item: right click and copy this link)
Government
City
Community Planning and Economic Development Standing Committee (Thursday, 10am, City Hall and online) — agenda
Province
No meetings
On campus
Dalhousie
Today
“Racialized Musical (Hi)stories” (Thursday, 12pm, Room 406, Dalhousie Arts Centre) — Philip Ewell from Hunter College, City University of New York will talk; from the listing:
In this talk, he challenges the main narratives shaping the classical canon of “great music.” “History” usually implies an accurate account of past events, while “story” refers to events that may or may not accurately reflect on the past, embellished as necessary by the “storyteller.” With remarkable consistency in the academic study of music in the U.S. and Canada, the “histories” taught at our music institutions have been written by white persons, usually men, passing from generation to generation with little divergence from the main narratives of “great works” of a so-called “western canon.” Ewell examines these histories and explains why, in fact, our common music curricula are still quite segregated along racial lines. He shows how we can ensure all racial musics, and musical races, have a seat at the table and a voice in the discussion.
Investigating new roles for the Nav1.1 sodium channel in sensory neuron physiology & behavior (Thursday, 1pm, online) — Theanne Griffith from UC Davis Health School of Medicine will talk
Judicialization of International Marine Environmental Law (Thursday, 7:15pm, Ondaatje Hall, Marion McCain Building) — Natalie Klein from UNSW Sydney, Australia will talk
Tomorrow
A Human Rights-Based Approach to Plastic Pollution: Implications for Health Justice (Friday, 12pm, Room 104, Weldon Law Building) — presented by Sara Seck
In the harbour
Halifax
07:00: Algoma Value, bulker, arrives at Pier 9 from Baltimore
10:30: Lake Wanaka, car carrier, arrives at Autoport from Emden, Germany
15:00: NYK Rumina, container ship, sails from Fairview Cove for Southampton, England
15:00: NYK Remus, container ship, arrives at Fairview Cove from Saint John
15:00: Algoma Value sails for sea
15:30: One Eagle, container ship (145,251 tonnes), arrives at Pier 41 from Norfolk, Virginia
16:00: Bakkafoss, container ship, arrives at Pier 42 from Portland
17:00: Nolhanava, ro-ro cargo, sails from Pier 42 for Saint-Pierre
22:00: Lake Wanaka sails for sea
22:30: Bakkafoss sails for Reykjavik
Cape Breton
07:15: Weco Pisces, oil tanker, arrives at EverWind from New York
10:30: After You, yacht, arrives at Sydney Marine Terminal floating dock from Portland. This yacht was previously named the Quinta Essentia and was owned by Russian oligarch Valentin Zavadnikov, who made his money in booze and grift. After the invasion of Ukraine, US and EU authorities started arresting superyachts owned by oligarchs, which caused a major sell-off of such yachts, and the Quinta Essentia was picked up by some unknown (to us) US oligarch and renamed the After You. It is now being chartered for US$350,000/week.
11:30: Phoenix Admiral, oil tanker, sails from EverWind for sea
12:30: Harmonic, oil tanker, moves from Port Hawkesbury anchorage to EverWind
Footnotes
I have a battery-operated radio and need to get a thermos for tea, which is better than the plastic yellow pineapple I used to get hot water during Hurricane Fiona.
CBC is an essential lifeline during emergencies. The network was so imp during Fiona. Sounds like Polievre wants to neuter the network. CBC is so imp to areas outside mega Canada. Pls observe it’s importance this weekend.
“The NDP statement quoted Samson Learn, a resident whose rural Mill Village home in Queens County was flooded in July. With no power and limited access to cell service, Learn said he did not receive the emergency alert.” Calling what we get “limited access to cell service” is really giving Bell too much credit. Despite the government hand-outs, despite the high fees, Bell and the big communication companies refuse to provide decent cell and internet service to Nova Scotians, especially in the rural areas. It’s long past time to nationalize the communications systems or at least to have a national provider or strategy that makes the big three take notice.