NEWS
1. Brad Johns doesn’t think domestic violence is an epidemic
Update:
In a statement Friday night, Premier Tim Houston said he had accepted Brad Johns’ resignation as a minister in his cabinet. Houston said “domestic violence is an issue our government takes very seriously.” The statement continued:
We will continue to work with partner organizations to do everything we can to support the important work being done in response to the Mass Casualty Commission’s final report and in response to the ongoing epidemic of domestic violence across Nova Scotia and Canada.
Yesterday was the fourth anniversary of the mass shooting that claimed the lives of 22 Nova Scotians.
Brad Johns, Nova Scotia’s Justice Minister, commemorated it by saying he didn’t think domestic violence is an epidemic, and that we have bigger issues.
“We have issues around guns, we have issues around drugs. We have issues. There’s a lot of issues. Violence in general.”
He gave a rueful chuckle as he said this. You can watch the video on CBC, if you haven’t already. The chuckle is towards the end.
Of course this didn’t sit well with, well, anybody.
Adsum House posted a statement on their Instagram and Twixxer (I refuse to call it X) accounts, which said:
We are shocked and angered by Minister Johns’ flippant remarks about domestic violence…The people we meet every day, the stories we hear, the statistics we read, the lived experiences of more than 40 per cent of all Canadian women confirm that domestic violence, is indeed, an issue of epidemic proportions.
You can read their entire statement here.
NDP leader Claudia Chender posted on social media, “Given Minister John’s comments today, on the anniversary of Portapique, we are asking for his immediate resignation.”
Liberal leader Zach Churchill had a similar message:
Later in the day Johns sort of apologized, but not really. In a statement attributed to him, he said he had made comments that “were wrong and have caused pain. Domestic violence is a serious issue in Nova Scotia.”
The statement from Johns continued:
I want survivors of domestic violence to know that they will be supported when they come forward and have confidence that when they do, they will be believed and treated respectfully.
The pervasiveness of domestic violence and the harm it causes in our communities is not something that should ever be minimized and I am truly sorry that my words did so.
This government, my department and I agree that domestic violence is an epidemic.
Following a community town hall meeting about the Bear Head Energy wind project Thursday evening in Pictou County, the following exchange took place between Tim Houston and a CBC reporter:
CBC: Do you stand by Brad Johns after his comments today? And will you keep him as justice minister?
Houston: I think the minister apologized for his comments. I do believe that there’s a serious issue with domestic violence in the province, for sure. It is an epidemic. The minister has apologized for his comments and we’ll chat with him. But I want Nova Scotians to know that we understand how serious the issue is, and it’s a priority of ours to address it.
CBC: So what do you say to survivors of violence who might be afraid to report through the system that is under Brad Johns’s department after he said this comment?
Houston: Well, listen, there’s a whole process in place. People should come forward. They will be respected. They will be listened to. I’ve said as premier that I know how serious this issue is. I agree with the Mass Casualty Commission that it is epidemic. We work with those organizations in the province, provide support to them in a number of ways, including financial support for a number of organizations. So, the minister has apologized for his comments. He was wrong in his comments. And I’ve tried to try to set the record straight on how I personally feel and how our government feels.
With files from Joan Baxter
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2. Premier gets earful about proposed wind project
Joan Baxter went to the Blue Mountain and District Fire Department hall Thursday evening, along with more than 200 others, to talk to Houston about the 100-turbine Websters Corner wind project Bear Head Energy is proposing for the Blue Mountain area of Pictou County.
It probably didn’t go the way he would have hoped.
One woman at the meeting asked Houston what benefits Nova Scotia would get from wind energy that would be used to produce hydrogen and ammonia for export, and why Nova Scotians should sacrifice their land for such a project when the wind energy wasn’t going into the province’s grid.
Houston called it a kind of “energy export” and said hydrogen and ammonia were just a different kind of export from Nova Scotia, which, he added, also exports tires made at the Michelin plants, and lobsters caught here.
Houston noted that Nova Scotia burns a lot of coal, and the hydrogen could be a new source of energy. “There could be a time we’re all driving hydrogen fuel cell cars,” he said, eliciting some catcalls.
Click or tap here to read “Premier gets earful at town hall about proposed Pictou County wind project.”
We’ve taken Baxter’s related article from March 18th, “Premier Tim Houston backs out of Hamburg hydrogen conference” out from behind the paywall, along with the companion article on March 19 by Karin Finkenzeller, “Canadian and German officials pursue dream of cross-oceanic ‘green’ hydrogen trade.”
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3. Financial subsidies for farmers aren’t encouraging a transition to more plant-based agriculture
A MacEachen Institute for Public Policy and Governance project led by Dalhousie University researchers Dr. Kathleen Kevany and Dr. Talan Iscan is examining the impact of agricultural incentives on climate and health, Yvette d’Entremont writes.
The project team’s early analysis shows most financial incentives are going to animal agriculture. Kevany described this as “out of alignment” with Canada’s Food Guide, released in 2019.
“We have a plan to encourage Canadians to eat well through the new Canada’s Food Guide, and we have data that supports that evidence,” Kevany said. “And we have data also that indicate where we’re headed with food production. So we’re inquiring into whether or not we can see some alignment or misalignment with that data.”
Kevany also says it’s urgent that public resources be used to support healthy diets, and wants to see the Maritimes build greater regional resilience in its food systems.
Click or tap here to read “Nova Scotia researchers explore ways to support agricultural sector, meet Canada’s climate goals and nutritional needs.”
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4. Nova Scotia Teachers Union, province, reach agreement in principle
On Thursday, Tim Houston made an announcement that the province and the union representing its public school teachers have reached an agreement in principle on a new contract, Yvette d’Entremont reports.
Houston said the government’s focus was on reaching a deal that was fair to teachers, along with ensuring improved classroom conditions for both students and teachers.
“Teachers will see our shared commitments in the coming days when the agreement is finalized and the NSTU shares it with them,” he said. “But I think they’ll be pleased, and I hope they will be.”
d’Entremont spoke to NSTU president Ryan Lutes, who said he was “cautiously optimistic,” and described it as a positive step.
“No one wants to be going down a path towards potential job action,” Lutes said. “That’s where I think teachers thought that we were. And frankly, that’s where I thought that we were, too, because there was such little movement on government’s side before.”
Click or tap here to read “Nova Scotia Teachers Union, province, reach agreement in principle.”
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5. Carbon tax
In March Tim Houston told the House of Commons finance committee, “The carbon tax is detrimental to Nova Scotians.” He says that’s because “We’re a rural province, we have to drive.”
While undoubtedly true, it seems strange that the carbon rebate (something the premier keeps failing to mention) doesn’t offset at least some of the 17.61 cents per litre carbon tax Nova Scotians pay for gasoline purchases.
Which raises an interesting question. Does the carbon rebate cover the carbon tax costs of someone living and driving a car or a truck in rural Nova Scotia?
With the help of some very nice charts and graphs, Hughes breaks down the Canada Carbon Tax Rebate, the carbon tax, the differences between the two (for three different types of households,) the carbon tax on transportation (for different vehicles, distances, and households,) and in the end wonders if we should axe the tax.
It reminds me of those math problems in school:
If car A is travelling north at 40mph, and Car B is travelling south at 60km/hr, at which point will they meet? And I would invariably draw an arrow pointing at a McDonald’s.
Click or tap here to read “Nova Scotia’s premier, rural driving, and the carbon tax.”
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VIEWS
The enshirtification of the T-shirt industry
I often get emails asking, “How can I buy Halifax Examiner stuff?” or “Why don’t you have a merch page anymore?” Let me explain what’s happening with that.
(In case you didn’t catch the byline at the top of Morning File, it’s Iris again. Hi!)
You’ve probably heard Cory Doctorow’s word “enshittification,” perhaps here in one of Philip Moscovitch’s essays, or the one where Tim Bousquet talked about the enshittification of time. It’s a great word.
What’s happening in the printable T-shirt industry is a similar pattern of decreasing quality and ethical sketchiness. You could call it “enshirtification”.
I know something about T-shirts, because 100 years ago I worked as an illustrator and screenprinter, in a little print shop (now long gone) on Agricola Street. We printed shirts, hats, posters, promotional stuff, glassware, even balloons. (My boss had me half convinced we blew them up before we printed them. But of course they’re printed flat, with stretchy ink. Haha).
A few years later I started my own T-shirt line. It featured cartoons of cows (Picowsso, Moozart, Milk Jagger…remember when cows were a thing?) and my designs were in stores all over Canada for a while. That was exciting, until the GST came along. Small wholesalers like me were expected to absorb the new tax, because the retailers didn’t want to pay more.
Then NAFTA took effect. Some Canadian brands that produced quality T-shirts (like the Harvey Woods shirts I used) couldn’t compete with brands manufactured in Mexico with cheaper labour, so they either went under or got swallowed up by bigger brands. Then I discovered a local printer was bootlegging low-quality copies of my shirts, which I couldn’t do anything about. That sucked all the fun out of it, so I packed it in.
In 2016 Tim (Bousquet) said he wanted to give away Halifax Examiner T-shirts to new annual subscribers during our November subscription drive, so I offered to take care of it. Who knew T-shirt folding would be such a transferrable skill?
Tim had been getting shirts printed at Fresh Prints, a different print shop on Agricola Street. They already had the artwork from a previous print run, so we asked for more of the same, and they started printing. Tim then hauled several boxes of them over to my place. For weeks my partner and I ate our meals in front of the TV because the table was buried under T-shirts.
It was wild. Over 100 new subscribers jumped at the offer that November, and many current subscribers bought T-shirts. In December we continued the deal so people could give their friends and family members subscriptions and T-shirts as gifts.
A postal clerk had told me it would be impossible to send T-shirts as lettermail. She didn’t know who she was dealing with. In the evenings I would fold dozens of shirts as flat as possible and pack them into padded envelopes. Then I would stack rows of them with heavy books on top to squoosh out the air so they would fit through Canada Post’s “slot of doom.” In the morning I would load up my granny cart and haul that batch to the post office.
After the subscription drive, we decided to put up a merch page on the website, selling T-shirts, hoodies, and mugs. And that’s how it went for a few years.
In May 2021 we had a great viral moment when the first COVID vaccine came out. Perhaps you’ll remember how Ray “The Influencer” Plourde posted a photo of himself getting vaccinated wearing his Halifax Examiner T-shirt.
That was fun, and great publicity, both for us and for the vaccines. Suddenly everyone wanted a vaccine selfie in an Examiner T-shirt. Good times.
But over the years we noticed something about the T-shirts. They were becoming enshirtified. The fabric was getting thinner, and they kept getting smaller. This meant a lot of emails back and forth with customers, measuring and comparing T-shirts to make sure they got the right size. This used to be easy. Now it was confusing and complicated.
This was not the printers’ fault. We wanted a quality T-shirt at a price that was low enough that we could afford to give it away, and that we could sell at a reasonable price our customers wouldn’t mind paying.
But we weren’t thinking about the real cost.
One day in December 2020, a subscriber emailed me and kindly suggested I look into the T-shirts that we were putting our logo on. So I did. And I discovered that the industry had morphed into something heinous since I’d left it.
By 2007 this brand, like many others, had closed their unionized factories in Canada and the US and opened sweatshops in Honduras, Nicaragua, Haiti, and Bangladesh. While their workers make poverty wages and are harassed (or worse) for trying to unionize, these companies have backed military coups, helped overthrow governments, and parked their profits in Caribbean tax havens.
Finding good replacement shirts isn’t easy. Even companies that claim to be “sustainable” can be sketchy. Avoiding Chinese cotton grown with forced labour is admirable, but if you’re using American cotton while offshoring the manufacturing to Haiti where you pay people $5 a day, you can sprinkle “eco-friendly,” “socially conscious,” “responsible mindset” platitudes all over your website, but your company still sucks.
Who knew printing a simple logo on a simple black T-shirt could be so complicated?
So that’s why there’s no Examiner merch anymore. Supporting these kinds of companies did not fit with our ethics, and we just couldn’t do it.
But we have a plan…
After much research, we’ve found some potential sources for union-made brands located in Canada and the US. Once we’ve checked them out thoroughly, and we’re happy they’re as ethical and un-sketchy as possible, we’ll start to offer items with the Halifax Examiner logo on them again.
Besides T-shirts and hoodies, we could have ball caps, and knit toques for the winter. Maybe a tote bag, as long as it’s a size and quality that you’d actually carry around and not just store other tote bags in. Hopefully some other stuff, eventually.
What would you like to see?
Naturally these items will cost more, but they will be worth it. It’ll be like the old days, before fast fashion, when getting a new T-shirt was a treat.
Did you ever have a T-shirt that you loved so much you wore it all the time? One that you would put on straight out of the clean laundry basket?
Well, I can’t promise that you will get the same feels from an Examiner T-shirt, but you will feel good enough wearing it that a year later it will still be in your rotation, and not in a Frenchys bin or, dog forbid, a landfill.
In case you’re wondering, I have never seen any of my designs stuffed on a rack or in a bin at a Frenchys.
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NOTICED
In case you missed it, the parody Twixxer account @DimHouston posted this:
Brad Johns’s passive-voiced non-apology is up there with, “Sorree you’re upset that my car drove over your lawn and wrecked your rose bushes.”
And I’m not sorry for saying this.
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Government
No meetings
On campus
No events
In the harbour
Halifax
07:00: Silver Arctic, cargo ship, arrives at Pier 42 from Saint Pierre
07:30: Oceanex Sanderling, ro-ro container ship, moves from Anchor to Fairview Cove West
07:30: STI Hackney, oil tanker, moves from anchor to Irving Woodside
07:30: Atlantic Sail, ro-ro container ship, sails from Fairview Cove West for Liverpool
09:00: Algoma Mariner, bulk carrier, arrives at Pier 26 from Montreal
10:00: NYK Rigel, container ship, arrives at Fairview Cove east end from Antwerp
12:00: EF Ava, container ship, arrives at Pier 42 from Portland
14:00: BBC Rhonetal, cargo ship, sails from Pier 9C for sea
15:30: MSC Sines R, container ship, sails from Pier 41 for sea
15:30: Morning Lynn, car carrier, sails from Autoport for sea
16:30: Silver Arctic, cargo ship, sails from Pier 42 for sea
16:30: NYK Rigel, container ship, sails from Fairview Cove for sea
17:00: Oceanex Sanderling, ro-ro container ship, sails from Fairview Cove for St. John’s
17:00: EF Ava, container ship, sails from Pier 42
Cape Breton
08:00: Sea Installer, platform, moves from anchor to Atlantic Bulk Terminal
12:00: STI Miracle, oil tanker, arrives at Everwind 2 from sea
13:00: Algoma Value, bulk carrier, arrives at Coal Pier from Point Tupper
14:30: CSL Metis, bulk carrier, moves from Anchorage F to Quarry
14:30: Algoma Integrity, bulk carrier, sails from Quarry for sea
Footnotes
thanks phil and yvette
writing morning file is hard
haiku are easy
Whenever somebody makes an offhanded comment, they made it because it was on the tip of their tongue…because they say it often and because they believe it. Thus the phrase ‘when somebody tells you who they are, believe them the first time”. People don’t just flippantly say things they don’t believe, with total confidence, especially in front of reporters. So the apology is what he is supposed to say, but there’s pretty much 0% chance it’s what he actually believes because…he said what he actually believes and he said it with confidence.
Thanks for the run down Iris! Pleased to learn merchandise will be coming back, too.
A week or so ago I took a box of NS NDP “ephemera” to the NS Museum of Natural History. Amongst other things there were t-shirts and ball caps. When I worked for the NS NDP it was a rule that all of our t-shirts, etc. would be made in Canada and then union-made in Canada. At first we could purchase t-shirts from Windsor Wear and get the image screened by a local artist. (It might have been Iris;o) I recently received a Halifax Examiner t-shirt but I did not look to see where it was made. However, after reading Iris’ article I did a quick check on-line and it seems there are still a few union-shops in Canada that “sell” merchandise. I’m not sure there are actually shops where unionized workers make the mechandise? I’ll be watching to see what Iris comes up with because I just know she will get it right.
With all of the syrupy tributes to the former PM who recently passed away, I was beginning to feel that the demise of Canadian Manufacturing with the FTA was a figment of my imagination, along with my remembering a time when our dollar traded at, or above par with the US dollar. Your article confirms that I’m not crazy. Also regarding the quality of some products from overseas, hospital-wide at the VG we received a line of bedside and overbed tables that were manufactured overseas. They looked fine but within a year the top layer began peeling off. They look terrible and pose an infection control issue. We now have an assortment of odd looking furniture to replace them. I flipped over one of the solid, nice-looking and durable tables to get a product number. It’s listed as being ‘Made in Canada’ by a company in Richmond Hill. This table will last 15+ years. The ones shipped from China less than 5 years ago are being tossed out already.
Great job, Iris. You always make reading fun!
Yes, to the t-shirt when The Examiner is satisfied that the product meets with the high standards. I completely agree with that approach!
Yes to tote bags that will stand up to multiple uses, be big enough to carry stuff in, and maybe have one or maybe two lengths of handles (for the vertically challenged).
aj
Re carbon tax: Myths notwithstanding, Canada is an urban nation – 85% live in cities or towns. Even in Nova Scotia, urban residents are the majority – almost 60% (https://www.novascotia.ca/finance/statistics/news.asp?id=17529). It may be that rural residents end up not getting the full costs of their carbon tax for transportation reimbursed, but the whole point of the carbon tax is to encourage less carbon use. High transportation costs (including carbon tax) are part of the deal when you live in a rural area, just as high housing costs (including property tax) are part of the deal when you live in an urban area.
There are various ways rural residents (and others) can reduce carbon use for transportation, including purchasing more efficient vehicles and better trip planning, but the easiest is simply to slow down. Better driving can reduce fuel consumption (and cost, and carbon tax) by 25%. (https://natural-resources.canada.ca/energy-efficiency/transportation-alternative-fuels/personal-vehicles/fuel-efficient-driving-techniques/21038)
I’d be interested in ball caps.
Terrific Morning File, Iris. Nice haiku too. Brad Johns needs to be fired. No resignation – FIRED !! Humiliation in the public square at Province House too. You are aging youself a bit in enshitification of T-shirts section, but I get it and agree with you. The enshitification of everything started in earnest when Amazon took off. It’s been a downhill full speed ahead race into the abyss ever since.
I saw the CBC headline during yesterday’s morning coffee break “Justice Minister says domestic violence not epidemic” and, without even consciously putting two and two together about the anniversary, thought “Right, well that’ll go over like a lead balloon. Start the apology clock.” Sure enough, checking the news again while waiting for the ferry home in the afternoon, “Justice Minister apologizes.” It really is deeply concerning that his frame of mind on this is such that it didn’t occur to him ahead of time that this would be, in frankly any context but especially on that day and in his role, not a well-recieved sentiment. The fact that he didn’t think twice before saying it (clearly believing this was an agreeable and obvious thought to express) is as much an indictment of his fitness as Justice Minister as the fact that he thought it at all. ||
On a completely different note, always lovely to see an Iris morning file! And very interesting to learn about the mass t-shirt industry and its enshittification over time. I have a personal anecdote that has given me a peek at this. In addition to many many bulk-order tshirts and hoodies and sweatshirts commemorating various summer camps and other activities I’ve taken part in over the years, I am the owner of a bit of a vintage curiosity in this regard. It’s a bulk-order screenprinted sweatshirt that is genuinely older than I am, which was custom-ordered from a shirt-printing company in Calgary for my uncle’s army unit to commemorate their participation in UN peacekeeping in Bosnia in the mid-nineties. I don’t wear it outside the house much, because frankly it’d be a bit odd to do so given that I wasn’t even alive when the deployment took place and I wouldn’t want to come off as just wearing it as a fashion piece (which could offend any number of people in any number of directions). But I wear it around the house and as pyjamas or as warm under-layer for outdoor treks a LOT, and have been doing so for gosh, probably twelve or more years at this point. I mention this particular sweatshirt because I am constantly amazed by how the quality of both the fabric (which was wisely ordered in a mottled white-grey pattern that has hidden basically all stains and any minor pilling) and the large, complex, detailed, multi-coloured screenprint on the front of it (which is applied in a very thin but apparently durable layer which shows hardly any cracking and zero delamination, even now) have continued to hold up under fairly heavy long-term use and machine washing/drying, compared to those numerous mass-ordered items I have acquired much more recently. That damn UNPROFOR Bosnia sweatshirt is 30 years old this year, and it’s still doing better than several sweatshirts I bought in the last 5-10 years, many of them from companies that fulfill that exact same mass-custom-order role as “Kustom Screenworks Inc” of Calgary did in 1994. Last summer I reinforced some of the seams which were loosening a bit with a few extra stitches but otherwise it has looked basically the same the entire time I’ve owned it. Maybe the CAF should have used Kustom (who don’t appear to exist anymore) as their uniform supplier, given the durability! Lol. Sometimes the cranky old adage “they just don’t make em like they used to” really is actually true. My mom had a truly tremendous collection of her own crew-neck sweatshirts in the nineties and aughts which I yearn to replicate as an adult who inherited her tastes, but when I shop around the weight and quality of the fabrics are almost never as high as I remember, and they always start to pill heavily and lose their warmth in a year or two. What a shame.
Wow, great story! I still have some of my own shirts, and they’ve yellowed a bit, but other than that they’re still perfect. I hope we can find a similar product. Making a T-shirt or sweatshirt is not rocket science!
Looking forward to the new merch, Iris!
Re merchandise. During the first days of the pandemic, I ended up wearing all the tshirts I owned – a different one every day, sharing the pictures on Facebook where I would explain where I got the shirt, what it meant as a way of saying hello to our mother who lived in a different province. I discovered I have a heck of a lot of them going back to a 1975 shirt that have stood up way better than ones acquired in the last 5, so your explanation makes a lot of sense. I would totally like ball cap, and if shirts were offered again would like one too.
Re: Merchandise
I would love to see a good quality toque and a reuseable bag that would stand up to lots of use (and to being stuffed in my backpack just in case it was needed).
As to when tshirts go out of circulation, my closet still contains some that I got 30 or so years ago – back when things were meant to last, not to be replaced each and every time the seasons changed.
I have an Examiner tshirt (thanks, again) and am sure it will still be in my closet in the year 2050. I may not still be here to wear it (I would 85/86 by then), so maybe I should update my burial instructions to specify that I be wearing it when cremated. 🙂