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NEWS

1. Weather

There’s weather today, with the usual closures, power failures, shovelling fatalities, and complaining. Seriously, tho, take it easy with the shovelling. Hire a kid, or at least take breaks.

2. Assoun estate

As I wrote in December, James Brown, who is one of Glen Assoun’s two sons, filed a claim with the Supreme Court of Canada asking for a portion of Assoun’s estate.

Brown made that claim based on the Testator’s Family Maintenance Act (TFMA). All provinces have something akin to the TFMA, but so far as I’m aware, Nova Scotia is the only province in which the act has been interpreted such that otherwise capable and independent adult children can be named as heirs to an estate despite the deceased explicitly writing them out of the will.

At issue in this case are the terms of Assoun’s estate:

Glen had four children — daughters Tanya and Amanda (Huckle), and sons Glen Jr. and James (Jamie). According to a court document, a few months before he died, Assoun wrote a will, naming Amanda as executor.

Glen left a modest one-and-a-half storey Woodlawn house to Tanya, as well as all his furniture and personal effects. Tanya also received a GMC 2017 Sierra truck. A 2005 Chevy Blazer went to Amanda.

Glen also directed that $20,000 be given to each of his grandchildren. I don’t know how many grandchildren he had, but notably, the three children of Glen Jr. were not to receive any money.

After those disbursements, the rest of his estate was to be split between Tanya and Amanda.

In other words, Glen’s daughters received proceeds from the estate, but Glen’s sons did not.

Last week, Amanda Huckle filed a notice of defence with the court, making the obvious moral argument that “Mr. Assoun had absolute testamentary freedom to dispose of his Estate in a manner that he chose. This Honourable Court should not prevent Mr. Assoun from disposing of his Estate as he pleased.”

Further, Huckle states that:

• James Brown was estranged from his father for over 20 years;

• “Mr. Assoun clearly expressed his wishes that a share of his Estate not be left to his estranged sons… These wishes were motivated by a lengthy estrangement and acrimonious relationship”;

• Brown is 48 years old and is “capable of maintaining himself”;

• Brown had no relationship with his father at the time of Assoun’s death and “did not provide any services to Mr. Assoun while alive”;

• despite the above, two years before his death, on January 28, 2021, Assoun gave Brown a gift of $50,000, and after Assoun’s death, in her capacity as executor of Assoun’s estate, Huckle gave Brown an additional gift of $100,000 from the estate.

None of Brown’s or Huckle’s statements have been tested by the court.

One pictures a vulture swirling above.

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3. SaltWire v Transcontinental

On Wednesday, I sat in on the court hearing on Transcontinental’s motion asking the court to order SaltWire pay Transcontinental $500,000 in security for costs. I gave the background to this motion here.

There wasn’t a lot new offered up in the hearing. But Gavin Giles, the lawyer who represents SaltWire in this part of the proceeding, said two things of note.

First, in an argument over existing case law related to security for costs awards, Giles noted that in one case cited by Transcontinental, the company that was ordered to pay costs was in fact not an operating concern — according to Giles, the company didn’t even have an active phone line.

This was entirely different than the SaltWire situation, said Giles, as SaltWire has a working phone line. “I know because I had to call on Saturday when my paper wasn’t delivered.”

OK, that might not be so note-worthy, but it was funny.

The second thing of note Giles said was that it was entirely too early for the judge to rule on security for costs, as the underlying lawsuit isn’t even yet into discovery stage. By Giles’ estimation, the lawsuit won’t go to trial until… 2027 or 2028.

Justice Gail Gatchalian held her decision in reserve, but said she’d issue a ruling on the security for costs motion soon. From her statements in court, Gatchalian seemed most concerned about SaltWire’s $23 million debt to the private equity firm that financed the purchase by SaltWire of Transcontinental’s papers.

That private equity firm — Fiera Private Debt Fund VLP — has first dibs on any future SaltWire income, including the $2.5 million SaltWire says it expects to get from Google.

I have no idea what will happen. But with an expected (by Giles anyway) court date three or four years out, it left me with the impression that this has more to do with high finance of the sort that doesn’t make any sense to mere mortals, and nothing much to do about producing news.

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4. NDAs and the missing bank account info

Stephen Kimber reviews the allegations that someone — possibly the PC Party, possibly Jamie Baillie, possibly someone else entirely — convinced, possibly coerced Kaitlin Saxton to sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) related to some possibly coerced, possibly consensual, possibly non-existent incident or relationship or worse, and then notes:

With luck, Smith-McCrossin’s lawyer will eventually be able to question lawyer John Rafferty about the supposed settlement between Kait Saxton and Baillie and the PCs and whether it included a non-disclosure agreement. 

Or question Baillie himself under oath.

That may — or may not — answer an even more important question. 

Why did the Houston government back away from its initial support of an April 2022 NDP private member’s bill to restrict the use of such NDAs, which had been modelled on legislation already passed in California as well as a law in Prince Edward Island? 

Which is a fair question.

Click or tap here to read “Jamie Baillie, his spokesperson, and that about which they still have ‘nothing to add.'”

But I have some frustration here.

Look, these are quite serious allegations: an alleged improper workplace relationship of some sort that involves not just an imbalance of power but, now, by Kait Saxton’s parents, an assertion that Kaitlin “was the victim of some sort of sexual assault and battery by Jamie Baillie.”

You bet we’re going to report on this to the fullest of our ability, and responsibly so, noting at every point where the evidence stands and what the court has validated and what it hasn’t.

Here’s where the publicly available evidence stands: there’s the fact of Baillie’s sudden resignation; a frankly bizarrely blurry photograph of the alleged but unsigned NDA tabled in the legislature by Elizabeth Smith-McCrossin; a lot of big claims by Smith-McCrossin; and now a new allegation of sexual assault.

Now let’s consider the evidence that isn’t publicly available: Kaitlin Saxton’s bank records.

Central to the claim of Smith-McCrossin and Saxton’s parents is the suggestion that in exchange for her silence as guaranteed by the NDA, Kaitlin Saxton was paid a large amount of money, and she was so bothered by this that she “gave away almost all the money she received to family members and friends as she felt it was ‘dirty money’ in her words.”

Saxton died tragically in June 2022; her parents are presumably her next-of-kin — at least, they seem to have access to her private personal papers.

The normal probate process that happens when anyone dies involves an executor collecting the deceased’s banking information and including it in the inventory of the estate. In this case, that would mean the executor(s) would have access to Kaitlin’s bank records going back as far as seven years. (Even if her parents aren’t the executors, Kaitlin’s bank records can be subpoenaed.)

It seems to me almost certain that if Kaitlin Saxton received a large payment related to an NDA, the money would’ve flowed through her bank account. Unless it’s being suggested that she received a large brief case full of paper currency, which I guess is possible but seems unlikely

Or maybe there’s some other explanation for why a payment to Kaitlin would not be reflected in her bank records. I can’t think of what that reason might be, but if there is one, the people alleging a money-for-NDA arrangement should say what that reason is.

I’ve had enough of blurry photographs and they-saids, she-saids, he-didn’t-says, Show me the bank records.

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5. Change in Hemlock Ravine development proposal

Last week, I reviewed a development proposal for property adjacent to Hemlock Ravine Park. I happened to know the history of that particular parcel because it had previously been owned by Mary Thibeault, the woman whose estate was so badly mishandled by Halifax Mayor Peter Kelly.

The map above represented the development proposal as shown on the map showing development requests through the Housing Accelerator Fund. I explained:

See the “P” and the “R-1” in that brighter green bit? Those designations are at the heart of this story. 

P stands for “Park,” which is a very old zoning category no longer in use for private property, but which allows no development whatsoever.

R-1 is low-density residential category, allowing for just single family housing. However, new changes in zoning law now allow for up to four units.

As explained by a pop-up box on the map, at issue is “Suburban Development Requests: SS027,” which was a request (presumably by the property owner) “to permit an (sic) 18 and 12-story wooden towers with a 60-metre maximum height. Approximately 215 residential units.”

Through a mechanism I can’t explain because the municipality hasn’t yet gotten back to me, that request went through some bureaucratic process that ended with a “recommendation” by the HAF for “Up Zoning – Current Plan Area,” to a proposed zone labeled HF, which will allow for a seven-storey building.

As I understand it, what’s happening here is that through the Housing Accelerator Fund process, the property next to the park is being rezoned from an older P and R-1 designation to a new HF designation that allows for the construction of a seven-storey building. And that zoning is being changed without a vote of municipal council.

…

I don’t know if [Nassim and Solomon Ghosn] still own the property, but it appears that either they or the successor owner are now trying to complete the zoning shift, getting the R-1 and P designations removed entirely in order to further profit from the land that Mary Thibeault couldn’t get a good price for.

When I think about this, I think about 85-year-old Mary Thibeault washing bed linen alone at the old motel, and I realize there is no justice in this world.

To me, this wasn’t so much about a proposed development as it was about connected wealthy business people (the Ghosns) being able to do what a poor old woman (Thibeault) could not.

Although the spokespeople keep promising a response, I still haven’t had an explanation from the municipality.

However, the Halifax Accelerator Fund map has been changed, to this:

You’ll note that the parcel immediately adjacent to Hemlock Ravine Park that is labelled “P” has switched from the dark green designation showing a development proposal to the softer green designation of the park. At stake was this ravine next to the park:

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VIEWS

1. The Little Tree That Could

For some reason — I blame the demise of Twitter, but it also could easily and credibly be blamed on my advancing age, growing laziness, or more charitably, distraction related to workload and the afore-mentioned advancing age — I missed Stephen Archibald’s most recent post, from a week ago Saturday.

In his usual delightfully insightful manner, Archibald takes a look at street architecture:

There are many little pieces of infrastructure in our urban surroundings that we are aware of but mostly ignore, for example those chirps and tones heard at busy intersections. These pedestrian signals feel like a relatively recent phenomenon, but I suppose we first heard them in the 90s. Most of us probably understand the sounds help people with vision loss know when it is safe to cross busy streets, but not surprisingly, there is more to the story.

And so Archibald discusses APSs (audible pedestrian signals) and TWSIs (tactile walking surface indicators), which is all well and good (seriously, read it), but I was most struck by something he didn’t discuss.

Archibald illustrates his essay with two photos, before and after snapshots of the corner of Sackville and Brunswick/Queen Streets, the first he took in the 1970s and the second a current day Google Street View shot:

I walk through that intersection often — it’s on the route between the post office and the bank — and immediately recognized the traffic signal he is drawing our attention to. But it took these photos to make me distinctly see something I hadn’t consciously made note of before: the tree in the background, maybe 15 or 20 metres up the slope of Citadel Hill:

Consider this tree. Growing on the thin soil of the south-facing flank of Citadel Hill, it has survived hurricanes, blizzards, drunken university students leaving the Palace and the Alehouse, runaway Lancers horses, bobsledding children, National Park lawnmowers, and an entirely disinterested and uncaring public. Year after year, decade after decade, it has pressed on, surviving but just barely surviving, successive rings adding a total of just a few inches to its narrow trunk over the course of a half century.

There’s a lesson in that tree. I’m not sure what that lesson is, but there’s a lesson nonetheless. Maybe it’s about perseverance. Maybe it’s about the indifference of a cruel world. Maybe it’s just about learning to see stuff you walk by all the time on the way between the post office and the bank. Whatever the lesson is, I’m now going to think of that tree as the Little Tree That Could.

I started looking at trees in photos thanks to my sister Anne, who pointed out the single tree that is an uncredited character in dozens of movies that have scenes near the Golden Gate Bridge. The tree sits alone on the ridgeline on the Marin County side of the bridge, near Golden Gate View Point. Here it is in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1958 film Vertigo:

And here it is in a 1970s travelog:

Now that I’ve pointed it out, you too will see that tree in films and photos from the early 20th century through to the early 21st century. Alas, you won’t see it if you actually go to the Golden Gate Bridge, however, as for some unfathomable reason, it has recently been felled.

Anne and her husband, however, have memorialized it:

I don’t want to one day have to stand on Sackville Street holding aloft a photo of the Little Tree That Could.

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Government

City

No meetings

Province

Today

No meetings

Tomorrow

Law Amendments (Tuesday, 12pm, One Government Place and online) — Committee will be asked to approve the Revised Statutes, 2023, pursuant to the Statute Revision Act.

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On campus

Dalhousie

Noon Hour Recital: Saxophone (Monday, 11:45am, Strug Concert Hall) 

Regulation of membrane trafficking and lipid transport by PI 4-kinases and PI4P (Monday, 2:30pm, Theatre A, Tupper Building) — Julie Brill from The Hospital for Sick Children, University of Toronto, will talk

NSCAD

Opening receptions (Monday, 5:30pm, Anna Leonowens Gallery) — solo exhibitions by Madeleine Boisclair-Joly, Jenny Hsueh, Page Cowell; group exhibition by Sunny Babcock, A. Laurel Lawrence, Arin Rains; more info here

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In the harbour

Halifax

No traffic

Cape Breton

11:00: Rt Hon Paul E Martin, bulker, arrives at Quarry from Belledune

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Footnotes

I’m going to shovel. If I’m not back in two hours, send out the hounds.

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