News 1. Blue Mountain–Birch Cove Lakes Tim Bousquet wrote this item. “Environmentalists who celebrated extra cash in last year’s municipal budget for park land protection are worried a reduced budget for next year means the city is again forgetting about Blue Mountain–Birch Cove Lakes,” reports Zane Woodford: Halifax regional council is working on the capital […]
The Centre Plan is a colossal waste of time, money, public attention, newsprint, and reporter energy
Morning File, Wednesday, September 18, 2019
News 1. Centre Plan A public hearing on the Centre Plan was held at City Hall yesterday, and lasted well into the night. Council will debate the various issues and presumably vote to enact the package later today. I’ve never seen such a colossal waste of time, money, public attention, newsprint, and reporter energy devoted […]
Halifax is getting ruff with canine owners in these dog days of summer
Morning File, Monday, August 12, 2019
News 1. MyHealthNS Jennifer Henderson reports on MyHealthNS and the decision by McKesson Canada to pull the plug on the online portal that gave doctors access to results for X-rays, MRIs, and blood tests. The portal also allowed patients to book appointments and correspond with their doctor through email. Health Minister Randy Delorey made the […]
Here’s your chance to speak on the Cornwallis issue
Morning File, Monday, June 3, 2019
News 1. Health care non-crisis “Last week’s ‘mutual’ firing of the province’s deputy health minister shows just how unwilling our premier is to acknowledge our healthcare crisis — let alone do something about it,” writes Stephen Kimber. Click here to read “Crisis? What crisis? Just a(nother) ‘new (lack of) direction’ for healthcare.” This article is […]
16 random people in my hotel room
Morning File, Tuesday, April 30, 2019
News 1. Social Policy Framework report comes to council Tim has posted this “Will Work for Living Wage” image countless times, often while wondering what the heck ever happened to the staff report on social policy that council called for back in 2017. Well, that report finally comes to council today. On December 12, 2017, […]
Journalmalism 101: This week, Halifax lost four very good Canadian Press reporters; in return we got… Christie Blatchford
Morning File, Friday, March 29, 2019
News 1. Street checks Yesterday, I wrote: This is how it goes. Every now and then something happens — a Black man with the resources and gumption to do something about it stands up to the harassment, the results of a CBC Freedom of Information request are published — that make it temporarily impossible for […]
Taxing Issues
Morning File, Wednesday, March 20, 2019
News 1. John Risley’s South African Adventure Out from behind the paywall: Tim’s epic piece on how Nova Scotia billionaire John Risley wound up in bed with an arms dealer suing the South African government over an apartheid-era contract. The short version: After his racing career, Portuguese Formula 1 driver Jorge Pinhol became an arms […]
Public agencies lost at least $2.2 million on aioTV
Morning File, Tuesday, March 5, 2019
News 1. Northern Pulp This item is written by Jennifer Henderson. The Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency has received 3,200 submissions from people with an interest in whether the federal regulator should carry out a review of Northern Pulp’s plan to pipe treated effluent 4.1 kilometers out into prime lobster fishing area in the Northumberland Strait. […]
Poverty mentality… poverty reality
Morning File, Thursday, February 28, 2019
News 1. Poor kids On Tuesday, Statistics Canada released its most recent Canadian income survey, covering 2017. The agency uses two tools to calculate poverty, the Low Income Measure (“defines an individual as having low income if their adjusted after-tax income falls below 50% of the median adjusted after-tax income”) and the Market Basket Measure […]
The only thing that can save journalism: “Subscribe Somewhere”
Morning File, Monday, February 11, 2019
News 1. Canadian Press layoffs On Friday, the Canadian Press notified its staff that at the end of March it will be laying off six reporters nationwide, four of whom are in its Atlantic bureau in Halifax. The four Halifax reporters are Brett Bundale, Aly Thomson, Keith Doucette, and Alex Cooke. All are excellent reporters. […]