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Nova Scotia government doles out $10 million more for Northern Pulp

The effluent pipeline may have been turned off but the provincial money pipeline continues to flow 

May 12, 2020 By Joan Baxter

The Nova Scotian government will be giving Paper Excellence, the parent company of Northern Pulp and a corporation linked to the multi-billionaire Widjaja family of Indonesia, still more millions. This time, the amount is $10 million. Northern Pulp still owes the province $85 million from previous loans. And the company still owes $65 million on...

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Filed Under: Environment, Featured, News, Province House, Subscribers only Tagged With: A’se’K, Boar Harbour, Boat Harbour remediation project, Bruce Chapman, Environmental Racism, Ken Swain, Kristina Shannon, Marla MacInnis, Northern Pulp, Northern Pulp effluent, Paper Excellence, Pictou Landing First Nation (PLFN), Premier Stephen McNeil

“Today is a great day! A’SE’K Day!”

The Northern Pulp mill stops dumping effluent into Boat Harbour today, and the pipeline will be sealed tomorrow.

April 30, 2020 By Joan Baxter 1 Comment

Pictou Landing First Nation Chief Andrea Paul is calling today “A’se’K Day.” Although the COVID-19 pandemic has prevented PLFN and allies from gathering to celebrate the occasion, it is a momentous one. A January 29 ministerial order from Environment Minister Gordon Wilson stipulated that by April 30, 2020 the Northern Pulp mill on Abercrombie Point […]

Filed Under: Environment, Featured, News, Province House Tagged With: A’se’K Day, Boat Harbour, Boat Harbour remediation project, Chief Andrea Paul, Environment Minister Gordon Wilson, Graham Kissack, Michelle Francis-Denny, Northern Pulp, Northern Pulp effluent, Paper Excellence Canada, Pictou Landing First Nation (PLFN)

Pictou Landing First Nation: “We are sticking to the January 31, 2020 date”

December 17, 2019 By Joan Baxter 3 Comments

It didn’t take Northern Pulp long to start issuing thinly veiled threats. Just before noon Tuesday, Nova Scotia Environment Minister Gordon Wilson announced that the company that owns the Pictou County pulp mill would have to submit a full environmental assessment report for its new effluent treatment facility. That process that could take two years, […]

Filed Under: Environment, Featured, News, Province House Tagged With: Boat Harbour, Boat Harbour remediation project, Brian Hebert, Chief Andrea Paul, Michelle Francis-Denny, Minister Gordon Wilson, Northern Pulp, Paper Excellence, Pictou Landing First Nation (PLFN)

Pictou Landing First Nation to Stephen McNeil: Honour the Boat Harbour Act and No Pipe in the Strait

October 6, 2019 By Joan Baxter 1 Comment

The day-by-day countdown to the closing of Boat Harbour happens on a large painting erected in front of the Pictou Landing First Nation band council office. The painting depicts Boat Harbour as it was before it was dammed (and damned) in 1966, transformed from a healthy tidal estuary to a stinking lagoon for the toxic […]

Filed Under: Environment, Featured, News, Province House Tagged With: A’se’K, Barry Randle, Betsy MacDonald, Boat Harbour, Boat Harbour remediation project, Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency, Chief Andrea Paul, Dorene Bernard, Elizabeth May, Environment Minister Margaret Miller, Frank Augustine, Friends of the Northumberland Strait, Gardner Pinfold, George Canyon, Impact Assessment Agency of Canada, Jerry Dias, Josie Augustine, Ken Swain, Michelle Francis-Denny, MLA Darlene Compton, MP Sean Fraser, NDP leader Gary Burrill, Northern Pulp, Pictou Landing First Nation (PLFN), Premier Stephen McNeil, Rob Holten, Tonya Francis

We are eagerly awaiting the ridiculous architectural renderings that are certain to accompany the stadium sales pitch

Morning File, Monday, March 25, 2019

March 25, 2019 By Tim Bousquet 9 Comments

1. Leading With Transit “Listen, I wouldn’t blame you if you were done with discussing the future of transit in Halifax,” writes Examiner transportation columnist Erica Butler: We had the Moving Forward Together (MFT) plan, for which thousands of folks chimed in with their hopes and dreams for buses in the region. Then we had […]

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: Boat Harbour remediation project, Coalition for Radical Life Extension, Curve, El Jones, Graham Steele, immortality, James Strole, Joan Baxter, Joanna Cagan, Neil deMause, Nora Young, Northern Pulp effluent pipe, Pavilion, Quinpool Road bridge, Racism, Richard Woodbury, Southwest Properties, Spark, stadium, Vaportecture, Washington NFL stadium, Woman Hailing a Cab

Here are the names and phone numbers of the contractors failing to clear your sidewalks

Morning File, Friday, March 8, 2019

March 8, 2019 By Tim Bousquet 6 Comments

1. Northern Pulp Yesterday, the Halifax Examiner published two stories related to Northern Pulp Mill’s environmental impacts. In the first, Joan Baxter looks at the curious case of Canso Chemicals: For two decades Canso Chemicals produced chlorine for the pulping process at a site adjacent to the pulp mill on Abercrombie Point in Pictou County, […]

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: Barb Hamilton-Hinch, Boat Harbour remediation project, Bradley James Barton, Canso Chemicals, councillor Waye Mason, Dexter Construction, icy sidewalks, Leaheys Landscaping and Contracting Limited, Northern Pulp, Provincial Pavement Marking limited, sidewalk clearing, sidewalk clearing contractors, Traceys Landscaping Limited, volatile organic compound (VOC)

Dalhousie researcher breaks silence over pulp mill’s cancer-causing air emissions

March 7, 2019 By Linda Pannozzo 9 Comments

Dalhousie University researcher Emma Hoffman has come forward to defend her 2017 ambient air quality study about cancer-causing air emissions detected near the Northern Pulp mill after finding that her study was “misrepresented” in the mill’s recently registered Environmental Assessment [EA] for its proposed effluent treatment facility.  In Part 3 of the “Dirty Dealing” series, I […]

Filed Under: Commentary, Environment, Featured, Investigation, News, Province House Tagged With: Boat Harbour, Boat Harbour Environmental Advisory Management Committee (BHEAC), Boat Harbour remediation project, Canadian Environmental Protection Act (CEPA), Carex Canada, Dr. Judith Guernsey, Emma Hoffman, Environmental Science and Pollution Research, Granton NAPS site, International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), National Pollutant Release Inventory (NPRI), Northern Pulp environmental assessment, Tony Walker, volatile organic compounds (VOCs)

“Everything won’t stink so bad”

The countdown to Boat Harbour closure begins

February 1, 2019 By Joan Baxter 7 Comments

The children of Pictou Landing First Nation didn’t mince words when they addressed the standing-room-only audience that had gathered in their school gymnasium on January 31, 2019 to mark the start of the one-year countdown to the legislated closure of Boat Harbour. They “hate” Boat Harbour. It makes them “sad.” And “it stinks.” Once the […]

Filed Under: Environment, Featured, News, Province House Tagged With: Assembly of Nova Scotia Mi’kmaq Chiefs, Boat Harbour, Boat Harbour Act, Boat Harbour remediation project, Bruce Chapman, Chief Andrea Paul, former Premier John Hamm, Kathy Cloutier, McInnes Cooper, Mi’kmaq of Pictou Landing, Michelle Francis-Denny, Northern Pulp, Paper Excellence Canada, Premier Stephen McNeil

Containing Northern Pulp’s mess

A half century of toxic waste in Boat Harbour, a leaky pipeline, and what happens next in the mill saga.

November 3, 2018 By Joan Baxter 8 Comments

The numbers are staggering. Over the past 51 years, the bleached kraft pulp mill on Abercrombie Point in Pictou County has piped about 1.25 trillion litres of toxic effluent into Boat Harbour.[1] That’s enough to fill about half a million Olympic-size swimming pools, or a pipeline one metre in diameter stretching about 1.6 million kilometres, […]

Filed Under: Environment, Featured, News Tagged With: Boat Harbour, Boat Harbour Act, Boat Harbour remediation project, Bruce Nunn, Chief Andrea Paul, Chief Dan Paul, Christine Skirth, Environment Minister Margaret Miller, GHD, Kathy Cloutier, Ken Swain, Mi’kmaq of Pictou Landing, Northern Pulp, Northern Pulp cleanup, Northern Pulp effluent leak, Nova Scotia Environment, Nova Scotia Lands, Pictou County, Pictou Landing First Nation, Rachel Boomer, Stephen McNeil, Sydney Tar Ponds, William Palmer

Dirty Dealing

Part 4: Message Control and the Northern Pulp Mill’s Cancer-Causing Air Emissions

April 26, 2018 By Linda Pannozzo 3 Comments

Nova Scotia Lands, a provincial crown corporation charged with cleaning up Boat Harbour, played a role in silencing two Dalhousie University researchers whose work studied air pollution coming from the Northern Pulp mill, the Halifax Examiner has learned. In Part 3 of the Dirty Dealing series, I reported on the researchers’ 2017 ambient air study, which revealed […]

Filed Under: Environment, Featured, Investigation, Province House Tagged With: Allan Eddy, ambient air study, Boat Harbour remediation project, boreal felt lichen, Department of Transportation and Infrastructure Renewal, Dirty Dealing Part 4, Emma Hoffman, Linda Pannozzo, Marla MacInnis, Northern Pulp emissions, Robert Cameron, Tony Walker, volatile organic compounds (VOCs)

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The Tideline, with Tara Thorne

Mo Kenney. Photo: Matt Williams

Episode #18 of The Tideline, with Tara Thorne is published.

Mo Kenney’s new record Covers is a perfect winter companion — songs from across the rock spectrum that she’s pared down to piano or guitar and turned them into sad ballads. She joins Tara to talk about choosing and arranging them, and opens up for a frank discussion of the alcohol dependency it took a pandemic for her to confront. Plus: Movies are back (again).

This episode is available today only for premium subscribers; to become a premium subscriber, click here, and join the select group of arts and entertainment supporters for just $5/month. Everyone else will have to wait until tomorrow to listen to it.

Please subscribe to The Tideline.

Uncover: Dead Wrong

In 1995, Brenda Way was brutally murdered behind a Dartmouth apartment building. In 1999, Glen Assoun was found guilty of the murder. He served 17 years in prison, but steadfastly maintained his innocence. In 2019, Glen Assoun was fully exonerated.

Halifax Examiner founder and investigative journalist Tim Bousquet has followed the story of Glen Assoun's wrongful conviction for over five years. Now, Bousquet tells that story as host of Season 7 of the CBC podcast series Uncover: Dead Wrong.

Click here to go to listen to the podcast, or search for CBC Uncover on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast aggregator.

About the Halifax Examiner

Examiner folk The Halifax Examiner was founded by investigative reporter Tim Bousquet, and now includes a growing collection of writers, contributors, and staff. Left to right: Joan Baxter, Stephen Kimber, Linda Pannozzo, Erica Butler, Jennifer Henderson, Iris the Amazing, Tim Bousquet, Evelyn C. White, El Jones, Philip Moscovitch More about the Examiner.

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