News 1. Report in Assoun case to be released today Tim is over at the courthouse this morning where a report from the Department of Justice will be released today, giving the public a first look at information that led to Glen Assoun’s release. I’m sure Tim will have more on this later today. 2. […]
After the gold rush
Nova Scotia is ignoring the toxic legacy of past mining manias while rushing headlong into the next
If learning from past mistakes were a government tradition in Nova Scotia, the current government would not be exhibiting all the symptoms of gold fever. But it is, and it looks like a raging bout of the affliction. In the past few years, it has amended legislation based on recommendations made by the industry’s cheerleader-in-chief,...
Forest Confidential
An investigation into Nova Scotia’s biomass harvest data and how the numbers aren’t adding up
A few months ago I reviewed a film that has been circulating the province about the growing use of forest biomass as a form of so-called renewable energy. The film — Burned: Are Trees the New Coal? — reported on how the biomass industry sells itself as green by making two bogus claims: it uses […]
Pulp Culture
How Nova Scotia’s Faustian bargain with the pulp industry may leave the sawmills in ruins
I wonder if Billy Freeman, a sixth generation saw-miller with 15 years experience, saw this juncture coming. A few weeks ago, Freeman, the process improvement manager at Harry Freeman and Son Ltd. in Greenfield, Nova Scotia wrote an illuminating op-ed in the Chronicle Herald supporting Northern Pulp in its request for an extension of the […]
By Any Other Name: Nova Scotia’s Department of Lands and Forestry just made “Clearcuts” disappear
Nova Scotians who signed up to receive proposed harvest plans on Crown land might have noticed some disturbing changes recently. As of a few days ago the maps no longer specify whether a proposed cut is a “clearcut” or not. The word was removed from the legend and the list of harvest prescription types. This […]
Province House is becoming an information black hole
Morning File, Thursday, February 7, 2019
News 1. The province’s secrecy regime When mining companies set up operations in Nova Scotia, there is a requirement that they pay surety bonds that will cover the costs of clean up of the mining site after mining is complete. So Joan Baxter had a simple question: How much money are the companies paying, and where […]
Northern Pulp, Scotsburn Lumber, and U.S. tariffs
Morning File, Tuesday, January 8, 2019
News 1. Northern Pulp, Scotsburn Lumber, and U.S. tariffs Last month, Scotsburn Lumber sent out a letter encouraging “all our employers, contractors, business owners, forest landowners and associated suppliers to call or write a letter to your local or elected official” to express support for Northern Pulp Mill and its efforts to continue operating after […]
Turning protesters into pets
How Nova Scotia's forestry regulators are already undermining the Lahey Report, and what we can do about it.
Cover photo: a clearcut adjacent to the Old Annapolis Nature Reserve. The forest to the right of the clearcut is now being proposed as a second clearcut, which would create a total clearcut area of roughly 150 acres. Photo courtesy Mike Lancaster. In her eloquent and thought-provoking 2014 book, Capitalism: A Ghost Story, Arundhati Roy […]
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.
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, […]
Trying to get straight answers from the provincial government is an exercise in frustration and futility
Morning File, Thursday, October 4, 2018
Joan Baxter here again, filling in for Tim who is in Toronto for Wrongful Conviction Day, and being recognized by Innocence Canada, a non-profit organization dedicated to identifying, advocating for, and exonerating individuals convicted of a crime that they did not commit. He is being awarded the the Tracey Tyler Award for his reporting on the […]