On the same day that Nova Scotia’s governing Liberals introduced legislation to ban high volume hydraulic fracturing in the province, I happened to be on a “fracking tour” in the U.S. with a bus load of other environmental journalists in a place that had instead embraced it. We were headed from New Orleans to the […]
Are we doing right by international students?
Nova Scotian universities value international students for their big tuition payments and the cultural diversity they bring to campus. How's that working?
Elias Galindo was walking down Spring Garden Road around sunset last November with a fellow international student from Mexico when a vanload of young men started following them. It was the day after Donald Trump was elected the 45th president of the United States, largely on promises to wall off his country’s southern neighbour, clamp down...
Was Barrington Street razed to push out the Italians? Morning File, Thursday, April 6, 2017
News 1. Custio Clayton says he was racially profiled “I’ve never felt so humiliated in my life; I felt violated,” Custio Clayton tells Ryan Van Horne, reporting for the Examiner. Clayton, a Dartmouth-trained boxer now working as a professional in Montreal with the goal of being one of the world’s top 10 boxers, was stopped by Montreal police on his […]
End this unpleasant mixture of austerity and divisiveness: David Wheeler
There is no question that three years of an overly-simplistic, 1980s-style focus on "balancing the books" in the province has failed, with a flatlining economy and stagnating wages.
This morning, it was announced that I will be standing for the NDP at the forthcoming provincial election. I am standing in the riding of Halifax Armdale close by where I lived when I was Dean of Management at Dalhousie University. Armdale is a beautiful and culturally diverse riding which — like the rest of the province […]
Political Manipulation Could Derail Nova Scotia’s Cap and Trade System
Political expediency seems to be motivating the design of Nova Scotia’s carbon pricing system, potentially creating negative consequences for the environment and economy. Last week, the province released a discussion paper on its proposed cap and trade system to comply with the federal government’s plan for a pan-Canadian carbon price. Public comments on this plan […]
On the Money: Morning File, Saturday, December 10, 2016
News
The McNeil government’s deceitful, ham-fisted, and mean-spirited attack on teachers: Morning File, Tuesday, December 6, 2016
News 1. The McNeil government’s deceitful, ham-fisted, and mean-spirited attack on teachers I almost felt sorry for cabinet minister Michel Samson yesterday. As with the rest of his government, events had overtaken him. He stood before a room full of reporters who were repeatedly calling him out on his contradictions and his uninformed spin. “You say […]
Too much news, none of it good: Morning File, Wednesday, November 23, 2016
November Subscription Drive Click here to purchase a subscription to the Halifax Examiner. News 1. Tyler Keizer Police have identified the man killed Monday night on Gottingen Street as 22-year-old Tyler Ronald Joseph Keizer of Halifax. 2. Nihilistic loners’ plot for mass murder “A young Halifax man has been handed a 10-year prison sentence for his role in […]
Dalhousie president Tom Traves retired in 2013, but he’s still the highest paid public employee in Nova Scotia: Morning File, Wednesday, August 10, 2016
News Views Noticed Government On campus In the harbour Footnotes News 1. Public Accounts The province yesterday published the public accounts for the 2015-16 fiscal year, which ended March 31. I’ve been slowly going through the documents, and as I find interesting items I’ll report on them. For now, I’ve just scanned for the big salaries. […]
Raucous crowd greets fracking review panel
by Chris Benjamin David Wheeler’s fracking roadshow reached Halifax last night and received its most boisterous heckling yet. Wheeler, president of Cape Breton University and sustainable business guru (he convinced the province to burn trees for energy), chairs an “independent review panel” investigating the potential for fracking in Nova Scotia. Last night’s meeting was the...