Lobster stocks in Atlantic Canada have been flourishing in recent years, ironically not just because of conservation measures, but also because of two ecological disasters — the collapse of groundfish stocks and climate change. But can the lobster fishery survive with current rates and rules for harvesting as waters continue to warm and ecosystems change? […]
Lobster: the last, best fishery
Part 1: Stocks are healthy, but why?
Lobster stocks in Atlantic Canada have been flourishing in recent years, ironically not just because of conservation measures, but also because of two ecological disasters — the collapse of groundfish stocks and climate change. But can the lobster fishery survive with current rates and rules for harvesting as waters continue to warm and ecosystems change? […]
Independent inshore lobster fishers fear the Clearwater purchase could decimate their livelihoods
At a November 12 press conference, Sipekne’katik First Nation Chief Mike Sack announced that his Band was launching “hundreds” of lawsuits related to the way governments, some commercial fishers, and the RCMP reacted to its launch of its moderate livelihood fishery on September 17, the 21st anniversary of the landmark Marshall decision that affirmed Mi’kmaq […]
In Search of Common Ground: An interview with Arthur Bull about the lobster fishery crisis in St. Mary’s Bay
It’s been more than a month since the Sipekne’katik First Nation launched its own self-regulated lobster fishery off the Saulnierville wharf in Southwest Nova Scotia — 21 years after the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in the Marshall decision, affirming the 1760-61 Treaty Rights of the Mi’kmaq to fish for a “moderate livelihood.” For weeks […]
Deciding Northern Pulp’s future
A tangled mess of dubious science, loans, and liabilities will determine how government officials will act in coming days — and how much it will cost Nova Scotians.
Nova Scotia’s business minister Geoff MacLellan says it’s not the time to talk about all the money that Northern Pulp owes the province, and it won’t be until after environment minister Gordon Wilson makes his decision on the mill’s new effluent treatment facility on or before December 17. CBC reporter Michael Gorman notes that MacLellan […]
Government moves slowly, except when it moves lightning fast
Morning File, Friday, October 4, 2019
News 1. Twenty years after the Marshall decision, DFO still has no agreement with First Nations communities over fishing management It’s been twenty years since the Marshall decision (in which the Supreme Court of Canada found that Donald Marshall Jr. had a treaty right to fish for eels out of season) and the Department of […]
The never-ending search for enlightenment and murderous Icelandic models
Morning File, Tuesday, September 10, 2019
News 1. Crane A fire department release from yesterday: Halifax Regional Fire & Emergency (HRFE) Chief Ken Stuebing this evening exercised his authority to execute an evacuation order on several properties in the vicinity of South Park Street. The evacuation order is necessary to protect the safety of residents living near a construction crane that […]
Court documents detail repeated police raids on the same cannabis dispensary
Morning File, Friday, July 19, 2019
News 1. Glen Assoun “Elizabeth May is calling for a federal inquiry zeroing in on the RCMP’s role in both wrongfully convicting Glen Assoun of murder and keeping the now 63-year-old in prison for 17 years,” reports Andrew Rankin for the Chronicle Herald: The Green party of Canada leader said maintaining public trust in the […]
Nova Scotia’s looming oil-drilling disaster
Canadian regulators have failed to reduce the likelihood of a Deepwater Horizon-like blowout at BP's deep-sea well on the Scotian Slope, and the company plans to respond to a blowout with an oil dispersant that could compound the catastrophe.
When BP named its exploratory well in the Mississippi Canyon the Macondo Prospect after the doomed fictional town of Macondo from Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude, that alone should have raised alarm bells. The story of seven generations of the Buendía family are set in the Colombian town, which is beset by […]
An obsessive fixation for cheap decoration, wallpaper edition
Morning File, Friday, March 23, 2018
News 1. aioTV “The tech company aioTV has ceased operations, and Innovacorp has lost its entire $1.7 million investment in the company,” I reported yesterday. The provincial government has something like $100 million invested as equity stakes in various companies (far more has been loaned, granted, and rebated). Those investments first came through Nova Scotia […]