The Halifax Examiner is providing all COVID-19 coverage for free. Staying home is keeping many of us safe from Covid-19, but it’s also increasing the risk of violence against women and children who are now at home more often with abusers. Rates of domestic violence have spiked across the world in countries where there are […]
Complicated legacies
Was Lionel Desmond a victim of his war demons? Or was he a villain, a perpetrator of domestic violence who murdered his own family? Or both? We may never know.
“Speak not ill of the dead man.” Spartacus “The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.” Shakespeare Legacies have always been complicated and fraught, of course, but never more so than today. Consider Kobe Bryant. In the first hours after news broke last month that Bryant, “one of the greatest...
Halifax’s Come From Away moment
Morning File, Tuesday, January 14, 2020
News 1. Owls Head Provincial Park has been deleted from the province’s map of parks and protected areas Tim writes on the disappearance of Owls Head Provincial Park from the map of main protected areas on the province’s website. CBC’s Michael Gorman reported that the province removed Owls Head from a pending protected status list. […]
Saving the stuff that matters
Morning File, Thursday, August 29, 2019
News 1.What is going on at the East Coast Forensic Hospital? El Jones looks into concerns about treatment at the East Coast Forensic Hospital after the death of Greg Hiles last week. Women’s Wellness Within has requested a meeting with Health Minister Randy Delorey and has called for an inquiry into Hiles’ death at the […]
The Desmond file: belatedly untangling the threads that led to a murder-suicide
Finally, last week — just a few days before the first anniversary of the deaths — Dr. Matt Bowes, Nova Scotia’s chief medical officer, announced he was recommending an official inquiry to better understand how what happened happened and, more importantly, “to make our system better..."
One year ago tomorrow, on January 3, 2017, 33-year-old Lionel Desmond parked his car on a logging road in Upper Big Tracadie, NS, just as the sun was setting. Armed with two rifles, including an SKS semi-automatic Soviet military weapon he’d bought a few days earlier at an outdoor sports store, he made his way...
Proud of his indifference: Morning File, Friday, June 23, 2017
News 1. McNeil proud of his indifference “Nova Scotia Premier Stephen McNeil says he stands by his government’s record on domestic violence after a former staffer said the Liberals turned their back on her when she was assaulted by a party staffer — her partner,” reports Marieke Walsh for Global. Walsh asked McNeil about an article that […]
Court Watch: the lies we tell ourselves
In Court Christopher Garnier appears for bail revocation hearing On Tuesday, Justice Peter Rosinski began a two-day bail revocation hearing for Christopher Calvin Garnier, 29. Garnier is charged with the second degree murder of Truro police officer Catherine Campbell and with interfering with her remains. In December he was granted bail, but he was taken...
On domestic violence, PTSD, and the culture of war: Examineradio, episode #96
This week we speak with Mount Allison sociologist Ardath Whynacht and Halifax Examiner columnist, academic and activist El Jones about the public discussion surrounding the triple murder-suicide that rocked Halifax two weeks ago. Many media outlets were quick to seize on Lionel Desmond’s military service and concluded that PTSD explained the horrific violence he committed without looking […]
“Remember, You Are A Lady.”
My grandmother’s mantra to her daughters was, “just remember, you are a lady.” When my mother’s oldest sister, the first Black woman to enter the convent school, was taunted by classmates, she was reminded she was a lady. My grandmother would wake up early in the morning and do all the chores so that when […]