News 1. Acadia and Rick Mehta “The university {Acadia] had good reasons to fire Rick Mehta,” writes Stephen Kimber: But by conflating and commingling those reasons with specious arguments about its own reputation and seeming to accept the notion Mehta shouldn’t be allowed to share his wrong-headed rants on social media or challenge and provoke […]
Fool’s Gold
Nova Scotia's Myopic Pursuit of Metals & Minerals
A Halifax Examiner / Cape Breton Spectator investigation. Part 1: Welcome to the Gold Rush There’s a 21st century gold rush starting in Nova Scotia, just as industrial gold mining is increasingly coming into disrepute around the world. It has been described as an “environmental disaster” which often leads to contamination of water sources on […]
Government communications people seem to be in the business of not communicating
Morning File, Thursday, May 3, 2018
News 1. Access denied: Health Authority refuses to share the results of its transportation survey Examiner transportation columnist Erica Butler quite understandably wanted to see the data produced by the Nova Scotia Health Authority’s (NHSA) transportation survey of its staff — how people got to work, basically (drove, bussed, cycled, walked). Butler didn’t ask for and […]
Regulator gets final submissions on Nova Scotia Power’s “smart meter” plan
Consumer advocates say the utility hasn’t presented enough solid evidence to prove that installing digital meters to measure electricity usage won’t cost ratepayers more than it should.
Before the Utility and Review Board (UARB) approves Nova Scotia Power’s (NSP) plan to install “smart” meters across the province, both the Consumer Advocate and the Small Business Advocate feel the utility needs to smarten up its proposal. They say NSP hasn’t presented enough solid evidence to prove that installing digital meters to measure electricity...
Brookfield residents ask court to consider new tire-burning evidence
“I say to the Dept of Environment: Now that you know, what are you going to do about it?” Lydia Sorflaten was a talking about an affidavit by an internationally-known toxicologist expert who accuses the province of applying the wrong scientific data to approve a one-year pilot project to burn tires at the Lafarge cement...
Unnamed bureaucrats have offered to give the city treasury to a female Scythian warrior: Morning File, Thursday, October 19, 2017
News 1. Divest The Atlantic School of Theology has quietly divested from companies that intensively use fossil fuels, according to a press release issued by Divest Dal: A letter from AST President Rev. Neale Bennet states that “Atlantic School of Theology (AST) has already essentially begun the process of divesting from fossil fuel investments.” The […]
Halifax might finally solve the Macdonald bridge bikeway access, though the fix could still take years
There’s been a certain amount of jubilation surrounding the latest city staff report on fixing the access to the Macdonald Bridge Bikeway. A couple of councillors at last week’s Transportation Standing Committee (TSC) meeting joked that it must feel like Christmas for the handful of cycling advocates gathered in the gallery. To be fair, they...
The Lobster Wars of Bird Islands: Morning File, Wednesday, July 26, 2017
News 1. Twinning the 103 Yesterday, the federal government announced funding for the twinning of Highway 103: Work involves twinning approximately 10.8 kilometres of road between Upper Tantallon and Ingramport, with the construction of new bridge structures over Mill Lake, Little Indian Lake, the Ingram River, and over Highway 103 at Mill Lake. A further […]
Losing the forests for the trees: New figures show increase in clearcutting
Despite what the Nova Scotia government has said in response to concerns raised over clearcutting, the most recent figures released from the National Forestry Database (NFD) indicate that in 2015, both the overall harvest and the proportion of trees removed by clearcutting continued to increase. And ironically, the national body used data supplied by the […]
What the frack? Hydraulic fracking may be allowed in Nova Scotian waters
Canada’s push to protect 10 per cent of its marine areas by 2020 won’t face opposition from Nova Scotia’s offshore petroleum regulator. But the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board won’t stand in the way of offshore fracking. Carl Makrides, the board’s resources director, faced questions recently about whether the organization will need to push back on some...