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Halifax Examiner

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A Calgary company is drilling for oil in the world’s largest protected international wildlife reserve; these Nova Scotians are trying to stop it

The Canadian Ombudsman for Responsible Enterprise (CORE) is charged with regulating Canadian companies operating overseas, but it is toothless, say activists.

October 8, 2021 By Joan Baxter 1 Comment

In 1964, Flai Kalenga Mbwenga went looking for some good grazing land. Mbwenga was a small-scale farmer who lives in northern Namibia, close to the Kavango River that forms part of the border between his country and neighbouring Angola. Like nearly all the rural people in his country, Mbwenga’s family’s livelihood came from small-scale and mixed […]

Filed Under: Environment, Featured, Investigation, News Tagged With: Africa, Al Jazeera, Botswana, British Petroleum, Calgary, Canadian Ombudsman for Responsible Enterprise (CORE), climate crisis, climate emergency, conventional oil, diamonds, drilling, Economic and Social Justice Trust, elephants, Elisabeth Kosters, Flai Kalenga Mbwenga, Frack Free Namibia, Frack Free Namibia and Botswana, Fracking, Frankfurt, Geoffrey York, HIV/AIDS, hydraulic fracturing, Ian La Couvée, Jay Park, Jonas Mbwenga, Kavango River, Legal Assistance Centre, Marco Rodzynek, Matthew Totten, Mbambi, Namibia, Namibia High Court, National Geographic, oil and gas exploration, Okavango Delta, Omatako river, Oryx, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, ReconAfrica, Reconnaissance Energy Africa, resource curse, Rinaani Musutua, Rob Parker, San people, solar energy, sub-Sahara Africa, The Globe and Mail, Tsodilo Hills, TSX-V, unconvential oil, uranium, US embassy in Namibia, Viceroy Research, wastewater, Windhoek, World Heritage sites

Wastewater from Northern Pulp’s hibernating paper mill is being discharged into the Bay of Fundy

September 7, 2021 By Joan Baxter 13 Comments

Wastewater from Northern Pulp’s mill is being discharged into the Bay of Fundy. Since July 2020 Northern Pulp has been shipping run-off and “landfill leachate” from its hibernating pulp mill site on Abercrombie Point in Pictou County to Colchester County’s municipal sewage treatment facility in Lower Truro, which discharges into the Bay of Fundy. Invoices […]

Filed Under: Environment, Featured, News Tagged With: Abercrombie Point, allnovascotia, asbestos, Bay of Fundy, BC Supreme Court, bismuth, Boat Harbour, Bruce Chapman, Canso Chemicals, Central Colchester Wastewater Treatment Facility, Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD), creditor protection, Don Cameron, FOIPOP, Fracking, hydraulic fracturing, industrial wastewater, landfill, leachate, Lower Truro, Maurice Rees, mercury, Michelle Boudreau, MIchelle Newell, municipal sewage treatment, Municipality of the County of Colchester, Northern Pulp, Nova Scotia Environment and Climate Change, Paper Excellence, Paper Excellence Holdings Corporation, Pictou County, Scott Fraser, The Shoreline Journal, Tom Taggart, treatment, trichloroethane, wastewater, Widjaja family

Pieridae’s pipe dream

Pieridae Energy’s plans for a liquified natural gas plant in Nova Scotia sit in the sweet spot of an elaborate Rube Goldberg financing machine that requires Shell Oil offloading some aging gas wells in Alberta to a cash-strapped energy company living on the hope of sky-high gas costs in Germany years from now.

April 13, 2021 By Joan Baxter 4 Comments

If the Halifax Examiner inbox is anything to go by, there is no shortage of critics of Pieridae Energy and its plans to pipe natural gas into Nova Scotia, build a $10-billion liquefied natural gas plant in Goldboro on the province’s Eastern Shore, and then ship the LNG to Germany, a project the Halifax Examiner […]

Filed Under: Environment, Featured, Investigation, News Tagged With: Alberta, Alberta Energy Regulator, Alberta Liabilities Disclosure Project, Alfred Sorensen, Andrew Nikiforuk, Andy Gheorghiu, carbon offsetting, climate emergency, Environment Minister Randy Delorey, Environnement Vert Plus, Erikson National Energy, Fortum, fracked gas, Fracking, German Ministry of Economics and Energy, Germany, Goldboro LNG plant, greenhouse gas emissions, James Millar, Ken Summers, Larry Hughes, liquefied natural gas, Mark Dorin, Mark Horrox, natural gas, Nova Scotia Environment, Pascal Bergeron, Pieridae Energy, Polluter Pay Federation, Premier Iain Rankin, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Quebec Environmental Law Centre, Regan Boychuk, Shell Canada, SLAPP, Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation, The Tyee, Third Eye Capital, Thomas Ciz, Uniper, US Department of Energy

Fracking is back on the agenda in Nova Scotia

After years during which nobody seemed to be asking the F-question in the province, suddenly it is being asked again all over the place: To frack or not to frack? Who’s asking and why?

May 6, 2019 By Joan Baxter 6 Comments

To frack, or not to frack Nova Scotia? That seems to be the question. Again. There’s been a de facto moratorium on fracking — more specifically on “high-volume hydraulic fracturing in shale” — in the province since 2014, and oil and gas companies haven’t exactly been beating down our doors to get it lifted, demanding […]

Filed Under: Environment, Featured, News, Province House Tagged With: AltaGas, Alton Gas Natural Storage, Andrew Nikiforuk, Andrew Younger, Barb Harris, Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP), Cape Breton Spectator, Councillor Lynne Welton, Cumberland Business Connector, Cumberland Energy Authority, David Wheeler, Department of Energy and Mines, Fracking, global warming, Harry Thurston, Heritage Gas Limited, Jennifer Matthews, John Hawkins, Jonathan McClelland, Ken Summers, lobbyist, Maritime Energy Association, Mark Haslon, Mary Campbell, Minister Lloyd Hines, natural gas, Nova Scotia Fracking Resource and Action Coalition (NOFRAC), PC MLA Elizabeth Smith-McCrossin, PC MLA Pat Dunn, PC MLA Tory Rushton, Premier Stephen McNeil, Ray Hickey, Ray Ritcey, Sandy MacMullin, shale gas development, Shelley Hoeg, Standing Committee on Natural Resources and Economic Development, Union of Nova Scotia Municipalities, Wheeler report

PCs put fracking back on the agenda

April 24, 2019 By Joan Baxter 2 Comments

Five years since Stephen McNeil’s Liberal government placed a moratorium on fracking in Nova Scotia, the Progressive Conservative party seems intent on putting it back on the agenda. In February this year, the two PC members of the Standing Committee on Natural Resources and Economic Development — MLAs Pat Dunn and Elizabeth Smith-McCrossin — proposed […]

Filed Under: Environment, Featured, News, Province House Tagged With: Cumberland Energy Authority, Deputy Minister Simon d’Entremont, Extinction Rebellion Nova Scotia, Fracking, MLA Elizabeth Smith-McCrossin, MLA Lisa Roberts, MLA Patt Dunn, Nova Scotia Fracking Resource and Action Coalition (NOFRAC), Oshean Junega, Pat Vinish, Progressive Conservative party (PC), Sandy MacMullin, shale gas development, Thomas Trappenberg

“Pig in a poke”: die-hard proponents want to open Nova Scotia to fracking

September 14, 2018 By Joan Baxter 9 Comments

About 200 people gathered last evening in Pugwash, filling the Northumberland Community Curling Club for a debate framed around the resolution “fracking will be beneficial to Cumberland County.” The audience was, not surprisingly, clearly divided between those in favour and those against. For many, including several members of the Nova Scotia Fracking Resource and Action […]

Filed Under: Environment, Featured, News Tagged With: Cecil Clarke, climate change, Darrel Dexter, David Wheeler, Douglas Leahey, Elizabeth Roscoe, Elizabeth Smith-McCrossin, Fracking, Friends of Science, Frontier Centre for Public Policy, Gerard Lucyshyn, Michael Bradfield, MLA John Lohr, natural gas, Nova Scotia Fracking Resource and Action Coalition (NOFRAC), Scott Armstrong, Tim Houston, Tory Rushton

The corporate kleptocracy takes aim at Nova Scotia

Morning File, Friday, August 31, 2018

August 31, 2018 By Joan Baxter 5 Comments

Hi, I’m Joan Baxter, a Nova Scotian journalist and author. Some of my books are actually quite upbeat, proving that I’m not always a bearer of bad news. News 1. Abandoned tidal turbine Jennifer Henderson updates the situation of the abandoned tidal turbine in the Minas Basin in this article for the Examiner. After a […]

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: Aaron Beswick, Alfred Sorensen, Allan Murphy, Ardath Whynacht, Bianca Mercer, big oil and public money, Bruce Nunn, Burnside jail protest, climate change, Darren Porter, David Patriquin, dead porpoise, El Jones, Fracking, Glyphosate, Goldboro LNG plant, Helen Murphy, herbicide spraying, Jessica Chin, Joan Baxter, Josh Healey, Ken Summers, Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG), Marla MacInnis, Matthew Boyd, Maurice Reed, NOFRAC Nova Scotia, Paul McLeod, Peter Watts, Pieridae Energy, prisoner protest, Robert Devet, Sandra Hannebohm, Sarah Gillis, Sarah Ritchie, Stacey Rudderham, Stephen Kimber, Swissair crash, tidal turbine abandoned, Will Weissart, worst roads in Canada

We’re Cooked: The Case for Ignoring Nova Scotia’s Fracking Potential

January 16, 2018 By Linda Pannozzo 1 Comment

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 […]

Filed Under: Commentary, Environment, Featured, Province House Tagged With: Bill McKibben, David Wheeler, Energy Minister Geoff MacLellan, Fracking, Jessica Ernst, Linda Pannozzo, Maritimes Energy Association, Seamus McGraw

Fracking ain’t what it’s cracked up to be: Morning File, Monday, January 15, 2018

January 15, 2018 By Tim Bousquet 9 Comments

News 1. Immigration Writes Stephen Kimber: Reading news accounts of last week’s meeting of the legislature’s committee on economic development, you could be forgiven for assuming the much fooforahed Ivany Report’s call to action on immigration had already become a neatly gift-wrapped fait accompli, topped with a pretty government-tied bow. Not so fast… Click here […]

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: Blair Rhodes, Calvin Clarke, Constable Gary Basso, constructive dismissal suit against Chronicle Herald, Criminal Investigation Division (CID), Fracking, Jacob Boon, James Kunstler, Judy Haiven, Nova Scotia Department of Energy Onshore Atlas, Paul Withers, police evidence room audit, Richard Starr, Serious Incident Response Team (SIRT), service industry workers' tips, Steve Parcell, Tristan Cleveland, ugly buildings

New map reopens the fracking debate: Morning File, Wednesday, January 10, 2018

January 10, 2018 By Tim Bousquet 15 Comments

News 1. Trudeau and Abdi “A 23-year-old former refugee from Somalia waited in a segregated cell in New Brunswick Tuesday night as about two dozen of his supporters called attention to his case at the prime minister’s town hall in Lower Sackville, N.S,” reports Emma Smith for the CBC. I detailed Abdi’s plight in yesterday’s Morning File. I don’t see any news […]

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: Blue Thunder, Community Economic Investment Fund (CEDIF), Fracking, Graham Steele, Jonathan McClelland, Just a Gigolo, Onshore Atlas of shale gas potential, spitting on cops, The city's website sucks, Victor Willis, West Nova Agro Commodities Ltd.

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PRICED OUT

A collage of various housing options in HRM, including co-ops, apartment buildings, shelters, and tents
PRICED OUT is the Examiner’s investigative reporting project focused on the housing crisis.

You can learn about the project, including how we’re asking readers to direct our reporting, our published articles, and what we’re working on, on the PRICED OUT homepage.

2020 mass murders

Nine images illustrating the locations, maps, and memorials of the mass shootings

All of the Halifax Examiner’s reporting on the mass murders of April 18/19, 2020, and recent articles on the Mass Casualty Commission and newly-released documents.

Updated regularly.

Uncover: Dead Wrong

In 1995, Brenda Way was brutally murdered behind a Dartmouth apartment building. In 1999, Glen Assoun was found guilty of the murder. He served 17 years in prison, but steadfastly maintained his innocence. In 2019, Glen Assoun was fully exonerated.

Halifax Examiner founder and investigative journalist Tim Bousquet has followed the story of Glen Assoun's wrongful conviction for over five years. Now, Bousquet tells that story as host of Season 7 of the CBC podcast series Uncover: Dead Wrong.

Click here to go to listen to the podcast, or search for CBC Uncover on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast aggregator.

The Tideline, with Tara Thorne

A young man wearing a purple jean jacket and sporting a moustache lies on the green grass surrounded by pink plastic flamingos

Episode 80 of The Tideline, with Tara Thorne, is published.

Singer-songwriter Willie Stratton has wandered a number of genre paths, starting with raw acoustic folk as a teen phenom, moving through surf rock as Beach Bait, and landing in a Roy Orbison-style classic country on his new album Drugstore Dreamin’. Ahead of his release show at the Marquee on Friday, he stops in to explain why mixing influences makes the best art, how he approaches the guitar, and what he likes about his day job as a barber.

Listen to the episode here.

Check out some of the past episodes here.

Subscribe to the podcast to get episodes automatically downloaded to your device — there’s a great instructional article here. Email Suzanne for help.

You can reach Tara here.

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