News 1. Plane skids off runway A Westjet 737 slid off the runway at the Halifax Stanfield International Airport yesterday. No one was injured. Eric Wynne, who’s a photographer for the Chronicle Herald, was on the plane and told reporter Ian Fairclough that if the pilot hadn’t told passengers the plane went off the tarmac, […]
Four men will lecture on women’s contributions to a militarized world
Morning File, Friday, November 22, 2019
I moved to Halifax in December 1, 2004. At the time, there was a strong journalism industry locally — two daily newspapers, the CBC, The Coast altweekly, a bevy of TV and radio stations, a beefy Canadian Press bureau… I’d guess there were something like 300 people working in newsrooms across the city. Over the […]
So much McNeil, so few answers
Morning File, Friday, July 26, 2019
News 1. Furey on Assoun Justice Minister Mark Furey continues to not really weigh in on Glen Assoun’s wrongful conviction. Jennifer Henderson reports that the Minister of Justice thinks an apology is premature: “An apology would be premature at this time until I have an opportunity to review the full scope of the file,” said […]
Justice Minister Mark Furey: an apology to Glen Assoun is “premature”
It’s two weeks today since a Nova Scotia court unsealed documents that help explain why Glen Assoun spent 17 years behind bars for a murder he did not commit. The documents pertain to both the Halifax Regional Police’s initial Halifax police investigation into the 1995 murder of Brenda Way, and to a later RCMP re-investigation […]
Halifax council has declared a climate emergency, so why is it preparing to increase transit fares?
Morning File, Wednesday, July 24, 2019
News 1. Mark Furey is free to speak, but won’t Conflict of Interest Commissioner Joe Kennedy has cleared Nova Scotia Justice Minister Mark Furey to speak to the Glen Assoun wrongful conviction. In a letter released yesterday, Kennedy reviewed the Assoun case, the RCMP’s involvement in the case, and Furey’s worry that he had a […]
People in space are looking at us
Morning File, Monday, July 22, 2019
News 1. The McNeil government and secrecy “Is Nova Scotia Canada’s most secretive jurisdiction? Or does it just act that way?” asks Stephen Kimber. “Consider a few especially egregious, not-at-all-transparent episodes from just the last week.” Click here to read “The McNeil government is going for the secrecy gold medal.” This article is for subscribers. Click […]
Dave Moore’s work could have cleared Glen Assoun of murder; here’s how and why the RCMP destroyed it
The RCMP’s spin on the Glen Assoun wrongful conviction makes no sense. That is the view of two former RCMP officers who are familiar with the case. It is now established that in 2004, the RCMP deleted information on a computer database that would have made the case that serial killer Michael McGray — not […]
“Prison was hell”: Glen Assoun tells his story
“Prison was hell.” We’re sitting for the first full interview Glen Assoun has granted since his conviction for the murder of Brenda Way in 1999. Assoun spent nearly 17 years in prison, and another four-and-a-half years under strict release conditions until March 2, when he was fully exonerated for the crime. Court documents released last […]
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 […]
The Assoun wrongful conviction: How Halifax police, RCMP, and prosecutorial misconduct sent an innocent man to prison and kept him there for nearly 17 years
Part 2: a botched Halifax police investigation, and then an RCMP coverup.
For background on this story, see my 2016 series, “Dead Wrong.” In the late 1990s, Halifax police were dealing with a disturbing number of unsolved murders, and in 1997, an RCMP–Halifax police task force, “Operation Full Course,” was established to look at cold cases. Operation Full Course was primarily focused on Andrew Johnson, a man picked […]