News 1. Dorian “On Sept. 3, 2019, as deadly, destructive Dorian zeroed in on southeastern US coastal states, the four biggest American wireless carriers — Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint — all pre-emptively announced plans to help their customers stay connected,” writes Stephen Kimber: Verizon, for example offered unlimited calling, texting and data from Sept. […]
An astonishing display of cowardice: city councillors are ignoring police misconduct in the Assoun case
As we are learning that the Halifax police willfully acted to keep an innocent man in prison, the politicians responsible for civilian oversight of the police department are deafeningly silent. Meanwhile, unelected bureaucrats and lawyers at City Hall have attempted to keep the police misconduct hidden by a publication ban. According to his lawyers, police […]
Update: HRM turns a $300,000 annual profit through police Background Checks for volunteers
On Wednesday, the Budget Committee of Halifax Regional Council will consider whether to make background checks for students and volunteers free, as they are everywhere else across the province. In Halifax, approximately 11,700 volunteers a year pay $30 to police or an online provider to determine if the individual has any prior convictions or pardons […]
What Black kids think about cops
It’s been an eventful week in police accountability in Canada. On Monday, the Ontario Human Rights Commission released a report on race and policing showing Black people are “overrepresented in several types of violent police interactions, including use-of-force cases, shootings, deadly encounters and fatal shootings.” The Broken Trust report from the Office of the Independent […]
The Halifax police department makes over half a million dollars each year from running criminal background checks for citizens
The price of police background checks How much is too much to pay for a background check to apply for a job or to volunteer for a non-profit group such as Big Brothers/Big Sisters or a school breakfast program? It’s a question worth asking in Halifax, where the fees to check if a person has...