• City Hall
  • Province House
  • Education
  • Environment
  • Investigation
  • Journalism
  • Commentary
  • @Tim_Bousquet
  • Log In

Halifax Examiner

An independent, adversarial news site in Halifax, NS

  • Home
  • About
    • Terms and Conditions
    • Commenting policy
  • Archives
  • Contact us
  • Subscribe
  • Donate
  • Manage your account
  • Swag

Northern Pulp, past and future: It ain’t over till it’s over

January 10, 2020 By Joan Baxter Leave a Comment

On December 20, 2019 Premier Stephen McNeil announced that the province would be respecting the Boat Harbour Act, and that Northern Pulp would have to stop pumping its effluent into the Boat Harbour treatment facility on January 31, 2020. Without the use of Boat Harbour, the Northern Pulp mill in Pictou County would have no […]

Filed Under: Commentary, Environment, Featured, News, Province House Tagged With: Adam McInnis, Atlas Holdings, Blue Wolf Capita, Boat Harbour Act, Brian Baarda, Brian Hebert, Chief Andrea Paul, Elmsdale Lumber, Graham Kissack, hot idle, Kathy Cloutier, Kelliann Dean, Minister Gordon Wilson, MP Peter MacKay, Northern Pulp closure, Northern Pulp loans, Northern Resources Nova Scotia Corporation, Northern Timber, Paper Excellence, Pictou Landing First Nation (PLFN), Premier Darrell Dexter, Premier John Hamm, Premier Stephen McNeil, Robin Wilber, Widjaja family

Deciding Northern Pulp’s future

A tangled mess of dubious science, loans, and liabilities will determine how government officials will act in coming days — and how much it will cost Nova Scotians.

December 8, 2019 By Joan Baxter 5 Comments

Nova Scotia’s business minister Geoff MacLellan says it’s not the time to talk about all the money that Northern Pulp owes the province, and it won’t be until after environment minister Gordon Wilson makes his decision on the mill’s new effluent treatment facility on or before December 17. CBC reporter Michael Gorman notes that MacLellan […]

Filed Under: Environment, Featured, Investigation, News, Province House Tagged With: Boat Harbour, Brian Hebert, Chief Andrea Paul, Colton Cameron, Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO), Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC), Environment Minister Margaret Miller, Health Canada, Jim Vibert, Kathy Cloutier, Keith Doucette, Michael Gorman, Minister Geoff MacLellan, Minister Gordon Wilson, Minister Jonathan Wilkinson, Northern Pulp closure, Northern Pulp focus report, Northern Pulp loans, Northern Resources Nova Scotia Corporation, Pictou Landing First Nation (PLFN), Premier G.I. Smith, Premier John Hamm, premier John Savage, Premier Rodney MacDonald, Public Services and Procurement Canada, Rachel Boomer, SaltWire, Transport Canada

Northern Pulp’s environmental documents: missing mercury, a pulp mill that never was, and oodles of contradictions

March 5, 2019 By Joan Baxter 9 Comments

Cover photo: “Point D,” where treated Northern Pulp wastewater currently flows from Boat Harbour into the Northumberland Strait, just a few hundred metres from Pictou Landing First Nation. There is much to wade through in the documents Northern Pulp submitted to Nova Scotia Environment on February 7, 2019, when it registered its “Replacement Effluent Treatment […]

Filed Under: Commentary, Environment, Featured, Investigation, News, Province House Tagged With: Bell Bay Tasmania, Boat Harbour, Bruce Chapman, Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency (CEAA), Canso Chemicals, Chief Andrea Paul, Clean the Mill Group, Dave Gunning, Dillon Consulting, dioxins and furans, Dr. John Krawczyk, Environment Minister Iain Rankin, Environment Minister Margaret Miller, Gary Porter, Greg Egilsson, Gulf NS Herring Federation, Human Health Risk Assessment (HHRA), Jamie Simpson, Kathy Cloutier, KSH Consulting, mercury, Mi’kmaq Conservation Group, Northern Pulp, Northern Pulp effluent, Northern Pulp environmental assessment, Nova Scotia Environment, oxygen delignification system, Paper Excellence Canada, Pictou Harbour, Pictou Landing, Pictou Landing First Nation (PLFN), Point D, Rachel Boomer, Terri Fraser, Toxikos

“Everything won’t stink so bad”

The countdown to Boat Harbour closure begins

February 1, 2019 By Joan Baxter 7 Comments

The children of Pictou Landing First Nation didn’t mince words when they addressed the standing-room-only audience that had gathered in their school gymnasium on January 31, 2019 to mark the start of the one-year countdown to the legislated closure of Boat Harbour. They “hate” Boat Harbour. It makes them “sad.” And “it stinks.” Once the […]

Filed Under: Environment, Featured, News, Province House Tagged With: Assembly of Nova Scotia Mi’kmaq Chiefs, Boat Harbour, Boat Harbour Act, Boat Harbour remediation project, Bruce Chapman, Chief Andrea Paul, former Premier John Hamm, Kathy Cloutier, McInnes Cooper, Mi’kmaq of Pictou Landing, Michelle Francis-Denny, Northern Pulp, Paper Excellence Canada, Premier Stephen McNeil

Containing Northern Pulp’s mess

A half century of toxic waste in Boat Harbour, a leaky pipeline, and what happens next in the mill saga.

November 3, 2018 By Joan Baxter 8 Comments

The numbers are staggering. Over the past 51 years, the bleached kraft pulp mill on Abercrombie Point in Pictou County has piped about 1.25 trillion litres of toxic effluent into Boat Harbour.[1] That’s enough to fill about half a million Olympic-size swimming pools, or a pipeline one metre in diameter stretching about 1.6 million kilometres, […]

Filed Under: Environment, Featured, News Tagged With: Boat Harbour, Boat Harbour Act, Boat Harbour remediation project, Bruce Nunn, Chief Andrea Paul, Chief Dan Paul, Christine Skirth, Environment Minister Margaret Miller, GHD, Kathy Cloutier, Ken Swain, Mi’kmaq of Pictou Landing, Northern Pulp, Northern Pulp cleanup, Northern Pulp effluent leak, Nova Scotia Environment, Nova Scotia Lands, Pictou County, Pictou Landing First Nation, Rachel Boomer, Stephen McNeil, Sydney Tar Ponds, William Palmer

Udderly ridiculous: Adventures in bovine boudoir

Morning File, Monday, October 22, 2018

October 22, 2018 By Tim Bousquet 2 Comments

1. Cannabis is still legal “And the story is still news,” writes Stephen Kimber: Sorry, it will be for more time than you might like. It’s what happens when you become one of the first countries in the world to admit it’s OK to smoke pot. Just sit back, relax and… Click here to read […]

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: Angel Moore, Anjuli Patil, Black and Indigenous, Bloyce Thompson, cannabis, collision Highway 104, cow photo shoot, for-profit prison, Geoffrey Rubin, John Demont, Kathy Cloutier, Kent Monkman, Liz Feltham, Lynn Patterson, Mary Campbell, Northern Pulp effluent leak, pedestrian struck Albacore Place, Tanya Nicolle MacCallum

Battle for the Mill

The plan to pipe effluent from the Northern Pulp Mill into the Northumberland Strait is dividing the community of Pictou, pitting neighbour against neighbour and fishermen against mill workers.

March 20, 2018 By Joan Baxter 4 Comments

This is a follow-up to Linda Pannozzo’s investigative articles in The Halifax Examiner detailing the issues around Northern Pulp’s proposed effluent treatment and disposal system: Dirty Dealing Part 1: Northern Pulp mill and the province are set to roll the dice with Boat Harbour’s replacement, but a cleaner alternative exists; Dirty Dealing Part 2: Wading through the quagmire […]

Filed Under: Environment, Featured, Investigation, News, Province House Tagged With: Andrea Paul, Asia Pulp and Paper, Boat Harbour, Bruce Chapman, Bruce I. Fleming, Central Nova MP Sean Fraser, Cory Rankin, Deputy Environment Minister Frances Martin, Friends of the Northumberland Strait, Government House leader Alan McIsaac, Joan Baxter, Kathy Cloutier, MLA Colin LaVie, MLA Darlene Compton, MLA Karla MacFarlane, MLA Lenore Zann, MLA Peter Bevan-Baker, MLA Tim Houston, Nicole MacKenzie, Northern Pulp emissions, Paper Excellence Canada, Pictou Landing First Nation, Premier Wade MacLauchlan, Ron Heighton, Ryan Fleury, Sinar Mas Group, Terri Fraser

Northern Pulp bullies Canada’s biggest bookstore chain, wins… and then loses

The good news is that the mill’s heavy-handed attack on freedom of expression and the bookseller’s own cowed response appear to have backfired. The bad news is that, “in 2017, a company can use its power to shut down a book signing in a small bookstore in a small town.”

December 11, 2017 By Stephen Kimber

Joan Baxter’s personal Northern Pulp story begins on “one of those stunningly clear, blue-sky mornings that nature sometimes bestows on Nova Scotia.” It was June 2, 2016, and Baxter had decided to start the day with a run near her home in Colchester County, NS. But as soon as she stepped outside, “the air was...

This content is for subscribers only.
Log In Subscribe

Filed Under: Commentary, Environment, Featured, Province House, Subscribers only Tagged With: Chapters Indigo cancels booksigning, Donald Burt MacKenzie, freedom of expression, Joan Baxter, Kathy Cloutier, MLA Karl MacFarlane, MLA Lenore Zann, Northern Pulp, Stephen Kimber

The hanging of Daniel Sampson: Morning File, Tuesday, December 5, 2017

December 5, 2017 By Tim Bousquet 12 Comments

News 1. IMP “The city has dropped its Integrated Mobility Plan (IMP), a hefty 193-page document designed to help Halifax achieve its Regional Plan target of reducing the share of trips we all make in private vehicles,” reports Erica Butler: In 2006, council set a goal to reduce vehicle trips down to 70 per cent […]

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: Aly Thompson, Barbara Darby, black candidates in North End Dartmouth, Black in Halifax, Carlos Beals, Christopher Garnier, Coles book signing cancelled, Daniel Perry Sampson, Duane Jones, Erica Butler, Francis Campbell, Integrated Mobility Plan (IMP), Jayde Tynes, Joan Baxter, Kathy Cloutier, last man executed in Halifax, Lindell Smith, Northern Pulp, RCMP Cpl. Jody Allison, Reducing the number of councillors, Residential construction stats, Senator Wanda Thomas Bernard, The Mill: Fifty Years of Pulp and Protest, Yvette d'Entremont, Zane Woodford

Dirty Dealing 

Northern Pulp Mill and the province are set to roll the dice with Boat Harbour’s replacement, but a cleaner alternative exists.

November 22, 2017 By Linda Pannozzo 17 Comments

This once pristine tidal estuary, Boat Harbour has been used as an industrial waste lagoon for the Abercrombie pulp mill (now Northern Pulp) near Pictou for fifty years. Photo courtesy Dave Gunning. You could cut the tension in the room with a knife. Earlier this month a delegation of fishers from Nova Scotia, PEI, and […]

Filed Under: Environment, Featured, Investigation, News, Province House Tagged With: Auditor General Michael Pickup, Boat Harbour, Boat Harbour Act, Boat Harbour Timeline (Water and Air Pollution), Central Nova MP Sean Fraser, Charlie McGeoghegan, Clean the Mill, Daniel Paul, Dave Gunning, Douglas Reeve, Douglas Singbeil, Environment Minister Iain Rankin, Howard Rapson, Joan Baxter, Kathy Cloutier, Linda Pannozzo, Melanie Griffin, Mi’kmaq of Pictou Landing, MLA Karla MacFarlane, Northern Pulp's mill waste, Pictou Landing First Nation, premier John Savage

The Tideline, with Tara Thorne

Brian Borcherdt. Photo: Anna Edwards-Borcherdt

Brian Borcherdt came of age in Yarmouth in the 1990s. When he arrived in Halifax, the city’s famous music scene was already waning, and worse, the music he made was rejected by the cool kids anyway. After decades away from Nova Scotia, he and his young family have settled in the Annapolis Valley, where he’ll zoom in to chat with Tara about his band Holy Fuck’s endlessly delayed tour, creating the Dependent Music collective, and the freedom and excitement of the improvised music he’s making now. Plus: Bringing events back in 2021.

The Tideline is advertising-free and subscriber-supported. It’s also a very good deal at just $5 a month. Click here to support The Tideline.

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.

About the Halifax Examiner

Examiner folk The Halifax Examiner was founded by investigative reporter Tim Bousquet, and now includes a growing collection of writers, contributors, and staff. Left to right: Joan Baxter, Stephen Kimber, Linda Pannozzo, Erica Butler, Jennifer Henderson, Iris the Amazing, Tim Bousquet, Evelyn C. White, El Jones, Philip Moscovitch More about the Examiner.

Sign up for email notification

Sign up to receive email notification of new posts on the Halifax Examiner. Note: signing up for email notification of new posts is NOT subscribing to the Halifax Examiner. To subscribe, click here.

Recent posts

  • Real estate agents gone bad: from storming the Capitol to violating COVID regulations to stealing dogs January 19, 2021
  • Compassion fatigue: when the helpers need help January 19, 2021
  • Halifax police board hits pause on body-worn cameras January 18, 2021
  • Zero cases of COVID-19 announced in Nova Scotia on Monday, Jan. 18 January 18, 2021
  • Self-help groups seek essential service status January 18, 2021

Commenting policy

All comments on the Halifax Examiner are subject to our commenting policy. You can view our commenting policy here.

Copyright © 2021