News 1. Alton Gas This item is written by Jennifer Henderson. “There is no evidence to support the occupation of land near Fort Ellis by Dale Poulette, Rachael Greenland-Smith, and others,” said N.S. Supreme Court Justice Gerald Moir in an oral decision granting Alton Natural Gas Storage Inc. a temporary injunction. The injunction is aimed […]
If you’re going to play in the sandbox, you should at least know what the sandbox is for
Morning File, Monday, January 7, 2019
News 1. Why was Lamar Eason suspended? Writes Stephen Kimber: “People don’t like to talk about race, culture, bias,” Bayview Community School principal Lamar Eason explains, adding elliptically: “Doing your job can lead to questioning the people employing you. Understandably, people get defensive. But [race relations officers] are not there just to support schools; we’re […]
Province amps up its unwise and discredited biofuel efforts
Morning File, Thursday, December 13, 2018
News 1. Biofuel Last year, in her article “Life After Pulp,” Linda Pannozzo showed how as the old pulp industry is collapsing, the government is chasing two other forest dreams — biomass and biofuel. On the latter, she wrote: In 2012, when the Dexter government announced the defunct paper mill would become a business hub […]
We’re about to learn just how subservient Nova Scotia is to the forest industry
Morning File, Tuesday, December 4, 2018
1. Clearcutting “The McNeil government is promising less clearcutting on crown lands through new ‘interim’ harvesting guidelines introduced yesterday in response to a comprehensive report on forestry practices prepared by University of King’s College president Bill Lahey last August,” reports Jennifer Henderson: It’s unclear how much the controversial practice will be reduced until after permanent […]
Burned: Are Trees the New Coal?
A review of the new film that illuminates Nova Scotia's failed biomass policies
In the opening scene of the documentary Burned: Are Trees the New Coal?, Jeff Turner patrols the dark, tannin-stained waters of the Blackwater and Nottoway River system in Southampton County, Virginia. He’s a “river keeper” and has been doing this for nearly two decades, keeping an eye on threats to the health of the rivers […]
Stephen Kimber’s indispensable contribution to local journalism
Morning File, Monday, November 5, 2018
News 1. Jen’s choice Writes Stephen Kimber: Jen Powley is smart. She has four degrees. She’s a prize-winning author with an eclectic CV and a significant record of ongoing accomplishment. She’s still only 41. So why does she face a government-imposed Hobson’s life choice: go into a nursing home to be warehoused and “removed from […]
Forest fairy tales and other frightening stories of Nova Scotia
Morning File, Friday, May 25, 2018
News 1. Motor Vehicle Act “The province has put out an open call for input on a new Traffic Safety Act to replace the much-amended and much-maligned Motor Vehicle Act (MVA),” writes Examiner transportation columnist Erica Butler: The call-out is remarkably open ended, simply asking people to read over the current MVA and “tell us what […]
Nova Scotia’s looming oil-drilling disaster
Canadian regulators have failed to reduce the likelihood of a Deepwater Horizon-like blowout at BP's deep-sea well on the Scotian Slope, and the company plans to respond to a blowout with an oil dispersant that could compound the catastrophe.
When BP named its exploratory well in the Mississippi Canyon the Macondo Prospect after the doomed fictional town of Macondo from Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude, that alone should have raised alarm bells. The story of seven generations of the Buendía family are set in the Colombian town, which is beset by […]
Liberals refuse to allow opposition parties to question bureaucrats responsible for the privacy breach
Morning File, Thursday, April 26, 2018
1. Dirty Dealing, Part 4 Reports Linda Pannozzo: Nova Scotia Lands, a provincial crown corporation charged with cleaning up Boat Harbour, played a role in silencing two Dalhousie University researchers whose work studied air pollution coming from the Northern Pulp mill, the Halifax Examiner has learned. The two researchers, Emma Hoffman and Tony Walker, were the […]
Dirty Dealing
Part 4: Message Control and the Northern Pulp Mill’s Cancer-Causing Air Emissions
Nova Scotia Lands, a provincial crown corporation charged with cleaning up Boat Harbour, played a role in silencing two Dalhousie University researchers whose work studied air pollution coming from the Northern Pulp mill, the Halifax Examiner has learned. In Part 3 of the Dirty Dealing series, I reported on the researchers’ 2017 ambient air study, which revealed […]