It’s not the first time I’ve waded through many hundreds of pages of correspondence released by a government under a FOIPOP (Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy) request, but it is the first time that reading the correspondence made me feel slightly queasy, like a voyeur witnessing unhealthy relationships developing between uncritical and subservient...
Imagine Spring Garden Road where everyone looks the same
Morning File, Tuesday, September 24, 2019
News 1. Naturalists go to court “Nova Scotia Supreme Court Justice Christa Brothers will decide whether the Minister of Lands and Forestry has failed to live up to the obligations set out in the Endangered Species Act to protect wildlife in the province,” reports Jennifer Henderson: “We seek the Court’s assistance as a last resort,” […]
Opposition to Canso spaceport grows
“The government of Nova Scotia and the government of Canada are partnering with a dubious, nearly-bankrupt Ukrainian company using Cold-war technology," says Michael Byers, an expert in space law.
I hadn’t even made it into Canso when I happened upon the first person willing and eager to speak her mind on the proposed spaceport that Maritime Launch Services wants to construct in the picturesque community at the very end of Highway 16, an area that boasts spectacular coastline, one ocean-side provincial park and another […]
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 […]
Provincial budget update: increased surplus and debt reduction, but also large bills for cleaning up historic toxic mines and the Yarmouth ferry
“You’re richer than you think” Scotiabank used to say in its marketing campaign to prospective customers. Today we learned the Province is in better financial shape than we were led to believe a year ago. Audited financial statements for the year March 2018–March 2019 show the province had a surplus of $120 million, four times...
The $722 million deal
An Australian company is buying the Vancouver company that owns Nova Scotia’s largest gold mining operation; what’s in it for us?
Here’s the deal. On Wednesday, May 14, an Australian gold mining company called St. Barbara Limited, with one gold mine in Australia and a second one in Papua New Guinea, agreed to pay $722 million for Atlantic Gold Corporation, which operates one open pit gold mine in Nova Scotia, has proposed three more along the […]
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?
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...
Paying for cops but not courts: Yarmouth ferry file
It’s heartening to learn the Province has not been asked by Bay Ferries to pay its legal fees to appeal a judge’s decision which allows the Progressive Conservative leader to seek a court order to find out how much taxpayer’s money is going to Bay Ferries for managing the Yarmouth ferry service. Which isn’t to […]
Stunting 101: The games Bay Ferries plays
Bay Ferries says its Yarmouth ferry service's real problem has nothing to do with the government's over-subsidization or its own over-pricing. Blame it on the "nasty" opposition.
Mark MacDonald knows which donkey to pin the blame on for the fact his Bay Ferries Ltd.’s money-sinking pot of a Yarmouth-Maine ferry service isn’t winning the accolades he believes it deserves from Nova Scotia taxpayers. Forget the $61,187,310 in previously announced subsidies, grants and other goodies those same taxpayers have shovelled into the service...
The Yarmouth ferry is going to Bar Harbor — a little late, and at some unknown cost…
Bay Ferries has announced that the Alakai ferry — dubbed “The Cat” — will begin sailing between Yarmouth and Bar Harbor, Maine starting June 21. On its website, the company says that date is “subject to change” because of the renovations required to the ferry terminal in Maine. A public hearing will take place in […]