News 1. Boat Harbour Though the deadline of January 30, 2020 was set five years ago, it’s looking as if the province of Nova Scotia will not be strictly enforcing the Boat Harbour Act until April 1 this year, to allow Paper Excellence to run a power boiler throughout remaining winter months. Joan Baxter and […]
Racists are yelling at teens playing hockey
Morning File, Tuesday, December 10, 2019
News 1. Climate Emergency We’ve taken Part 4 of Linda Pannozzo’s “Climate Emergency” series out from behind the paywall. “It’s not often that I root for the anti-hero in a book,” writes Pannozzo, but it seems that as I neared the end of Jeremy Lent’s latest book, The Patterning Instinct: A Cultural History of Humanity’s […]
Halifax Transit moving forward together, but without some Beaver Bankers
Morning File, Thursday, December 5, 2019
News 1. 198 workers out of a job as Web.com closes Yarmouth location Almost 200 employees at Web.com in Yarmouth were told yesterday that their location is shutting down next year. The company offers internet services to businesses and has locations in New Glasgow and Halifax. The Yarmouth location has been operating for 18 years. […]
Maritime Launch Services and its private/public servants
One government bureaucrat sent a nasty email to a CBC reporter. Others had rude things to say about the Halifax Examiner. And Stephen McNeil met with MLS and it Ukrainian "partners" even though they aren't registered as lobbyists.
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 […]
Puppygate: After being arrested for animal cruelty and threatened with jail, a Dartmouth man wants his dogs back from the SPCA
Morning File, Wednesday, September 11, 2019
News 1. Glen Assoun compensation “One of the most recognizable wrongfully convicted Canadians is adding his voice to the chorus calling for early compensation for Glen Assoun, the Nova Scotia man who spent 17 years in prison for a murder he did not commit,” reports Michael Gorman for the CBC: Few people can understand what […]
The never-ending search for enlightenment and murderous Icelandic models
Morning File, Tuesday, September 10, 2019
News 1. Crane A fire department release from yesterday: Halifax Regional Fire & Emergency (HRFE) Chief Ken Stuebing this evening exercised his authority to execute an evacuation order on several properties in the vicinity of South Park Street. The evacuation order is necessary to protect the safety of residents living near a construction crane that […]
Despite government assurances to the contrary, no one knows what the abandoned tidal turbine is doing to the environment
Morning File, Friday, August 9, 2019
I’m having computer problems, and so this is a short version of Morning File. News 1. Who are we building bike lanes for, anyway? “After the announcement about $25 million in funding towards a minimum bike grid for central Halifax and Dartmouth, there was a lot of talk about who would benefit from such an investment,” […]
Here’s how much we paid in legal fees to get court documents in Glen Assoun’s wrongful conviction case unsealed
Morning File, Wednesday, July 31, 2019
News 1. Chickens and other fowl “Hesitant to settle for chickens, Halifax councillors decided to include all egg-laying fowl in the rules on backyard birds in residential areas,” reports Zane Woodford for Star Halifax: Council voted on Tuesday to tell planning staff to start drafting bylaw amendments, with only Councillor Russell Walker voting no, citing […]
The shameful and cowardly political non-response to the Assoun case
Morning File, Wednesday, July 17, 2019
News 1. The shameful and cowardly political non-response to the Assoun case “No one in authority wants to talk about the wrongful murder conviction of Glen Assoun,” reports Blair Rhodes for the CBC: On Tuesday, Mark Furey, Nova Scotia’s attorney general and minister of justice, said he cannot comment on the Assoun case at this time. […]
How to value 27 newspapers spread across three provinces: the Ford Falcon test
Morning File, Tuesday, April 16, 2019
News 1. Police Commission I have left this item for last to write about today, simply because it’s so dispiriting. I spent a couple of hours watching the police commission in action yesterday, and I could write at length about it here, but Margaret Anne McHugh summarized it perfectly with this tweet: Learned a lot […]