News 1. Dead Wrong on Uncover Tim Bousquet’s podcast Dead Wrong, on CBC’s Uncover, is now live and you can listen to the first couple of episodes here. Everyone at the Examiner knows how hard he’s worked on this podcast for the past several months, but, of course, his work on the Dead Wrong series […]
“A political act of opportunism”: Conservatives go hard right on gun laws
CPC leadership candidates cozy up to firearm rights advocates, who compare Bill C-71 to the internment of Japanese Canadians in World War 2.
The venue is a virtual “town hall” meeting with leadership Conservative candidate Peter MacKay. It’s hosted by the Canadian Coalition for Firearm Rights (CCFR), which calls itself “Canada’s most effective and recognizable firearm rights organization,” and the “public relations experts in the firearms community.” MacKay, dressed for the occasion in a plaid shirt and dark […]
Racism, cops, media, and performative bullshit
Morning File, Monday, June 1, 2020
News 1. Sure, budget surpluses are great, but have you ever experienced investments in long-term care? Stephen Kimber’s column this week points out one of the many obvious but under-discussed aspects of how COVID-19 has caused so much death and suffering for people in long-term care homes: that the state of LTCs is the direct […]
Opposition critics on the Advisory Council on the Status of Women call for an inquiry into mass murder, but McNeil government demurs
A provincial public inquiry into the April mass shooting that resulted in the deaths of 22 people in Nova Scotia is “absolutely a must,” says Karla MacFarlane, Progressive Conservative MLA for Pictou West and critic for the Advisory Council on the Status of Women. In recent weeks, as more questions arise over how the RCMP […]
Peter and me
Morning File, Monday, May 11, 2020
1. COVID-19 and politics I don’t want to be this guy again, but I haven’t had time this past weekend or again this morning to write a full article about Stephen McNeil’s criticism of the media for making politics with the COVID crisis. (I’ve been working pretty much non-stop on the podcast, which has some […]
Welcome back, Peter
I’ve spent a good chunk of my columnist’s career mocking Peter MacKay without ever having spent time in his company. And then I did. He seemed generous, thoughtful, far more complex than I'd given him credit for. But then he got back into politics. And became 'that' Peter MacKay again.
Is it the person or the persona? The person or the party? The campaign or the campaigner? Does it really even matter? I’ve spent a good chunk of my columnist’s career mocking Peter MacKay without ever actually having spent time in his company. MacKay was always just a dependable target, a talking contradiction, inevitably doing...
Trigger Warning
The ban on assault style weapons comes in the wake of the Nova Scotia shootings, but it is just one cautious step in a decades-long debate over gun control.
Ross Faulkner, owner of The Gun Dealer, “Atlantic Canada’s largest firearms dealer,” gets more and more strident the longer the phone interview goes on. He makes his points over and over again, as if not convinced I can understand, and sometimes he speaks as if there were a full stop after each word, which gives […]
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,” […]
Tim Houston says that as premier he will be accountable
“We will form a thoughtful, accountable, humble government that gives Nova Scotians hope,” Progressive Conservative leader Tim Houston told a crowd of more than 400 attending the party’s Annual General Meeting at the Westin hotel last night. Accountable would be good, especially since the current Stephen McNeil government which promised to deliver the most open...
What’s a little unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine among friends?
Morning File, Wednesday, August 29
I’m Philip Moscovitch, filling in for Tim Bousquet this morning. Tim is editing from a diner at an undisclosed location. News 1. Spaceport concerns Last month, Maritime Launch Services — the people who say they want to run a spaceport out of Canso —submitted a 159-page environmental assessment for the project. Federal and provincial government staffers […]