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Council rejects staff recommendation, agrees to $750,000 for Blue Mountain-Birch Cove Lakes land purchase

July 21, 2020 By Zane Woodford

Halifax regional council unanimously rejected a recommendation from staff and voted on Tuesday to spend $750,000 to help the Nova Scotia Nature Trust fill a big gap in the Blue Mountain-Birch Cove Lakes wilderness area. Blue Mountain-Birch Cove Lakes is the picturesque area between Bayers Lake and Hammonds Plains. Within that area, 1,700 hectares, or...

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Filed Under: City Hall, Featured, News, Subscribers only Tagged With: Allison Thorne, Bill Fenton, Blue Mountain-Birch Cove Lakes, Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, Chris Miller, councillor Richard Zurawski, COVID-19, Ecology Action Centre (EAC), Friends of Blue Mountain Birch Cove Lakes, Mayor Mike Savage, Nova Scotia Nature Trust, Raymond Plourde, Richard Harvey, Robin Wilber

Port Wallace Gamble: the real estate boom meets Nova Scotia’s toxic mine legacy

Part 1: The making of a toxic mess and the uncalculated costs of previous gold rushes.

March 1, 2020 By Joan Baxter 4 Comments

This is Part 1 of a three-part story about the toxic legacy from historic gold mines in Nova Scotia, which its citizens will be paying many millions of dollars to try to clean up, and how the contamination at just one of these sites — Montague Mines in HRM — is still affecting lives today, […]

Filed Under: City Hall, Environment, Featured, Investigation, News, Province House Tagged With: Alexander Heatherington, arsenic from mining, Atlantic Gold, Barry's Run, Canadian Extractive Industries Transparency Measures Act (ESTMA), Clayton Developments, Cochrane Hill gold mine, Damas Touquoy, Department of Energy and Mines (DEM), Department of Lands and Forestry (DLF), Francis Paul, gold mining, gold mining pollution, Goldenville, James Paul, John Drage, John Hartlen, John Pulsiver, Kerry Rowe, Lake Charles, Lake Loon, Linda Campbell, Lisa Jarrett, mercury, Michael Parsons, mine tailings, Mining Association of Nova Scotia (MANS), Mitchell Brook, Montague Mines, Moose River gold mine, Nova Scotia Auditor General Michael Pickup, Nova Scotia Lands, Paul Paul, Raymond Plourde, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, St. Barbara Limited, Touquoy mine

Budget cut has environmentalists worried Halifax is forgetting about Blue Mountain–Birch Cove Lakes

January 7, 2020 By Zane Woodford

Environmentalists who celebrated extra cash in last year’s municipal budget for park land protection are worried a reduced budget for next year means the city is again forgetting about Blue Mountain–Birch Cove Lakes. Halifax regional council is working on the capital and operating budgets for the year ahead, meeting weekly over the next few months....

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Filed Under: City Hall, Environment, Featured, News, Subscribers only Tagged With: Blue Mountain – Birch Cove Lakes Wilderness, Brendan Elliott, Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society Nova Scotia, CFL stadium, Chris Miller, Ecology Action Centre (EAC), Nova Scotia Nature Trust, Raymond Plourde

The ban on uranium exploration and mining is safe – for now

September 25, 2019 By Joan Baxter 1 Comment

After yesterday’s meeting of the Standing Committee on Natural Resources and Economic Development, Nova Scotia’s Uranium Exploration and Mining Prohibition Act seems to be safe. At least for now. The agenda for the meeting, chosen by the Progressive Conservative caucus, was “uranium exploration in Nova Scotia.” There has been a moratorium on the practice since […]

Filed Under: Environment, Featured, News, Province House Tagged With: Don James, Graham Steele, Mining Association of Nova Scotia (MANS), MLA Claudia Chender, MLA Elizabeth Smith-McCrossin, PC MLA Pat Dunn, Peter Oram, Raymond Plourde, Rick Horne, Sean Kirby, Simon d'Entremont, uranium mining

“Hands off our protected areas, and lay off our Crown land”

The proposed Inverness airport will either encroach on or be very near to the Masons Mountain Nature Reserve, a protected nature reserve. It's not the kind of place one wants to have commercial jets “screaming in and out," says the Raymond Plourde, the Ecology Action Centre's wilderness coordinator.

July 21, 2019 By Joan Baxter Leave a Comment

In the past month or so, an awful lot of people — especially people with nothing to gain from a new airport that would serve a couple of luxury golf resorts in Inverness — have put forward more than enough good reasons for both the federal and provincial governments to tell Cabot Links and Cabot […]

Filed Under: Commentary, Environment, Featured, News, Province House Tagged With: Aaron Beswick, Andrew Macdonald, Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA), Ben Cowan-Dewar, Build Cape Breton, Cabot Links airport, Cabot Links financing, Cape Breton Island Airport Community Interest Company, Carlyle Group, Daniel Gallivan, Darlene Grant Fiander, Darrell Dexter, Francis Campbell, Frank McKenna, Inverness Airport, Inverness Beach, Jennifer Alkenbrack, Margaree Environmental Association, Mary Campbell, Masons Mountain Nature Reserve, Mike Keiser, Minister Bernadette Jordan, MP Rodger Cuzner, Neal Livingston, Raymond Plourde, Rodney MacDonald, Steven Joyce, Tom Ayers

McNeil government: if John Perkins doesn’t like being wrestled to the floor at a public meeting, he can file a complaint

May 31, 2019 By Jennifer Henderson 3 Comments

If you aren’t keen on police roughing you up and cuffing you at a pubic meeting, or corporations dialing up the Mounties to act as bouncers, then go file a complaint with one of two watchdogs that investigate actions by RCMP officers. That’s the identical response which Premier Stephen McNeil, Justice Minister Mark Furey, and […]

Filed Under: Featured, News, Province House Tagged With: Atlantic Gold and RCMP, Atlantic Gold public meeting, John Perkins, Justice Minister Mark Furey, Minister Derek Mombourquette, NDP leader Gary Burrill, Nova Scotia Premier Stephen McNeil, PC leader Tim Houston, Raymond Plourde, Serious Incident Response Team, Sustainable Northern Nova Scotia (SuNNS)

Justice Minister Mark Furey hasn’t seen the video of the RCMP arresting John Perkins at Atlantic Gold’s public meeting

May 30, 2019 By Tim Bousquet and Jennifer Henderson 7 Comments

This afternoon, reporter Jennifer Henderson was part of a post-cabinet meeting scrum involving Justice Minister Mark Furey. Henderson relates that Furey was asked about the video of events at a public meeting hosted by Atlantic Gold. The video, which was published by the Halifax Examiner, shows showing an RCMP officer throwing meeting participant John Perkins […]

Filed Under: Featured, News, Province House Tagged With: Atlantic Gold public meeting, John Perkins, Justice Minister Mark Furey, Raymond Plourde, RCMP, Terry Mosher

Winnipeg shows us how drinking can be allowed in public spaces

Morning File, Monday, May 27, 2019

May 27, 2019 By Tim Bousquet 7 Comments

News 1. Atlantic Gold’s spin job “It has been fascinating — but discouraging — watching as Atlantic Gold and the RCMP try to justify the violent arrest of John Perkins at an information session on mine tailings dams and management, which the Vancouver-based mining company hosted last Thursday in the firehall in Sherbrooke on Nova […]

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: Argyle Street, Atlantic Gold information session, Atlantic Gold public meeting, Barrington Street multi-use trail, Cassie Williams, City Hall, David Coles, Diana the goose, drinking outside, Elizabeth May, gender discrimination, Joan Baxter, John Perkins, lawyers, Mary Campbell, Pete Seeger, Prince Andrew, Raymond Plourde, The Forks Park, Winnipeg

RCMP violently remove and arrest citizen at public meeting about gold mine

A security guard working for Atlantic Gold called police to have John Perkins removed from a public information session on the proposed Cochrane Hill mine.

May 24, 2019 By Joan Baxter 20 Comments

The above video is a segment of a longer video taken by author Joan Baxter. To view the full video click here; a more complete version of events is captured by the video taken by Scott Beaver, which is included in whole below. If yesterday’s information session was meant to convince the people of Sherbrooke […]

Filed Under: Featured, News, Province House Tagged With: Atlantic Gold, Atlantic Gold public meeting, Cochrane Hill gold mine, Dustin O’Leary, Élise Franceline Jordan-Rochichaud, James Millard, Joan Baxter, John Perkins, Madeline Conacher, Maryse Belanger, Peter Lightall, Raymond Plourde, RCMP, Scott Beaver, St. Barbara Limited, Sustainable Northern Nova Scotia (SuNNS), tailings dams

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?

May 17, 2019 By Joan Baxter 8 Comments

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 […]

Filed Under: Environment, Featured, Investigation, News, Province House Tagged With: Acadian Mining Corporation, Anaconda Mining, Atlantic Gold Corporation, Atlantic Gold NL, Atlantic Mining NS Corp, Australia gold mining, Barrick Gold, Beaver Dam, Beedie Investments, Cochrane Hill, David Black, DDV Gold, Department of Energy and Mines (DEM), Dorotheé Rosen, Dustin O’Leary, Eastern Shore Forest Watch Association, Ecology Action Centre (EAC), Freedom of Information request, gold mining, Gwalia gold mine, Hannah Martin, Jamie Kneen, Joan Kuyek, JoAnn Alberstat, Jordan Nikoloyuk, Kevin Spencer, LionGold Corp Ltd, LionGold Mining Canada Inc, Lisa Jarrett, MegumaGold, Mining Association of Nova Scotia (MANS), MiningWatch Canada, Minister Lloyd Hines, Moose River, NOPE, Northern shield Resources, Osprey Gold, Papua New Guinea (PNG), Paul Collier, Raymond Plourde, Robert Atkinson, Robert Lang, Ryan Beedie, Scott Beaver, shell game, Simberi gold mine, SpinCo, Spur Ventures, St. Barbara Limited, St. Mary’s River Association, Stacey Gomez, Steven Dean, Sustainable Northern Nova Scotia (SuNNS), tailings, Tim Netscher, Touquoy mine, Transition Metals, Velocity Minerals

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The Tideline, with Tara Thorne

Mo Kenney. Photo: Matt Williams

Episode #18 of The Tideline, with Tara Thorne is published.

Mo Kenney’s new record Covers is a perfect winter companion — songs from across the rock spectrum that she’s pared down to piano or guitar and turned them into sad ballads. She joins Tara to talk about choosing and arranging them, and opens up for a frank discussion of the alcohol dependency it took a pandemic for her to confront. Plus: Movies are back (again).

This episode is available today only for premium subscribers; to become a premium subscriber, click here, and join the select group of arts and entertainment supporters for just $5/month. Everyone else will have to wait until tomorrow to listen to it.

Please subscribe to 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.

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Recent posts

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  • 10 new cases announced in Nova Scotia: new restrictions imposed in Halifax area February 26, 2021

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