In this article, Part 1 of a two-part series about the state of the public’s “right to know” in Nova Scotia, the focus is on what happened when the Halifax Examiner submitted a Freedom of Information (FOIPOP) request to the province about whether it would agree to protect the French River watershed — the water […]
Atlantic Gold’s lobbying blitz
The company is now in court on charges of harming the environment, regulators are casting a wary eye at its plans for future environmental protection, and investors are getting worried, so Atlantic Gold has hired a lobbyist to fast track federal approval of its Nova Scotia projects.
Last year it was a propaganda blitz. For several weeks in the spring of 2020, Atlantic Gold, which operates an open pit gold mine in Moose River in the Halifax Regional Municipality and wants to open three more along the Eastern Shore, bombarded people in Nova Scotia with its PR. Atlantic Gold’s owner, Australia’s St […]
Mining for (public) dollars
The Mining Association of Nova Scotia (MANS) has created a new organization called the Minerals Research Association of Nova Scotia (MRANS) with the aim of leveraging still more provincial grants to further enrich global mining companies — and their local operatives.
In the beginning, by which I mean 2007, there was the Mining Association of Nova Scotia, also known as MANS, an appropriate acronym for an industry lobby group with a 17-member board of which 15 are men. It should be said, however, that MANS is not registered with the Nova Scotia Registry of Lobbyists, although […]
Nova Scotia government doubles down on gold mining
There were moments during last week’s “Water Not Gold” rally outside the Alt Hotel at the Halifax airport where the “Gold Show” was in progress, when I was reminded of a video from 2011 during Occupy Wall Street. That footage shows protestors marching along Wall Street, calling out money barons, greed, and the neoliberal system […]
Cheques for mining propaganda, but not for corporate registry
The lobbyist group Mining Association of Nova Scotia receives a lot of public money from the province, and yet it is in default for its provincial registration fees.
About a week ago, one of this province’s most active investigative citizens, Stacey Rudderham, contacted me to say she “got curious” when she heard that uranium exploration, which has been prohibited in the province since 1981, was back on the provincial agenda, after the Progressive Conservative caucus decided to it should be discussed by the […]
The ban on uranium exploration and mining is safe – for now
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 […]
After the gold rush
Nova Scotia is ignoring the toxic legacy of past mining manias while rushing headlong into the next
If learning from past mistakes were a government tradition in Nova Scotia, the current government would not be exhibiting all the symptoms of gold fever. But it is, and it looks like a raging bout of the affliction. In the past few years, it has amended legislation based on recommendations made by the industry’s cheerleader-in-chief, […]
Electronic Frontier Foundation recognizes the Nova Scotia government and Halifax police for their role in tech transparency
Morning File, Monday, March 11, 2019
1. SNC-Lavalin “There is an unanswered, barely whispered question at the heart-attack centre of the SNC-Lavalin scandal now dumping buckets of freezing rain on Justin Trudeau’s sunny ways/sunny days parade,” writes Stephen Kimber: And that question is this: what would Andrew Scheer or Jagmeet Singh have done differently? Click here to read “What would Andrew […]
Shambhala leader sexually assaulted a Chilean woman, published account alleges
Morning File, Thursday, July 12, 2018
News 1. Detailed allegations of sexual assault by Shambhala leader Carol Merchasin is one of the authors of the “Sunshine Report” that examined allegations of sexual assaults by Shambhala leader Mipham Mukpo, who goes by the title Sakyong Mipham. Tuesday evening, Merchasin updated one of the accounts in the Sunshine Report, as follows: Within 24 hours of the […]
We spent millions of dollars on the Argyle Street reconstruction project and forgot to put in washrooms and water fountains
Morning File, Friday, July 6, 2018
News 1. Cabinet shuffle This item is written by Joan Baxter. Nova Scotia’s Department of Natural Resources (DNR) is no more. Yesterday, Premier Stephen McNeil’s Liberal government renamed it the Department of Lands and Forestry (not, however, Lands and Forests, something lamented by the insightful Facebook page devoted to Nova Scotia’s “Woods and Water”). Timberlea-Prospect […]