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The Wayne Hankey case

When former King's College professor Wayne Hankey was charged in an historic sexual assault case earlier this month, it raised questions about what happened — and why — after he was accused of similar behaviour 30 years ago.

February 14, 2021 By Stephen Kimber Leave a Comment

I can still remember where I was when I heard the news: in the Senior Common Room at the University of King’s College, staring across the quad at the beautiful, new, soon to be opened university library. At the time, which was the spring of 1991, King’s was still small enough that faculty meetings were […]

Filed Under: Commentary, Featured Tagged With: historic sexual assault, sexual assault, Wayne Hankey

Shrubsall: no guarantees

Serial sexual predator William Shrubsall was sentenced to more prison time in New York last week. How much more? That depends. Not on our parole board, which failed abysmally. But on the willingness of women like T. C., K. C., and Tracy Jesso who continue to make sure Shrubsall's past — and his potential for harm — will not be forgotten.

August 2, 2020 By Stephen Kimber

T.C. was there, or as close as Skype could bring her last Wednesday to a courtroom in Buffalo, NY. So, too, were K. C. and Tracy Jesso. They had gathered to watch — and to bear silent victim witness — as NY Supreme Court Justice Richard C. Kloch, Sr., sentenced William Chandler Shrubsall to two-to-six...

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Filed Under: Commentary, Featured, Subscribers only Tagged With: justice, Parole Board of Canada (PBC), sexual assault, William Shrubsall

“Insufficient grounds”

Susie Butlin repeatedly pleaded with the RCMP to intervene to stop her neighbour Junior Duggan from harassing her. The police took no action. A friend says an RCMP officer told Butlin her allegations against Duggan made her, not him, a "menace to society." Three days later, Duggan killed Butlin.

June 18, 2020 By Joan Baxter 3 Comments

Since September 2017, when her best friend, 58-year-old Susan (Susie) Butlin, was shot and killed in her home at Bayhead, near Tatamagouche, Suzanne Davis has been in pain. Davis still thinks about her friend — whom she’d known since kindergarten — all the time. She says if they didn’t speak on the phone three times […]

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: Bible Hill, Councillor Mike Gregory, El Jones, Jeanne Sarson, Judge Al Bégin, Junior Duggan, Linda MacDonald, peace bond, Portapique, PTSD, RCMP, red flags, sexual assault, Susan Butlin, Suzanne Davis, Tatamagouche, violence against women

Portrait of slavery in Canada

Morning File, Thursday, June 11, 2020

June 11, 2020 By Suzanne Rent 6 Comments

News 1. McNutt pleads guilty to sexual assault offences This item is written by Tim Bousquet. Yesterday, Michael McNutt pleaded guilty to offences related to the sexual abuse (and one assault) of 34 boys over the course of 20 years. McNutt was facing 90 charges; the remainder of the charges will be dismissed at sentencing […]

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: Annapolis Group, art history, Atlantic Canada, Barry Lord, Bedford, Birch Cove Lakes – Blue Mountain wilderness, Black history, Black History Month, bubble, Cait, Canadian history, Charmaine Nelson, Chinese, city park, councillor Richard Zurawski, COVID-19, cultural stigma, David Fraser, Dennis Reid, Dr. Robert Strang, François Malepart de Beaucourt, fugitive ads, Jacqueline Cho, Jamaica, Korean, Marie-Thérèse-Zémire, McGill University, Michael Patrick McNutt, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia Black history, Nova Scotia COVID-19 Health Research Coalition, P.E.I., Portrait of a Haitian Woman, Premier Denny King, Premier Stephen McNeil, privacy lawyer, Quebec, Richard Zurawski, Saint John, Saint John Police, sexual assault, ship merchants, Sir Robert Borden Junior High, slavery, Transatlantic Slavery Studies, Twitter sucks, West Indies

Coming to terms with the complicated legacy of Gerald Regan

How do you reconcile the contradictory facts of our 19th premier's life? You probably can’t. No matter what you write, you’re either rinsing Regan’s black heart in the cleansing stream of his passing or dancing gleefully on his grave. Most news reports I saw got it about as right as those complicated realities — and our changing times — allowed. Premier Stephen McNeil didn't.

December 1, 2019 By Stephen Kimber 5 Comments

“I think you know every Canadian knows you’re guilty. And you can take that to your grave!” Court spectator Mark Iich Shouted at Gerald Regan following his acquittal December 1998 As the author of “that book about”… I spent much of last week being interviewed by journalists, all of whom — like me — were […]

Filed Under: Commentary, Featured, Province House Tagged With: #MeToo, Gerald Regan, sexual assault, Stephen McNeil

Child care workers go round and round with bus complaints

Morning File, Friday, September 20, 2019

September 20, 2019 By Suzanne Rent 3 Comments

News 1. Blackface Writes El Jones: When the furor over Trudeau’s Blackface photos dies down, to be referred to as an “embarrassing incident” or “controversial,” Black people like Abdilahi Elmi will still be facing deportation. Muslim Canadians will still be on the no-fly list. White nationalist editorials will still be commissioned by major newspapers under […]

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: African Nova Scotians, Africville, anti-Black racism, Boat Harbour, bus drivers refusing service, Chad Lindsay, charity, charity and social media, Count Me In, Emma Davie, Erin DiCarlo, food banks, Francis Campbell, Halifax Transit, International Decade for People of African Descent, Joseph Farrow, Julianne Harnish, Kate Gilmore, Lisa Cameron, Minister Tony Ince, Northern Pulp environmental assessment, piano lessons, Pictou Landing First Nation (PLFN), political speed dating, Premier Stephen McNeil, Serious Incident Response Team (SIRT), sexual assault, The Nook

In praise of First Girls

Labelled sluts, throwaways, trouble makers, and trash, First Girls paved the way for sheltered girls; First Girls needed to be heard, but no one knew how to listen.

April 28, 2019 By El Jones 5 Comments

Cassie joined our French class in Grade 9. She sat in front of me. I was drawn to her because of how proudly rude she was to the teacher. “What is that in French?” the teacher asked her, and she shot back, “Shouldn’t you know? You’re the teacher.” I was a child from a strict […]

Filed Under: Commentary, Featured Tagged With: First Girls, sexual assault, speaking and naming, trauma

Verdict without end

More than 20 years after former Nova Scotia premier Gerald Regan was acquitted of sexually assaulting multiple women, other women are still coming forward with still more stories of what he did to them, still needing finally "to be heard." Including "Catherine."

April 15, 2019 By Stephen Kimber

I shouldn’t be surprised. Not after Me-too. But I am. Still. It happens more often than you might suppose. I’ll be attending a public event, and someone will come up to me. “Aren’t you the guy who wrote that book, the one about…?” Yes, I am, but it was published 20 years ago. “My sister…...

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Filed Under: Commentary, Featured, Province House, Subscribers only Tagged With: #MeToo, Gerald Regan, Me-Too, sexual assault

Here’s the stadium lie: it will pay for itself

Morning File, Wednesday, February 6, 2019

February 6, 2019 By Tim Bousquet 11 Comments

News 1. Here’s the stadium lie: it will pay for itself There’s a big long Canadian Press article written by reporter Dan Ralph that quotes Anthony Leblanc at length about all things Atlantic Schooners, but mostly about his plans to play in Moncton while he strong-arms Halifax into building him a stadium. Then Ralph gets […]

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: Amanda Jess, Anthony Leblanc, Atlantic Schooners, blackface, Blake Jackson trial, Brett Bundale, CFL stadium, Charles Vinick, Dalhousie Faculty Association, Dan Ralph, El Jones, Justice Christa Brothers, Lawrence Story, Lori Marino, Peter MacKinnon, Ralph Northam, Sean McCarroll, sexual assault, stadium financing, Tax Increment Financing (TIF), Thomas Singleton, Valor SR, Whale Sanctuary Project

Gerald Regan and the legacy of our #MeToo moment

It isn't the jury's verdict from 1998 we should be remembering today, but the fact the RCMP and prosecutors finally chose to believe women over one of the country's most powerful political men. And, more important, that women — lots of them — stood up for other women, and said #MeToo.

December 17, 2018 By Stephen Kimber

“Members of the jury, have you agreed upon your verdicts?” The court clerk asked her rote question with a wavering, tell-me-don’t-tell-me tone that seemed to capture perfectly the nervous, nerve-wracked mood among the more than three dozen men and women sitting in the Halifax Law Court’s Courtroom 3-1 on the blustery afternoon of December 18,...

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Filed Under: Commentary, Featured, Province House, Subscribers only Tagged With: #MeToo, Gerald Regan, justice, sexual assault

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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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  • A sidewalk runs through it February 25, 2021
  • The French Connection February 24, 2021
  • Not in their backyard: Halifax councillors throw out neighbours’ appeal of five-storey development February 24, 2021

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