Hi, I’m Joan Baxter, a Nova Scotian journalist and author. Some of my books are actually quite upbeat, proving that I’m not always a bearer of bad news. News 1. Abandoned tidal turbine Jennifer Henderson updates the situation of the abandoned tidal turbine in the Minas Basin in this article for the Examiner. After a […]
Shawn Cleary’s betrayal of voters
Morning File, Wednesday, June 27, 2018
News 1. Shawn Cleary I’m taking a mapping class at the Journalism school this week. It’s pretty cool! I’ve always wanted to get into mapping beyond simply using Google Maps, and in recent years new software programs have become available that allow people without extensive tech backgrounds to manipulate GIS databases and make maps. About […]
The contradiction of being Councillor Cleary
Shawn Cleary is the chief flag-waver for the city's most unpopular high-rise proposal — and its developer. But he refuses to accept campaign donations from developers, and is promoting municipal campaign finance reform. He dismisses the significance of the fact the developer's chief lobbyist is a good friend, yet he is spearheading a proposal for a municipal lobbyist registry. Only in Halifax you say...
“We don’t build buildings because of public opinion. We build them for good planning… And so I think this is a good thing for us… In terms of the design, I think we’ve mitigated most of the concerns…” —Councillor Shawn Cleary June 19, 2018 Shawn Cleary’s suitcase of sophistry requires a little unpacking. Councillor Cleary […]
The Desmond file: belatedly untangling the threads that led to a murder-suicide
Finally, last week — just a few days before the first anniversary of the deaths — Dr. Matt Bowes, Nova Scotia’s chief medical officer, announced he was recommending an official inquiry to better understand how what happened happened and, more importantly, “to make our system better..."
One year ago tomorrow, on January 3, 2017, 33-year-old Lionel Desmond parked his car on a logging road in Upper Big Tracadie, NS, just as the sun was setting. Armed with two rifles, including an SKS semi-automatic Soviet military weapon he’d bought a few days earlier at an outdoor sports store, he made his way...
Northern Pulp bullies Canada’s biggest bookstore chain, wins… and then loses
The good news is that the mill’s heavy-handed attack on freedom of expression and the bookseller’s own cowed response appear to have backfired. The bad news is that, “in 2017, a company can use its power to shut down a book signing in a small bookstore in a small town.”
Joan Baxter’s personal Northern Pulp story begins on “one of those stunningly clear, blue-sky mornings that nature sometimes bestows on Nova Scotia.” It was June 2, 2016, and Baxter had decided to start the day with a run near her home in Colchester County, NS. But as soon as she stepped outside, “the air was...
UARB fails to protect whistle-blowers, punish wrong-doing bus company
The UARB decision doesn’t appear to punish Stock Transportation for firing its whistle-blowers or do anything to get Bishop and LePage their jobs back, let alone making the company pay a real price for its egregious behaviour as the province's largest designated operator of buses intended to carry school children.
Last week, the province’s Utility and Review Board issued a scathing, 180-page decision accusing Nova Scotia bus operator Stock Transportation of “repeatedly operat[ing] its public passenger vehicles, including its school buses, as it wished and contrary to the Acts, rules, regulations, its licenses, and orders; even drivers’ safety regulations.” Stock not only ran an unlicensed...
Channelling Kimberly McAndrew: Morning File, Friday, November 17, 2017
“The parole board has again refused to release a Nova Scotia man jailed in British Columbia for sex crimes who is a suspect in cold case murders,” reports Chris Lambie for the Chronicle Herald: Andrew Paul Johnson, 58, is deemed a dangerous offender. […] In 1998, sources told The Chronicle Herald that Johnson was a […]
The Canadian Taxpayers’ Federation, the Paradise Papers, and taxpayer interests
So far as I can tell, the Canadian Taxpayers' Federation has not uttered even a single shocked-and-appalled tweet about the revelations in the Paradise Papers, or demanded that Ottawa begin collecting all those billions in lost revenue. So who does the Canadian Taxpayers' Federation really represent? Who are its members? Who funds it… really? And why are its spokespeople always popping up in the mainstream media pretending to speak for Canadian taxpayers — while ignoring their real interests?
Quick now. What has the Canadian Taxpayers’ Federation (“a citizens’ advocacy group dedicated to lower taxes, less waste, and accountable government”) had to say about all those revelations of tax-sucking, financial jiggery-pokery uncovered in the Paradise Papers? Sorry. Time’s up. You win. Nothing. They’ve said nothing. We’ll come back to that. On November 5, 2017, […]
Winning, losing, and Jamie Baillie
While I don’t believe Baillie should have won last spring’s provincial election, he probably should not have lost either. If he hadn’t — if Stephen McNeil’s Liberals hadn’t barely sputtered across the majority finish line four long hours after vote counting began — Jamie Baillie probably wouldn’t have considered leaving a job he’d only recently begun to grow into.
Many years ago, probably after an election campaign he’d just lost that he believed he should have won, I interviewed then-Nova Scotia Liberal politician Gerald Regan. He was in a philosophical mood. “Victory and defeat,” he told me, paraphrasing a Rudyard Kipling poem, “are equal imposters. Sometimes you lose when you should win; sometimes you...
Masuma Khan and the question of free speech
University codes of conduct, which generically prohibit “unwelcome or persistent conduct that the student knows, or ought to know, would cause another person to feel demeaned, intimidated or harassed,” will inevitably smack up against the academy’s ultimately more fundamental role as protector of free speech and encourager of vigorous debate. The question is what were Khan's defenders defending?
Should the vice-president of the Dalhousie Student Union have faced even the whiff of disciplinary action from the university’s administration for a less than genteel Facebook exchange she had with some constituents? The short answer is no. The long answer is still no. But… Let’s circle back for some context. On June 28, 2017, the […]
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