After Nova Scotia Lieutenant-Governor Arthur LeBlanc performs his ceremonial and socially distanced laying on of hands at the Halifax Convention Centre on Tuesday morning — instantly transforming Iain Rankin, the twice-elected MLA for Timberlea-Prospect, into Iain Rankin, the suddenly unelected premier of all he surveys — our 29th premier will get a first chance to...
When is a management fee a profit margin, and does calling it either make it any less a boondoggle?
Lawyers for Bay Ferries and the provincial government were in court last week arguing we should not be allowed to know how much the province is paying Bay Ferries not to operate a ferry between Yarmouth and Maine. Only in Nova Scotia, you say.
On Thursday, lawyers for the McNeil government and Bay Ferries Limited appeared before Nova Scotia Supreme Court Justice Richard Coughlan to dissect the deliberative differences between a “management fee” and a “profit margin,” and to make clear that, in either case, neither is any of our business. The subject before the bar is a secret...
Lloyd’s Ferry Fairy Tales, Spring 2020 edition
Instead of waiting for the inevitable end to a ferry season that will never begin, why doesn't the government simply stop pretending, cancel its subsidy to Bay Ferries and redistribute those millions to local tourist operators who really need help? And then begin contemplating a different, more sustainable, less uncertain future for rural Nova Scotia.
My. Oh my. Really? You don’t say. Lloyd? Again? Still. Do tell. No, wait, please don’t… Last Thursday, for the first time since the provincial government declared us all in a state of suspended animation in March, our politicians came back out to play with reporters — at a politically safe distance, of course. After...
Is ‘Idle Some More’ back for another season?
It's the end of February, so it must be time for Bay Ferries to announce the start of this year's summer sailing season between Yarmouth and Bar Harbor. And for the rest of us to ask if it will really happen this year.
Shall we begin a new round of our favourite game show, “Idle Some More: 2020 Edition.” On Friday, Bay Ferries pinned the tail on June 26 as the official start-up date for this year’s summer ferry service between Yarmouth, NS, and Bar Harbor, ME. Well… not definitively pinned. That’s just its “planned” start-up date. If...
‘Tis the season to say something positive
I had been hoping to say something positive about Stephen McNeil’s government — it is, after all, the season — but as soon as I could consider it, his government inevitably did one more something that was so bone-headed, so egregious, so cringe-worthy, I couldn’t help but revert to my natural nattering-nabob-of-negativism self. And yet...
I had been hoping to say something positive about Stephen McNeil’s government — it is, after all, the season of speaking positively — but as soon as I began to put electronic keyboard to computer-screen praise, his government inevitably did one more something that was so bone-headed, so egregious, so cringe-worthy, I couldn’t help but...
A non-existent service is Nova Scotia’s top attraction
Morning File, Wednesday, December 4, 2019
News 1. Cassidy Bernard’s ex-boyfriend arrested for her murder Yesterday, RCMP announced second-degree murder charges against 20-year-old Austin Isadore. He is accused of killing Bernard last year. Isadore was her ex-boyfriend and is the father of Bernard’s twin daughters. An unbylined CBC story says: Janey Michael, who is president of the We’koqma’q Native Women’s Association, said she’s […]
Northern Pulp owes the province $85 million
Morning File, Monday, November 18, 2019
Philip Moscovitch told me yesterday that I buried the lede when I announced a couple of weeks ago that I’ve been hired by the CBC to write and host a podcast series about the wrongful conviction of Glen Assoun. So here it is right in the lead (let the lede v lead wars begin): I’ve […]
The curtain falls on this year’s ferry follies… but there’s always next year
Transportation Minister Lloyd Hines had to sort-of admit his ferry universe hadn’t unfolded exactly as planned, or… well, at all. “We're really disappointed on behalf of the operators that we haven't been able to mount a season…” On behalf of the operators?! The operators are making out like bandits. What about the rest of us?
So it’s finally, Thanksgiving-ly, over. For now. We hope. But don’t hold your breath. And do hold on to your wallet. Tightly. “There will not be any commercial crossings in 2019,” Mark MacDonald, the CEO of Bay Ferries, emailed a CBC reporter Friday in response to his question about whether the Yarmouth-Bar Harbor ferry would...
If we build it, will they come?
The stadium that refuses to die has returned. Last week, HRM released most of its private sector proposer's pitch for public sector funding to make its dream of a CFL team reality. But it's worth asking ourselves: what else could/should we spend that $180 million over the next 30 years on?
“Premier Stephen McNeil reiterated Thursday that no money from general revenue will go toward a stadium.” Uh-oh. Not “uh-oh” that our premier told the Chronicle Herald he didn’t intend to pluck any money out of our general revenue and dump it into the latest $110-million stadium-in-the-sky scheme, but “uh-oh” that he qualified his no with...
Watch Mayor Mike Savage and HRM councillors’ chucklefest with Atlantic Gold
Morning File, Monday, September 23, 2019
News 1. Climate change action This week people around the world are stepping up activism around the climate emergency during the UN climate action summit in New York. A list of local events can be found here. 2. What to do about Justin? Writes Stephen Kimber: Last week’s Blackface/Brownface controversy raises the complicated question of […]
- 1
- 2
- 3
- …
- 6
- Next Page »