I could say I told them so — and I did, way back when “them” was still Rodney Macdonald and his Tories, and from then on forward through Darrell Dexter and Stephen McNeil to whatever same-old-same-old will come next — but I’d have to stand in a too-long line behind all the other told-them-so nattering...
Yarmouth ferry operator Bay Ferries wants to stop going to Portland and instead go to Bar Harbor
Morning File, Tuesday, June 5, 2018
News 1. Stop the Cogswell misfire! Today, writes Examiner transportation columnist Erica Butler: …city councillors will convene to decide on what will take the place of the Cogswell Interchange. They will have spent the weekend with a staff report featuring this drawing of a 60 per cent complete design of the new street network, including […]
Everything that’s wrong with the world captured by one statue
Morning File, Friday, April 6, 2018
News 1. Cap-and-trade “Nova Scotia continues to resist a sales pitch from Ottawa to sign on to its system for reducing emissions starting in January 2019,” reports Jennifer Henderson: That resistance comes despite a warning different carbon pricing regimes within Atlantic Canada could drive up administrative costs for companies such as Irving Oil, Wilson Fuels, […]
Stephen McNeil, the offshore windfall, and the royal ‘we’
Last week’s seemingly out-of-the-blue government announcements re: the offshore windfall and the bottomless ferry pit share the same dated father-knows-best worldview of political decision-making in which we, the voters, get to cast our ballots for a myriad of unconnected, disconnected reasons once every four years and then shut up for the next four while the government claims to act in our name.
Stephen McNeil says “we” — and by we the premier certainly doesn’t mean thee or me — “had a healthy discussion” about how to spend a could-be $250-million windfall to the Nova Scotia treasury, thanks to a one-time recalculation of offshore royalties, thanks to a one-time arbitration decision that happened to fall in our favour....
Matt Whitman does something stupid: Morning File, Friday, October 27, 2017
News 1. Sexual assaults Stats Canada yesterday released an analysis of police-reported sexual assaults in Canada. A synopsis of those findings leads the report: Over a six-year period between 2009 and 2014, police reported 117,238 sexual assaults in Canada where sexual assault was the most serious violation in the incident. Almost all (98%) police-reported sexual […]
The company’s not saying, but Bier Markt seems to have abandoned its Halifax plans: Morning File, Tuesday, October 17, 2017
News 1. “Whose Explosion is it, anyway?” Jennifer Henderson reports on a panel discussion held at Dalhousie University last week, which looked at how Halifax was transformed following the 1917 Explosion, and how our collective memory has shifted over time. For instance, reports Henderson: Retired Dalhousie history professor and author David Sutherland asks a pointed question: […]
The politics of economics
What price is too much to pay for the Yarmouth ferry, asks Tim? How much is the cost of a vote, responds Stephen...
In last Wednesday’s “Morning File,” Tim Bousquet walked us through the most recent disappointing passenger counts from the still ongoing, seemingly never-ending bottomless money pit we call the Yarmouth-to-Portland ferry service. (It’s worth noting that Tim got his numbers from that’s-public-information-you’re-entitled-to-know-so-here-you-go Portland, Maine officials and not from our own who-are-you-and-what-right-do-you-have-to-ask-how-your-tax-dollars-are-being-spent buttoned-up Nova Scotia government bureaucrats....
Stephen McNeil and the folly of false choices
“We believe we’ve delivered what is a fair package [for teachers]. If there is more required to be on the table, people need to explain where they want us to get that. Do they want us to take it out of health care? Do they want us to take it away from vulnerable Nova Scotians?” —...
The green episode: Examineradio, episode #79
This week, alongside a number of international military warships and a crap-ton (sorry, crap-tonne) of cruise ships, the Greenpeace Arctic Sunrise docked in the Halifax harbour, fresh off a tour in Nunavut. Examineradio contributor Francella Fiallos took a tour of the boat and spoke with some of its crew members. On Thursday, approximately 60 protesters gathered […]
Mixed metaphors: Morning File, Friday, September 16, 2016
News Views Noticed Government On campus In the harbour Footnotes News 1. Irving The multi-billion dollar ship construction project has started, so what’s the economic impact? “Watch your mail for a glossy, 16-page magazine brought to you by Irving Shipbuilding later this month. Every homeowner in the Halifax Regional Municipality is supposed to get one, […]