I’m Courtney Morrison; I’m halfway through a master’s in Resource and Environmental Management, and Tim’s #1 favourite bartender (source needed).
News
1. Halifax daycare worker charged with sexual assault of a child
Twenty-year old Mitchell Casavechia from Kids and Company has been charged with sexual assault and sexual interference. The Chronical Herald indicates Casavechia turned himself in to police on Thursday and will appear in provincial court at the end of October.
2. Southern vacations may be impacted by that pesky category-five hurricane
As you may have heard, Hurricane Irma has wreaked havoc on the Caribbean, killing 36 before even reaching Florida. As of this morning, 10 fatalities have been confirmed across the US. Hurricane Irma has also taken a significant toll on Maritimer’s vacations, as a series of tone-deaf travellers have indicated. CTV reports:
“It’s such a beautiful place and we didn’t want to leave, but I do understand it was a risk to our lives to be there,” says Baranowski.”
and:
“We’re grateful to be home,” says Desiree… “Sad that our trip was cut short because of Irma, but thankfully we’re safe and out of it.”
3. Cape Breton’s new washplant
In related news, Cape Breton’s beautiful Donkin coal mine has begun its on-site coal processing operations. Donkin began production in March of this year, “more than 15 years after the fossil fuel was last cut from a rock face beneath the island” and will churn out over 350,000 tonnes of coal by the end of this year.
The province has really been leaning into coal production as of late, and in light of current hurricane events, I can’t help but close my eyes and sigh dramatically. Climate change is here, folks, and with the highest carbon content among all fossil fuels, coal is a massive contributor. With climate change comes an increased occurrence and intensity of weather-related natural disasters. More coal = more people stranded at Disneyland. It’s science.
4. Theatres and history
Stephen Archibald writes an ode to the Oxford Theatre, and along the way veers off to talk about the old Capital Theatre (photo above) which once sat where the Maritime Building now is.
The walls of the Capital were plastered with paintings supposedly showing the founding of Halifax. Writes Archibald:
[…The] murals included the Coming of the Loyalists, and the Shannon and Chesapeake entering Halifax Harbour. Interesting to note that all these murals celebrating our British heritage were installed the year before the controversial Cornwallis statue was erected, just down Barrington Street.
This recalls Tim’s piece on the erection of the Cornwallis statue in 1931:
The same day, the paper reported that $1,000 had been raised towards the erection of a monument to Col. Arthur Noble in Grand-Pré by the Grand-Pré Battlefields Commission. Noble is the Massachusettsian who led the successful Louisburg Expedition, and then was killed alongside 75 other English soldiers in the Battle of Grand-Pré.
Raising memorials to the builders of empire was in vogue in 1931.
Tim linked the erection of statues to the distress of the Depression:
Another speaker at the lunch, the obstetrician/historian Dr. Webster, told the group that “we Canadians must stand on guard for Canada and watch and guard jealously against anything which may cause disintegration or social unrest which may come about.”
As the global economy was collapsing into the deepest days of the Depression, “social unrest” and revolution were a real threat. In the minds of the wealthy and powerful assembled at the Natal Day luncheon, the best way to guard against “social unrest” was to “preserve for future generations … an outward and visible symbol” of empire — the statue of Cornwallis.
Curiously, the murals on walls of the Capital weren’t enough to save the theatre — maybe, just as erecting representations of empire were a Depression thing, saving those representations of empire is a 21st century thing; no one cared until now.
Those who wanted to save the Oxford should have painted murals of Cornwallis all over the walls.
Government
City
Tuesday
Heritage Advisory Committee (Tuesday, 4pm, City Hall) — I (Tim) am just being lazy by posting these agendas without comment, but here’s another one.
Halifax & West Community Council (Tuesday, 6pm, City Hall) — and again.
Wednesday
Regional Watersheds Advisory Board (Wednesday, 5pm, Alderney Public Library) — and here. Update: Rescheduled to September 20.
Province
No public meetings for the rest of the week.
On campus
Dalhousie
Tuesday
Policy Matters: Is Nova Scotia Ready for the Atlantic Immigration Pilot?(Tuesday, 12pm, Rowe 1009) — A panel discussion examining demographic trends and opportunities around immigration in the region as key to growth.
Non-Locality, Contextuality, and Topology (Tuesday, 2:30pm, Room 319, Chase Building) — Kohei Kishida will present this, a joint work with Samson Abramsky, Rui Soares Barbosa, Ray Lal, and Shane Mansfield.
150 Years or More of Data Analysis in Canada (Tuesday, 7pm, Theatre B, Tupper Medical Building) — David Bellhouse of the University of Western Ontario will speak.
Wednesday
E-commerce Supply Chain (Wednesday, 10am, MA 310) — Vikas Bawa will speak on “Integrated Consolidation Optimization in E-commerce Supply Chain Networks.”
Kaffeeklatsch and Book Fair (Wednesday, 2pm, Fireside Lounge, McCain Building) — Free German books! Desserts and beverages! Bring a re-useable mug and shopping bag.
In the harbour
5am: Atlantic Sky, ro-ro container ship, arrives at Fairview Cove from Liverpool, England
7:20am: Algoma Dartmouth, oil tanker, moves from Pier 22 to Duke’s Dock
7:30am: Mein Schiff 6, cruise ship with up to 2,700 passengers, arrives at Pier 22 from Sydney
10:30am: Tortugas, car carrier, arrives at Autoport from Southampton, England
4pm: Maersk Matsuyama, oil tanker, arrives at Irving Oil from IJmuiden, Netherlands
4pm: Atlantic Sky, ro-ro container ship, sails from Fairview Cove for New York
6:30pm: Mein Schiff 6, cruise ship, sails from Pier 22 for New York
9pm: YM Essence, container ship, arrives at Fairview Cove from New York
Very important correction: It’s DisneyWORLD not DisneyLAND
I assume the statue or monument to Col. Noble was never in fact erected at Grand-Pré ? I’ve been there but don’t remember it — not that I couldn’t have missed it or forgotten it, of course. I’m aware that there is a monument to New England planters inappropriately placed near the deportation cross, but I can’t remember anything to a Col. Noble.
There is a monument to Col. Noble and the attack in Grand-Pré, but it’s on the main road heading towards the park. As to the Planters monument being near the deportation cross, I’ve had more than one Acadian tell me that it’s symbolic of the way that the Acadians and the Anglais get along today–nearby, aware of each others history, and living/working together. Not everyone is offended over everything.
I am of planter descent on my mother’s side, Annapolis County. I find the location of the planter monument offensive. So you can add my view of things to your “more than one person tells me” narrative.
Love the sardonic tone.
Cornwallis statue.
It should be mentioned that 1931 saw major changes to the constitution of Canada as the UK met with its ‘Dominions” in the Empire and at the Statute of Westminster it gave up residual powers over the rights of parliaments such as Canada’s. The Dominions had become “autonomous communities … equal in status to Great Britain”.
This marked recognition of Canada’s supreme authority over its own affairs except for the power to alter its own constitution (Canada could not agree among its own governments) prior to 1982 – when unanimous agreement was still not attained. Matters relating to the referral of questions to the UK Privy Council was abolished in 1949; definition of Canadian citizenship as separate from that of British status defined in 1947.
The erection of the statue in Halifax can therefore be seen as an underlining of the British origin of Canada and Nova Scotia. The connection to the Crown at a time of the breaking a major legal link is commemorated with a recognition of the growth and maturity of the links with Britain.