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The city is tendering for 612 inline skates and related equipment like helmets.

The new equipment should be in place, and ready to rent to the public by July 1, with rentals continuing on until the end of August before switching back to ice skates in the winter.

And The Oval will be used for more then just in-line skating.

“We want to make it open and accessible, a space where you can bring your kids on a bike and walk around on it or jog, and there will be free time for that outside of the skating hours,” says John Henry, the manager in charge of operations at The Oval.

He says to expect for a wider range of programming at The Oval compared to the winter season, as time will be allotted for activities outside of skating.

Exact times have yet to be decided, but Henry wants the new in-line skates to be available for rent for periods throughout the day and evening, and on weekends.

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• City staff looked at these options for the cross-town connector.

City staff wants the proposed cross-town connector re-routed, with bike lanes installed on both sides of Windsor Street. This means the single, connected bike route uniting the north and south ends of Halifax would link Windsor, Vernon and Seymour Streets for cyclists.

The original proposal, in November 2010, named Agricola Street as the best option for the connector. That routing would require the removal of 75 percent of the on-street parking spaces on Agricola, which angered many of the owners of businesses along the street.

But Allison Moz, co-owner of eyecandy SIGNS INC on Isleville Street, supports the original proposal. 

“In terms of layout Agricola is arguably the best route,” she says.

One of Moz’s primary goals is blending business with residential.

“Bikes create vibrant communities, as a business that jives very well with me,” she says.

Moz is aware of the parking concerns of the Agricola route, but says the cross-town connector can help the situation by making other modes of transportation more palatable.

The final decision whether to install a bike lane on Windsor Street will be made by regional council later in the summer. The staff report has been submitted to the Active Transportation Advisory Committee and will be considered at its May 16 meeting. The public is welcome to attend these meetings.

The revised cross-town proposal brings problems of its own. Because the standard width of a bike lane is 1.5 metres, the new recommendation for the CTC will make on-street parking north of Welsford Street no longer possible. Vehicles will be allowed to stop in the bike lane to load and unload, but otherwise only the existing accessible parking spaces will remain.

The Halifax Cycling Coalition doesn’t like the proposed Windsor routing of the cross-town connector.

“From the beginning Agricola has been our preferred route for many reasons,” says Matt Neville, a coalition member. “A number of cyclists already use that route. It can’t be beat!”

“If we just take Windsor there’s a fear that we’re just creating more fragments,” says Neville. “Agricola really presents an opportunity to make a more complete route. Unfortunately the Windsor recommendation falls short. “

Neville says that from a destination point of view, the lack of hills and the fact that there’s currently no buses makes Agricola the best location in all of peninsular Halifax for the connector. He also believes it’s the safest for our two wheeled friends.

Jennifer Watts, councillor for the north end, says no final decision has been made on routing for the CTC.

IBM is using the SAP contract, providing at least $100 million in revenue to the company, as a core operation for supporting a new "global delivery centre" in Halifax, which will bid on other government and commercial SAP work. For establishing the global delivery centre, IBM will additionally receive up to $12.4 million in payroll rebates from the province, over and above the money received for the SAP work.

Still, while we know the general outline of the deal with IBM, the province refused to make the contract itself public. So, late last year, The Coast asked for the contract, and for ministerial briefing notes related to it, through Freedom of Information legislation. After considerable back-and-forth with the Department of Finance, we received a stack of documents this week.

Citing confidentiality, personal and financial exemptions written into the Freedom of Information law, the province has redacted many hundreds of pages in the documents.

The ministerial briefing notes, for example, are entirely redacted. This is becoming regular practice with the provincial ministers: They now routinely claim that they don't need to turn over the briefing notes at all.

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As well, nearly all the schedules to the main contract are completely withheld—hundreds and hundreds of pages, simply removed. And throughout the contract, there are hundreds of other, smaller redactions.

With our first cursory scan of the documents, it appears that if there had been any reference to where, precisely, IBM is to set up its operation, that information has been removed. The company has a temporary office in the RIM campus on Hammonds Plains Road, but it is understood that IBM will in the next few years move to downtown Halifax. We speculate that part of the deal between the province and IBM includes a requirement that the company rent at the Nova Centre complex, in the office tower above the new convention centre. If so, that requirement would serve as an additional provincial subsidy to Nova Centre developer Joe Ramia.

Despite the redactions, there are probably interesting things in the information we did receive. And here's where you, readers, come in. We'd like you to peruse the contract, and tell us if there's anything you find noteworthy, worrisome or worthwhile. You can leave your insight in the comments, or email news editor Tim Bousquet at timb@thecoast.ca.

You can find all the documents we received, here. This is a very large PDF (136MB) and will take several minutes to load.

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It was the Strategic Urban Partnership's Cogswell Shakeup event, which brought in a crowd of private citizens and public officials to hear Cogswell redevelopment ideas from over a dozen groups.

Perhaps symbolically, the crowd ended up jammed together while moving along the winding paths between displays—creating a bottleneck of traffic not unlike what one might see on the Interchange.

There were plenty of nifty concepts on display, including an edible garden, new ferry terminal and open air theatre spaces. Everyone from Dalhousie, to the Shambhala school and even Hal-Con offered up ideas, while large posters featured spaces from other cities meant to inspire Haligonians. Developments like the Kamppi Centre in Helsinki, Place Jean Paul Riopelle in Montreal, and the High Line in New York were all represented.

Whether any of this will lead to tangible plans when the input is taken back to council in the fall remains to be seen, but mayor Mike Savage says he's still excited by the whole process.

“We have to start thinking about what's possible before we say what can't be,” says Savage. “I'm not anybody particularly important in the process. I'm just the mayor. I'm not a planner, an architect, a developer, an artist or any of that sort of stuff. So, it all excites me, and we'll have smart people take the ideas and turn them into what's possible.”

Savage, along with CAO Richard Butts and councillors Waye Mason, Steve Craig and Matt Whitman, took in the fun, flirty atmosphere of Shakeup Cogswell. It was a land development consultation that featured slam poetry, celtic fiddlers and a kids corner where tots could doodle with crayons.

Despite the intense public interest, Peninsula South Downtown councillor Waye Mason says there isn't any additional pressure on the city to get things right in this rare do-over.

“I don't spend a lot of time thinking about the mistakes of the past,” he says. “All we can do as councillors and as citizens is we can look at where are we today, what works and what doesn't work, and what are the best choices to fix what doesn't work?”

The dismantling of the latticed concrete Interchange has been talked about nearly since it went up in 1968. Should Cogswell come down in the next few years, and it certainly seems like the city is committed to that course of action now, 6.5 hectares of public land at the entrance to downtown will suddenly become available.

“I think it's safe to say that now matter what we do at Cogswell, it'll be better than the overpass,” says Mason. “If it was a boring financial sector of 16 towers and no life at night, that's still better than concrete that no one can walk or bike on.”

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The port's senior vice-president, Paul MacIsaac, gave a quick overview of the financials, then vice-president Paul Duvoisin reviewed the growth of the port's container business. The gist of it is that port business has increased, roughly paralleling the recovery of the global shipping industry from the nearly complete shipping stoppage for a few weeks in 2009. Due to some large capital expenditures, however, the port's overall earnings dipped a bit, from $14.5 million in 2011 to $14.2 million in 2012.

Most interesting was port president Karen Oldfield's "walk and talk" presentation. Roaming around the front of the stage, Oldfield addressed some of the challenges and opportunities facing the port.

Oldfield repeated the old port line that Halifax is well-positioned to become a large shipping destination. Pointing at a map that showed the US and Europe, with Halifax represented by a star, Oldfield said that Halifax is "the ham in the sandwich," an oddly un-kosher reference to being positioned between two large economies, the implied take-away being that we can profit immensely because we're roughly half-way between the geographic hearts of both economies. This is also the notion behind the "gateway" concept, which has led to the four-laning of Highway 1 through New Brunswick, a new border crossing at St. Stephen and a proposal for a four-lane superhighway all the way to Buffalo.

The arguments supporting the gateway concept have been repeated ad nauseam by every bureaucrat or crown corporation looking for a federal handout. They've been given academic cover by now-retired Dal professor Mary Brooks, who has written dozens of papers, none that I know of peer-reviewed, promoting the gateway. Here's how Brooks put the geographic argument in 2007:

Canada’s geographic advantage stems from the fact that Shanghai is closer to Prince Rupert and Vancouver than it is to Los Angeles, and Halifax is closer to Antwerp, Belgium, than ports on the U.S. eastern seaboard. Both Vancouver and Halifax are closer to Asian ports than their west and east-coast American competitors—in most cases by a full day or more.

Shippers don't want to go to the closest port—they want to go to the port that's farthest away. More succinctly, shippers want to get to the port that's closest to their ultimate destination, in order to reduce the much more expensive land-shipping (i.e., trucking) costs.

Here's an analogy. Suppose I need to travel from my office in north end Halifax to the Beford police station, and the bus isn't an option. I could drive from my office to a halfway point, say, Fairview. This would be, in Oldfield's words, the "ham of the sandwich." But then, I'd have to walk the rest of the way. Which is clearly ridiculous.

A much better plan would be to drive to as close as I can get to the police station, say, the Bedford Sobey's parking lot, and then just walk the two blocks up to the police station.

I don't want to travel to the ham in the sandwich. I want to travel from one slice of bread to the opposite slice of bread.

In much the same way, a merchant shipping a container from Antwerp to, say, Indianapolis, doesn't want the ship to end up in Halifax, and then pay for a three-day truck shipment the rest of the way. He wants to get that container as close as he possibly can to Indianapolis by ship—which probably means to New York City or Norfolk, Virginia.

Sure, Halifax can optimize its operation, improve its turn-around times, etc. And for the time-being the port of Halifax has some advantage handling deep-water ships. But New York is dredging its harbour, and both New York and Norfolk are investing billions of dollars into their facilities, especially in rail connections to the US midwest. Halifax will never be able to match that kind of investment.

I don't mean to disparage the operation of the Halifax port. I accept at face value that those in charge are doing a well-enough job, and the port will likely always be a significant part of the local economy (albeit if Melford ever gets up and running, they may as well call it a day). Rather, my point is that these fantasies of Halifax as an east coast version of Vancouver are over-the-top ridiculous. It simply won't happen.

Seaport Market

The Seaport issue is too complex to detail here, and Evans told me that the investors will meet May 29 to consider their options. I'll have a more detailed report after that meeting.

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• Bob Brooks' Photographic Portrait of Africville in the 1960s. Source: Nova Scotia Archives http://gov.ns.ca/nsarm/virtual/Africville/archives.asp?ID=6

In 2010, a settlement was made between HRM and the Africville Genealogy Society. The deal included the city-financed rebuilding of the Seaview African United Baptist Church, as well as an official apology for the eviction made by then-mayor Peter Kelly on behalf of HRM.

But Carvery and the Justice for Africville Society reject the 2010 settlement.   

Carvery, a 71-year-old truck driver, was born and raised in Africville, the African-Nova Scotion community which sat on the southern shore of the Bedford Basin. His family has played an important role in Africville history.

The Carvery home sat on eight acres “around the turn”---at the western edge of Africville, past a turn in Barrington Street, near where the container terminal now sits. Carvery remembers Africville fondly, as a thriving tight-knit community where fishing was an important part of daily life. On their land, the Carverys farmed, owning “cows and horse, picks and chickens.”

Carvery left Africville to find work in Toronto in 1961, when he was 18 years old. Through the course of the 1960s, Africville was bulldozed for “urban renewal” purposes. Carvery’s father, Aaron “Pa” Carvery, was the last person to be forced out of his home in Africville, in 1970.

According to Nelson Carvery, his father accepted $14,000 for his house. The eight acres of the elder Carvery’s land were expropriated in five separate increments. The parcels were differently valued. The city decided one was worth a single dollar, while the priciest was valued at $30,000. 

For comparison sake, just across the street from the Carverys’ former eight-acre homestead is a 10-acre lot, with equally spectacular views of Bedford Basin, currently assessed at $4.2 million.

Because Aaron Carvery’s land had been expropriated, when Nelson Carvery returned to Halifax in the early 1970s, he found himself living on Prescott Street, where his father had been moved.

Nelson Carvery’s cousins, the brothers Irvine and Eddie Carvery, have also been involved in the fight to reclaim Africville. Irvine leads the Africville Genealogy Society, which accepted the 2010 settlement with the city. Nelson says Irvine represents just “eight or nine” of the former Africville residents, while the remainder are with his Justice for Africville Society.

For his part, Eddie has for many years squatted permanently in a trailer on the former Africville land, now Seaview Park. Nelson now squats with Eddie part-time, in an act to reclaim the land and raise awareness. Though city officials used to occasionally send police to harass, evict and fine Eddie, Nelson says officials now leave the pair alone.

Nelson Carvery says he has taken the position as spokesperson for Justice for Africville Society because no one else will.

 “A lot of people see the wrong but people don’t know how to correct,” he says.

The 38 plaintiffs specifically want land to be given back, monetary compensation and rights to the water. The group is in talks with a legal firm.

Carvery is asking the public to financially support JAS's legal action against the city. Donations can be made at any branch of the Royal Bank of Canada, directly into the Justice for Africville Society, Branch 02533, Account number 003 100 3888. For more information, email justiceforafricvillesociety@gmail.com

“The lawyers say it’s going to be a lot of money,” says Carvery.

Wednesday is also the deadline to submit an emerging artist to be Halifax Pride’s Featured Visual Artist. This is a new initiative to promote and highlight creative talent in our province.

Additionally, there is an open call for the Halifax Pride Parade Grand Marshal. If you wish to suggest a nominee, the deadline to submit a nomination form is Monday, Monday 20. 

Don't be late as this is a great opportunity for the LGBTQ community.

Ticket sales went through the roof. Games one and two of the series were both sold out. For tonight’s game, fans were lined up as early as 2am to buy tickets that went on sale at 10am. Enter: scalpers, buying tickets at face value and selling them to desperate fans for double or triple the marked price.

But if the thought of spending $200 for seats in the upper bowl has you down in dumps, some Haligonian kijiji users have offered comic relief. There are number of ads parodying typical offers on the website.

“Offering 2 seats on my couch to watch the game on Eastlink," reads one ad. "Clean non-smoking home. You can bring your own beer and put it in my fridge. I will be selling 50/50 tickets to both of you, which guarantees that one of you will win! The seats are $25 each, but if you want to pay $40 each, I'll make them 'all inclusive' and I'll provide the beer and popcorn. Free parking too, right next to the venue. The TV is HD and has surround sound. Washroom facilities on site.”

Another user from Ketch Harbour posts about her voluntary donation of an eye, kidney, ovary, slightly damaged lung or liver for a seat anywhere in the Metro Centre.

Other honourable mentions include someone longing for the winning 50/50 ticket so he or she can afford tickets to go.

There is also a ticket-holder willing to give the ticket for free to an underprivileged or sick child.

Lastly, there are tickets up for $400 but the description states that the ad is a joke and that “people are douchebags trying to make money off people that actually want to see the game.”

Oh, if you happen to be a Drakkar, one Kijiji user has a ticket for you, at face value! But prepared to show ID proving you're from Baie Comeau. "If I do not get any interest from fellow Baie Comeau fans, will rip all the tickets up and go by myself," says the philanthropist.

If you are ticket-less and unwilling to donate organs but still want to show your support for our beloved hockey team, the game will be broadcasted on Eastlink at 7pm.

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• Herm Wills brought ringette to Nova Scotian girls, then tried to deny them the right to abortion. Photo from http://ringette.cansportlive2.com/en-us/oursport/halloffame/hermanwills.aspx

Wills has worked for over 25 years with the Nova Scotia chapter of the national advocacy group, which lobbies all levels of government to “defend human life” against abortions and other "threats to the family."

“Campaign Life supports traditional families, there's no question about that, but we don't impose on anybody. We try to point out the advantages of that,” Wills said when contacted for this story.

A past president of the CLCNS, Wills retired from his position in 1997 but still serves on the board of directors. At the time of his retirement, a press release announced that “Herm's trademark has been a constant stream of pro-life messages and updates to every government member, church leader and community activist whose fax number or e-mail address he could get.”

In the same release, Wills expressed his displeasure towards the state of Canada, and its “appalling expansion” of sex education, “militant homosexual activism” and “virulent anti-family legislation.”

A soft-spoken, polite speaker over the phone, Wills says he tries to offer opportunities instead of imposing intolerance.

“People come to our door in need, we help them. We don't turn them away,” he says, noting that “family life is the first community we have.”

Talking to him, Wills doesn't come off as a raving misogynist. Despite his organization's clear message to legislate women's bodies, he in fact took some time to bemoan the Canadian media's lack of equal coverage of women's sports (in 1974, Wills was responsible for introducing the game of ringette to Nova Scotia).

It's possible Wills has no malicious intent towards women or gays, but organizations like the CLC will often cloak their ideological mission under the banner of "family values," making any opposing viewpoints seem inherently immoral.

“It's frankly laughable, says Jude Ashburn. “I think that putting out some sort of notion of what the family is is really funny in terms of reproductive justice. I mean, whose life are you valuing? Whose family?”

Ashburn, of Dalhousie's sexual and gender resource centre, South House, says phrasing any battle for reproductive rights in terms of “values” misses the point.

“Reproductive justice is not a moral issue. It's a health care right,” she says. “Anyone else is just anti-women and anti-autonomy. It's not a philosophical standpoint. It's not a moral dilemma. It's health care. Deal with it.”

The Campaign Life Coalition recently hosted its 6th annual "March for Life" rally on May 9 in front of the Legislature. The group claims to specialize in political action, identifying and supporting pro-life politicians in all parties. They're currently working against an “anti-bullying” bill in Manitoba which, in part, seeks to create Gay Straight Alliances as "safe spaces" for high school teenagers. The CLC warned its national members that the bill “could force all schools to promote morally depraved sexual concepts,” while also contradictorily reaffirming its stance opposing “bullying against any child for any reason.”

Organized by the public affairs council for the Church of Jesus Christ and Latter Day Saints, the Family Values Awards are being handed out on May 24 at a ceremony in Dartmouth. Other recipients this year include Margit Weschler, who has fostered 40 children since moving to Canada from Germany 17 years ago, and MITE theatre education instructor Janice Cruddas. Messages for the organizers were not returned by press time.

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• Suzanne Roy shows off the Fairbanks Centre patio.

In January, in The Coast’s annual “Fix the city” issue, we called for more concession stands and cafes in public parks. Now, one community group is taking up the challenge.

The Shubenacadie Canal Commission is a non-profit organization charged with stewarding and promoting the Shubenacadie Canal, which stretches from downtown Dartmouth to the Bay of Fundie. The Commission owns the Fairbanks Centre in Shubie Park, and is looking for a vendor to open a cafe or kiosk on the building’s patio, overlooking the canal lock.

“The park is busy,” says commission volunteer Suzanne Roy. “And we noticed that every other person was carrying a Tim’s cup, so we thought this might be a good way to generate a bit of revenue. Also, it would make the Fairbanks Centre a more user-friendly building, and we’d increase visits to the canal museum.”

The commission has asked for expressions of interest. It can provide water and electrical hook-ups, and possibly free wi-fi. “We think this first season a vendor would just want to test the waters, with maybe a kiosk selling ice cream and water,” says Roy. “But down the road we envision a full-fledged cafe.”

Interested parties should email info@shubenacadie.ca, or call (902) 462-1826.

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After two baristas were allegedly dismissed from the roastery and cafe chain for unionizing, labour activists continue pressuring the company with protests and informal boycotts. But for the Spring Garden cafe, business has remained reliable. “Business always slows down this time of year, with the mass exodus of students,” says head barista Stu Cochrane.

Currently, a labour board hearing date has been set for June 27, between Just Us! and the union. However, both parties are still trying to come to an agreement before that date. They’re meeting this week about the two dismissed employees; they’ll also discuss how Just Us! can create a friendly environment for the union. “I’m pretty optimistic at this point,” says Jason Edwards, a union organizer with the SEIU.

Meanwhile, the SEIU keeps pushing back. Backed by the union, three employees filed a new complaint to the labour board on Monday, alleging that the company has repeatedly overlooked work breaks on shifts over five hours. Edwards says the complaint “shows the obvious nature of why people wanted to organize.”

At press time, management hadn’t yet received the document and couldn’t be reached to respond to it. But Cochrane has said that he regularly receives a break on his shifts and that Just Us!’ policy around breaks is one of the best in the food and beverage industry.

“We’re not really sure what they’re talking about at this point because nobody’s putting their cards at the table,” says Debra Moore. “Adversarial stuff just isn’t in my nature. Solutions that are win-win for everybody: that’s my goal. It might be naïve.”

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Neither is the appointment of Honsberger controversial. The pick of the former executive director of the province’s prisons to the police commission might strike an odd tone in a department that is increasingly promoting itself as a progressive voice trying to address the root social causes of crime, and moving away from old-school knock-heads-and-throw-them-in-jail policing, but there’s no reason to think Honsberger won’t perform well on the commission.

Still, whatever else Honsberger may be, he’s not a visible minority. A white man, Honsberger joins five other white men and two white women on the commission.

The racial make-up of Nova Scotia police commissions became an issue in 1989, after the royal commission on the Donald Marshall Jr., case found that an insensitivity to minorities was prevalent in police departments across the province.

“I drafted the entire section on policing for The Marshall Inquiry,” says Don Clairmont, a sociologist at Dalhousie University. “Yes, it included a recommendation about having visible minorities on police boards.”

In the aftermath of the Marshall report, the Nova Scotia Advisory Group on Race Relations suggested “all municipal police commissions be encouraged to reflect the racial diversity of the communities they serve.”

In 1992, then-provincial solicitor general Joel Matheson wrote two letters, one to all the mayors in the province, the second to all the police commissions. “Although the appointment of municipal designates on the boards is clearly the responsibility of municipal councils,” wrote Matheson to the mayors, “I would strongly encourage the consideration of visible minorities. As you know, boards of police commissions have a pivotal role to play in the establishment of policing policy. It is critical, therefore that they be sensitive to the policing needs of all members of the community.”

The former cities of Dartmouth and Halifax both appointed visible minorities to their respective police commissions, as did the newly created HRM in 1996. But the last visible minority on the HRM police commission was Eartha Monard, whose term expired in 2004. Monard, a black woman, was, and still is, the principal of Dartmouth High School.

Three years later, in 2007, Clairmont, who had written the draft for the Marshall report, was hired by then-mayor Peter Kelly to oversee the Mayor’s Roundtable on Violence, and in 2008 published his findings in a report titled Violence and Public Safety in the Halifax Regional Municipality. That report criticized the city for letting the Community and Race Relations Committee become moribund, and pointed out the need for racial sensitivity in the decision-making process.

Clairmont declines to speak publicly about the lack of a visible minority on the commission, because he is currently conducting a review of the Mayor’s Roundtable on Violence, interviewing commissioners and other city officials. He says he doesn’t want to complicate the interview process with his comments.

Mayor Mike Savage, however, acknowledges that appointing a visible minority to the commission wasn’t a consideration until The Coast raised the issue. “It’s on our radar screen now,” he says over the phone from Houston, where he’s attending a conference. “One of things that has occurred to me and other councillors, in the nomination process for boards and commissions, is that we can do a better job in a whole bunch of areas---soliciting applications, how we make judgments as to who should be on them.” The appointments of visible minorities “is something else we have to factor into our decision-making.”

Savage says the city and the police department are doing a better job on the race relations front. “But clearly, we need to consider things we never considered before.

“One of the real measures of effectively dealing with diversity,” continues Savage, “is not just how many people you employ in a certain area, or do you do sensitivity training, but are you grooming people for leadership positions, whether it’s boards or commissions or even running for office. There are a lot of places doing that well, and we can learn from them. I know we can do better.”

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Last Thursday, the Halifax Association of Black Firefighters and the Halifax Regional Fire and Emergency Department officially buried the hatchet, effectively setting aside a human rights complaint the black firefighters had filed against the department.

As The Coast detailed in 2009, the black firefighters' complaint cited a series of racist incidents dating back to 1996 and continuing right up to that point.

The relationship between the black firefighters and the department was acrimonious, but took a decidedly better turn after former chief Bill Mosher retired and current chief Doug Trussler arrived, in 2011.

"It was my very first order of business," Trussler tells The Coast. "We're going to address that human rights complaint."

By all accounts, Trussler has presided over a sea change in racial relations at the department, which started an 18-month series of meetings cumulating with a "reconciliation circle" Thursday at the north end YMCA. Present were members of both HABFF and the recognized union for the department, Halifax Professional Firefighters/International Association of Firefighters Local 268, as well as representatives of the department, city legal and human resources staff and from the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission.

There, Trussler read an apology to the black firefights. This was part of a broader agreement that also involved the adoption of a restorative plan by the city and the dropping of the human rights complaint by the black firefighters.

At the circle, each party of the circle spoke at length about repairing relationships and moving forward with a better understanding of the issues at play in the past.

The truth and reconciliation process is becoming increasingly important in Canada, perhaps best illustrated by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, which held hearings in Halifax to detail the wrongs committed at the Shubenacadie Residential School. The foundational premise of the process is that the wrongs of the past have to be named and detailed, before victims and the society that has wronged them can build a more just relationship.

Trussler's apology was certainly heartfelt and welcomed by HABFF, but it hits nowhere near the level of detail found in most reconciliations. It relies on weasel phrases like this:

When allegations of poor treatment were brought forward by individual firefighters and the Association of Black Firefighters, the allegations were not addressed as effectively as they could have been; allowing old hurts to reopen instead of heal.

In any fire service, the standards of behaviour are established at the top of the chain of command. I apologize for our failure to bring a swift end to any discriminatory behaviours you experienced in the workplace.

Of course, it's not up to newspapers to decide these things. The black firefighters themselves accepted the apology and clearly want to move on, continuing their jobs and setting the bad blood with the department behind them.

Still, there's one black firefighter who feels re-victimized by the reconciliation.

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• Blair Cromwell

Cromwell says now that originally the HABFF agreed not to settle their human rights complaint unless Cromwell was hired back into the department.

"I know Blair feels bad," said HABFF rep Ray Adekayode Thursday. "But there's nothing we can do for him."

Chief Trussler declined to discuss Cromwell with The Coast, but acknowledged that Cromwell will not be offered his job back.

There seems to be a double standard at play. Trussler's apology makes vague reference, no doubt vetted by city lawyers, to problematic actions at the "top of the chain of command," but the specifics of Cromwell's past sins have been enumerated in enough detail to first get him fired, and now un-re-hirable.

"Racism is violence," says Cromwell, and certainly the various targets of racism are going to respond in different ways, some more "acceptable" to the racists than others.

This part of the reconciliation is awkward, and mean-spirited. Now that the apology has been issued, at least obliquely acknowledging past racism towards the black firefighters, including against Cromwell, it's as if the city and the department are saying to Cromwell: "your response to our racism was unacceptable."

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• Dianne Swinemar

“I felt like a proud mother the day I realized a former student had her own business,” says Swinemar. “That's the reason why you keep doing it.”

Swinemar won’t be doing it for much longer, though. She announced her plan to step down as executive director last Tuesday, effective June 2014. The search for her successor will begin after the board revisits the job description.

“There will be some time that will overlap,” she says. “There are a lot of people here who make this place hum: the staff, the volunteers, the donors and other supporters. I'll try and introduce them to as many people as possible, and then just step aside and let the new person take over.”

Swinemar says she’s tired, and now just feels like the right time.

“It’s going to mean a huge hole for that organization,” says Kathy Large, program manager at CBC Nova Scotia. Large helps organize the annual Feed Nova Scotia Day and the Sharing the View Calendar Project, which collectively raised over $260,000 for the food bank last year alone.

“It’s not just a job with Dianne; it’s a calling,” Large continues, “but we wish her a great retirement; she’s certainly earned it.”

In addition to her position at Feed Nova Scotia, Swinemar helped found Beacon House Interfaith Society and sits on the committee for the Nova Scotia Leadership Prayer Breakfast, among many other projects. But just because she’s retiring, doesn’t mean she plans to disappear.

“I'd like to get involved in a couple boards that deal with issues I feel very close to,” says Swinemar. “That, and enjoy my grandson.”