A year after discovering a half-million-dollar case of vendor fraud, HRM’s procurement policies remain dangerously unguarded. In a report presented Wednesday to the Audit and Finance committee, auditor general Evangeline Colman-Sadd says the municipality’s oversite of contracts and tenders needs “significant improvement.” Twenty percent of the 94 procurement files reviewed by the Office of the […]
Jacob Boon
Posted inNews + Opinion
City hall employees protest racism in the workplace
The municipality admits it’s not going a good enough job in creating a diverse and supportive work environment, and is promising—once again—to do better. The acknowledgement comes after 20 public employees demonstrated outside City Hall on Tuesday in protest of racial discrimination inside HRM’s workforce. The mostly African Nova Scotian group was speaking out against […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Cornwallis Street Baptist Church is now New Horizons
The former Cornwallis Street Baptist Church will now be known as New Horizons Baptist Church. Members voted on the new designation, which still needs to be approved by the Registry of Joint Stocks, after service this past Sunday. “The intent of the name change is to identify ourselves by a name that better reflects the […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Breach teen is free!
The teenager who helped expose Nova Scotia’s embarrassing cybersecurity fail is a free man. Halifax Regional Police have concluded an investigation into the data breach of the province’s Freedom of Information web portal and have determined there are no grounds to lay charges. “This was a high-profile case that potentially impacted many Nova Scotians,” CID superintendent […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Early designs for NSLC cannabis locations draws criticism
One of the potential suppliers for NSLC’s new cannabis stores says the closed-off retail design being constructed does little to reduce taboos around the soon-to-be-legalized drug. Mock-ups for the retail cannabis stores were included in a PowerPoint presentation shown to potential suppliers in March, a copy of which was provided to The Coast. The designs […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
The once and future Pavilion
It’s Saturday night at the Pavilion and music fans of all ages have gathered for the kind of performance most of the young crowd wouldn’t usually be able to attend if it was at any other space in town. In a bar-dominated city like Halifax, most performance venues tend to be 19-plus. For youth who […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Jamaican Cultural Association wants official apology from Smith-McCrossin
The Jamaican Cultural Association of Nova Scotia wants an official apology on the floor of the Legislature from Elizabeth Smith-McCrossin. A press release from the not-for-profit says JCANS representatives recently met with the Cumberland North MLA about her comments that legalizing cannabis could make Nova Scotia unproductive like Jamaica. During a debate on Nova Scotia’s […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Three more NSLC stores to sell cannabis
The market’s not even open for business yet and the province is already expanding its territory. There will be three more NSLC stores selling cannabis this fall, bringing the total number of legal weed retail outlets in Nova Scotia to 12. “Since we announced the first nine stores that would sell cannabis, NSLC has been […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Forestry review needs further review
The province will have to wait a little while longer for an independent review of its forestry practices. The hotly anticipated report from University of Kings College president Bill Lahey—which will advise the government on environmental and economic improvements in forest management—is nearly complete but in need of some additional input. The province announced Monday via […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
11 more security failures discovered in Freedom of Information database
In addition to a Halifax teenager’s computer, eleven other IP addresses downloaded 900 public-facing documents containing private information from the province’s Freedom of Information web portal this past March. The additional leaks were disclosed Monday as part of an overall update on the FOI privacy nightmare that’s engulfing the department of Internal Services. The Freedom of […]
Posted inLifestyle
Halifax in the weeds on cannabis regulation
This city needs a lot more muscle if it wants to control the legalized drug game. 
On Tuesday, Halifax council voted to create a municipal framework for cannabis to help fill in some of the blanks on what exactly the municipality’s role will be once the plant is legalized for recreational use this fall. Councillor […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Council split on budget approval
It’s a bit of a bad news story if you ask Tim Outhit. Council approved HRM’s billion-dollar 2018-19 budget on Tuesday after some three hours of debate, with Outhit and fellow councillor Shawn Cleary being the only two votes against. The financial plan increases the average tax bill in Halifax by 1.975 percent—about $37 per single-family […]
