A staff report coming to Thursday’s meeting of the Transportation Standing Committee is proposing several improvements for passenger safety in Halifax taxis. The report recommends an in-depth review of the city’s taxi industry be conducted by outside consultants to study potential technology upgrades like video surveillance, GPS tracking, car shields, emergency alarm buttons and passenger […]
Jacob Boon
Posted inNews + Opinion
Poet laureate heartened by council’s Cornwallis vote
While Halifax Regional Council was debating the legacy of Edward Cornwallis on Tuesday afternoon, Rebecca Thomas was following along from the other side of the country. The municipality’s poet laureate is in Vancouver this week, competing in the Canadian Individual Poetry Slam. So she wasn’t able to attend Tuesday’s council meeting, where it was approved […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Panel of experts to review use of Cornwallis name
Halifax will finally get some truth and reconciliation on its controversial founder, Edward Cornwallis. On Tuesday, Regional Council voted 15-1 to assemble a panel of experts to review and recommend changes on how HRM commemorates Cornwallis. The motion from Halifax West Armdale councillor Shawn Cleary also asks for recommendations on how the city can better […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Police still looking for $8,900 in misplaced cash
Progress is being made tracking down thousands of dollars that went missing from the police department’s evidence control system. Halifax Regional Police has located over 90 percent of the $104,289 in cash evidence that couldn’t be found in last summer’s drug exhibit audit. In an update to the Board of Police Commissioners on Monday, chief […]
Posted inArts + Music
Is the downtown big enough for two cultural hubs?
Two projects aiming to create cultural hubs in the downtown will both depend on public funding, but organizers for the renovated Khyber building and Culture Link Inc. aren’t worried about stepping on each other’s toes. Earlier this month the newly created Culture Link Inc. announced plans to convert the former World Trade and Convention Centre […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Bayers Lake medical centre site called inaccessible
The retail wilderness of the Bayers Lake Industrial Park “severely lacks” the transit and accessible infrastructure needed for the province’s new outpatient centre, say planning advocates. On Thursday the provincial Liberal government announced it had purchased 15 acres of land in the BLIP as part of the redevelopment of the ageing QEII Health Science Centre. […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Halifax CAO apologizes for harassment text
The city’s chief administrative officer has apologized to HRM employees for an inappropriate text message he sent to a subordinate. “As CAO, I should have known better and not assumed that I had permission to communicate about a matter unrelated to work,” writes Jacques Dubé, in an email sent out Thursday afternoon to all city […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Science March offers global warning
When politicians ignore climate change, scientists will change the political climate. This Saturday, on Earth Day, thousands of scientists and supporters in cities across the world will be marching against what advocates say has been a war on evidenced-based public policy. The largest event will take place in Washington DC—a mass protest against Donald Trump’s […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Chronicle Herald buys all TC newspapers in Atlantic Canada
In one of the biggest Atlantic Canadian media stories in recent memory, the Chronicle Herald has purchased all of Transcontinental’s 28 newspapers, websites and four of its printing plants. All of Transcontinental’s media outlets in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador have been sold and will operate—along with the Herald’s […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Council Report Card 2017
There’s a new council in town. Last fall’s election went and disrupted the political DNA at City Hall. Some heavy hitters—at least in terms of career lengths—are gone from council chambers and a new team of fresh, young faces are finding their footing and taking over the city’s reins. It’s a strong group that already […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Cornwallis naming debate will return to council
Rebecca Thomas’ words have not fallen on deaf ears. The city’s poet laureate delivered a powerful message this week, and it’s inspired city council to reopen a heated debate about how Halifax commemorates its controversial founder. Thomas appeared at City Hall to perform her poem, “Not Perfect,” at the start of Tuesday’s council meeting. The […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
CAO harassment complaints still shrouded in secrecy
The public has no right to know about an ongoing controversy surrounding Halifax’s top bureaucrat, says councillor Bill Karsten. “You embarrass yourself for even talking about it,” Karsten told reporters Tuesday at City Hall. Chief administrative officer Jacques Dubé has been dealing with a harassment complaint made against him by a senior manager over a […]