On my way to work this morning I noted a work crew had begun cutting down trees in the Urban Wilderness Park in the Dartmouth Common, behind the Sportsplex parking lot. This is the beginning of construction for the new, expanded Bridge Terminal, which will stretch from Nantucket Avenue to Thistle Street, consuming most of […]
Tim Bousquet
Posted inNews + Opinion
Mayor Peter Kelly declares next week “Right to Know Week”
I don’t know if I should laugh or cry: That’s right: because “Halifax Regional Municipality is dedicated to the principle of open and transparent government and is accountable to the citizens it serves,” mayor Peter Kelly has proclaimed next week “Right to Know Week.” That of course is the very same mayor Peter Kelly who […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Details of Phase 2 of Halifax stadium study released
Last week, we reported that Halifax’s top bureaucrat, Richard Butts, had awarded the contract on Phase 2 of the stadium study just one day before council was to vote on a motion that could have killed the awarding of the contract. Media folk rightly concentrated on the questionable optics of Butts’ decision, but left untold […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Driven to death
When I was in college, I worked as a cab driver to supplement my loan money. It’s a difficult job, with long hours, uncertain income and dangerous conditions—statistically, driving cab is more dangerous than being a cop, firefighter or soldier. I stopped driving soon after another driver in my town was shot. Haligonians have a […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Bridge Terminal construction finally starting by “end of month”
Work on Dartmouth’s Bridge Terminal should begin by the “end of the month,” city officials say. This is the first public acknowledgement that an important contract has been signed for the much-delayed Metro Transit bus station. Quebec firm Pomerleau was awarded the $12.1 million contract for construction earlier this month, just after the provincial Department […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Canadian convention business is lagging
When Texas-based professor Heywood Sanders came to Halifax last November and spoke to city council about the state of the convention business, he was treated shabbily as a CFA who doesn’t know anything about Halifax. One objection that was raised several times was that Sanders might know a lot about the convention centre business in […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Richard Butts joins the old boy network
Richard Butts, the top bureaucrat at Halifax City Hall, previously worked for the city of Toronto. When Halifax council hired him in March, it was widely hoped that his outsider perspective and big city professionalism would help cut through the traditional old boy network that so corrupts local politics, but just six months later Butts […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Billion dollar Bayers Road/102 project will destroy Halifax transit forever
The widening of Bayers Road is not just a bad idea, it’s a horrific idea. Quite literally, if the Bayers Road/102 widening project moves forward, it will utterly destroy any hope that HRM will ever have an effective transit system. It will cost us about a billion dollars for construction, then untold billions more to […]
Posted inFood + Drink
Drinking with Kijiji
Drinking paraphernalia: Twenty-seven-piece double-shot checker set. On Monday, there were no fewer than four of these “shot glasses on checkerboard” games for sale locally. Price: $40 Worth the risk factor: +1 DIY alternative: You can get a checkerboard and shot glasses for five bucks at Goodwill, and avoid dealing with the Kijiji seller/poisoner. Sure, the […]
Posted inFood + Drink
Barchaeology
In times past, every bar worthy of the name had some sort of bar artifact —a bartifact—on the premises, a conversation piece, a nod to tradition, an indication that this particular bar is a drinking establishment, a timeless place tied to its unique iconography. Alas, today’s bars have mostly lost the habit, but in hopes […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Dartmouth High School surrounded by construction
Students returning to Dartmouth High School Tuesday found the school to be a construction zone, with a gaping hole in the building, one entrance completely blocked off by a fence and piles of building materials and the other two entrances flanked by machinery and debris. Doug Hadley, a spokesperson for the school district, says the […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Government equity stakes in Nova Scotia governments
The following information is related to today’s editorial: Equity stakes through Economic and Rural Development: Composites Atlantic: $4 million in preferred shares; ERDT has an observer on its board of directors DSTN Trenton: $19.6 million in common shares; ERDT has a director on its board of directors ACF Equity: $3.07 million in common shares; ERDT […]