There’s no official contest to determine which of Halifax’s business units’ budgets is the most depressing, but if there were, Halifax Regional Fire and Emergency would be annual contenders. In more than any other business unit, Halifax’s bad decision-making is most evident in fire chief Ken Stuebing’s $98-million fire department budget. Like they have been […]
City
Posted inNews + Opinion
What’s next for Bloomfield?
Mountains of rubble piled high on Thursday morning at the same site where, less than a week ago, the former Bloomfield School stood. A hydraulic excavator sat parked inside temporary fencing off Agricola Street, its engine running. All around it, work crews shuffled about, cleaning up the wreckage from a weekend fire that tore through […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Halifax mayor vacations in the Caribbean as council debates homelessness
Last week, most of Halifax’s city council tried to debate the future of public safety services in the HRM. Only they were missing one key voice from those discussions: The mayor’s. While council waded through a bevy of issues over the course of two days, ranging from emergency response times to Halifax’s approach to homelessness, […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Councillor Purdy asks city about integrating the Integrated Mobility Plan
Halifax’s aspirational and hopefully one-day transformative plan to solve congestion in Halifax got an assist from one of its biggest opponents this week, at Halifax Regional Council’s regular Tuesday meeting. Halifax’s Integrated Mobility Plan has not been implemented very well since first being passed in 2017, because city staff just can’t help themselves from prioritizing […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Council approves capital budget, staff corruption
Halifax’s municipal council doesn’t normally meet on Fridays, except during budget season. That’s when Fridays are held open as a contingency meeting day, to be used as necessary when the debates about how to spend Halifax’s $1 billion-plus budget go long. This year, councillors are asking good questions to ensure that things are settled with […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Council sends police tank to budget playoffs
Right off the gate on Friday’s continuation of Wednesday’s Halifax Capital Budget debate, councillor Shawn Cleary took the police tank out of budget and put it on the Budget Adjustment List (BAL). For new followers of municipal budget season, the budget adjustment list debates are the playoffs of budget season. Throughout the budget season […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
The high cost of low taxes
Halifax’s budget committee meeting on Wednesday, Feb 5 was spicy. The meeting, which is technically still on-going and will resume Friday, Feb 7 at 9:30am, started this year’s budget debates and officially kicked off budget season. This year Halifax is expected to have a budget of $1.3 billion, and the revenue gap is $69 million. […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Halifax Alehouse, HFX Sports Bar & Grill facing demolition
Three months after the Halifax Alehouse poured its last draught, the pub—and the 132-year-old building it called home—could soon meet its end with a wrecking ball. Months after the property and its neighbouring bar, HFX Sports Bar & Grill, changed hands amid a homicide investigation involving an Alehouse bouncer and the two venues’ forced closures […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Police board still dodging blame for 2021 shelter siege
Five months after a bombshell report laid the blame for Aug 18, 2021’s shambolic shelter siege at the feet of Halifax Regional Police and the HRM, the oversight board that’s supposed to police the former on behalf of the latter seems to want nothing to do with it. On Monday, Feb 3, Halifax’s Board of […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Trade war, transportation, and you: A Halifax budget season preview
At the 11th hour, a temporary ceasefire deal was reached in the dumbest trade war in history. Hostilities between Canada and the USA are set to resume next month. Should the cold trade war become hot, it will have catastrophic impacts on the Canadian economy, although since most of our economic models are designed to […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
What’s with Andy? Frustrated Fillmore turns to Facebook after losing Windsor Exchange vote
One thing has become rather clear in the three months since Andy Fillmore was sworn in as Halifax’s latest mayor: The man does not like to lose. Can’t accept it, it seems. Since taking over from Mike Savage on November 6, 2024, riding a campaign where the former Ottawa backbencher claimed 42% of the mayoral […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Halifax city staff’s status quo sedition
One of the most important things revealed at Tuesday’s council meeting, although it slipped by pretty quietly under all the headlines about the death of the Windsor Street Exchange, was the extent to which staff in the city’s bureaucracy are undermining the will of council and the integrity of our municipal democracy. But that’s pretty […]
