On a muggy morning which promised a heat warning in the afternoon, Halifax’s auditor general turned up the heat early in council chambers at the Audit and Finance Standing Committee meeting of July 17, 2024. The city’s AG, Andrew Atherton, put the city’s feet to the fire as he dropped two reports, The Management of […]
News
Posted inNews + Opinion
In Labatt’s north end brewery, the water will flow like beer
The sun is beating down, the UV index is high, temperatures are sky-rocketing and the people, well, the people are thirsty. In other words: it’s beer time. Breweries around Atlantic Canada are pumping out beer like water, with the exception of one, that is actually pumping out water like beer. The Oland Brewery in the […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
The Regional Watersheds Advisory Board is gone. What’s next?
As of the city council meeting on July 9, Halifax’s Regional Watersheds Advisory Board (RWAB) has been canned. The volunteer board had been mandated to support the environment subcommittee with advice, though according to some members of the board, communication with this subcommittee didn’t exist. These members—Céofride Gaudet, Sue Belford, and Martin Willison—announced on […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
HRM passes road safety strategy allowing for social murder
In the name of road safety, urged on by “professional” traffic engineers, Halifax’s city council have approved a little bit of social murder. Social murder is a bit of an old concept first defined by Friedrich Engles in 1844 in his book The Condition of the Working Class in England and more recently reported on […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Two weeks after being attacked on Argyle Street, this couple is still waiting for answers from the police
On June 23, Emma MacLean and her girlfriend Tori were attacked—verbally and physically—by a group of young men in the early morning hours on Argyle Street. When The Coast reached out to Halifax Regional Police (HRP) to request an interview about the attack, Const. Anne Giffin said: “an assault occurred at approximately 1:50 a.m. on […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Halifax downgrades road safety framework
On Wednesday, June 19, Halifax’s Transportation Standing Committee met and watered down the city’s Strategic Road Safety Framework. During the debate, the HRM’s newly promoted executive director of Public Works, Lucas Pitts, told councillors that this new plan was an upgrade because it was a “systems-level approach” to road safety. When debating the new framework […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
City staff go rogue, ignore council’s instructions
There was an item added to Tuesday’s council meeting and it was a bit of a stinker. As reported by the CBC there’s nowhere for the poop in septic tanks to go anymore. The one place close to the HRM in Hants no longer has space to accept everyone’s feces so now septic companies will […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Bodycams are coming to Halifax
After a few years of research city staff and the cops have figured out what is required for Halifax Regional Police to get body worn cameras. Body worn cameras are coming to Halifax with the RCMP and thanks to the direction given to police from the Board of Police Commissioners, the Halifax Regional Police are […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
HRM cuts independent experts from policy making
Halifax’s city council is trying to modernize governance in the HRM. For those who have never really thought about how your government actually functions to shape your life, one main way legislative change happens is through the work of committees. In very general terms the role of a committee or board is to read a […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Wonder Women converge on Halifax
With men in powerful positions running amok, if ever we needed a superhero to swoop in and save the world, it’d be now. Luckily, there were over 800 of them crammed inside the Halifax Convention Centre on Friday. They wore different disguises—stilettos, blazers, wide rimmed glasses—and went by different aliases—communications manager, non-profit director, family lawyer—but […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
HRM messes up paperwork, bullies old man
In a part of Dartmouth that will soon be known as Port Wallace there’s a guy who runs a construction company. The company in question was founded by his father in the 1970s and when his father died the son continued on with his father’s business. The son is now a man in his 60s […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Learning from the land with the Mi’kmawey Debert Cultural Centre
A class of Grade 5 students from Truro Elementary wondrously inspected replica Mi’kmaq artifacts and practised firing arrows in a small clearing surrounded by trees. To Mi’kmaq educator Gerald Gloade, this is how children should learn about their culture and history. The class had come out to the Mi’kmawey Debert Interpretive Trail on Tuesday afternoon […]
