As cruise ships go, the Viking Octantis—arriving Thursday in Halifax—is a relative minnow among whales. At 205 metres long and with room for 378 guests, its passenger load could fit 11 times over within the 4,485-passenger MSC Meraviglia—the largest cruise ship set to visit Halifax in 2024. But even the Octantis, small as it may […]
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The Grand Parade podcast: Halifax’s budget season is (almost) over. How did councillors perform?
Halifax council is one week away from approving its 2024/25 budget—a capital plan tasked with both guiding the HRM out of a $105-million shortfall and setting the course for a region on pace to reach 525,000 residents by the end of the year. On Tuesday, Apr. 23, 2024, councillors will review a revised budget that […]
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The power of positive feedback: How one Mi’kmaw community is building toward a net-zero future
For years, members of Glooscap First Nation identified clean energy as one of the community’s top priorities; this summer, the community is taking a major step toward renewable, self-sufficient energy, with a solar-powered microgrid project. Glooscap First Nation is a Mi’kmaw community of about 400 people located in Kings and Hants counties. In 2015, Glooscap […]
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“Never been done before”: Meet one of the women bringing pro women’s soccer to Halifax
Courtney Sherlock has an eye for opportunities. A veterinary doctor and self-described entrepreneur from Fall River, she bought her first ownership stake in a vet hospital in 2013. Two years later, she bought it all. Then started the Village Veterinary Group, opening three more hospitals in the HRM—and eventually earning Atlantic Business Magazine’s honours as […]
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Everything you need to know about HRM council’s April 9, 2024 meeting
This was supposed to be a short council meeting with only five things on the public agenda. But today, like most days, council got derailed by a debate. Ultimately, councillors discovered (again) that councillors’ past decisions, or the decisions of their predecessors, are the reason for most if not all of the issues councillors in […]
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Road salt lowers the risk of deadly collisions—but it’s also killing Halifax’s lakes. What’s the answer?
As Halifax heaves a final sigh of winter this weekend—with up to 20 centimetres of wet and heavy snow expected to fall—the city’s contracted road and sidewalk crews will, almost assuredly, be waiting for one last call to spring into action, plows, shovels and piles of salt at the ready. It’s been a busy winter […]
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Demystifying Halifax’s budget process
After months of meetings—what I’ve been calling the regular season of Halifax’s 2024-25 budget talks—we are finally down to the Budget Season playoffs. One city council. Two days—Tuesday April 2 and Wednesday April 3. An awful lot of talk about something called the Budget Adjustment List. It’s going to be great. The Coast recently polled […]
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Transportation in crisis on the eve of budget playoffs in Halifax
The city has done a lot of good work this Budget Season, and councillors have set themselves up well for the Budget Adjustment List debates—the playoffs of Budget Season—that start Tuesday, April 2. Part of the reason for the city’s success is due to Bedford councillor Tim Outhit, who’s not running for re-election this fall. […]
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Everything you need to know about HRM council’s March 26, 2024 meeting
At this week’s regular Tuesday meeting of city council, multiple councillors wore purple shirts to bring attention to epilepsy. Purple Shirt Day was started in 2009 by a Nova Scotian named Cassidy Megan, who wanted to raise awareness about people living with epilepsy and the challenges they face. It’s a good thing the purple shirt […]
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Halifax Transit planning for a ridership decrease
We’re still in the Budget Season doldrums, the weeks between the end of city council’s regular season of budget debates and the start of playoffs, when the Budget Adjustment List is finalized. So it’s a great time to catch up on a vital piece of budget business that The Coast didn’t fully get into at […]
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The Wanderer Grounds podcast: Where does Halifax fall in the CPL’s pre-season power rankings?
Pre-season in sports is a strange and wonderful time. Like the week after New Year’s Day, it’s the one time of year—maybe the only time—that we give ourselves the grace of a blank slate. The detritus of a team’s past—the wins, the losses, the squandered points, the last-minute heartbreaks—is wiped clean, and for however brief […]
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HRM clears out Grand Parade tent encampment amid calls for better shelter options
Update: In a statement released on Thursday, Mar. 14, the HRM says the Grand Parade is now vacant. The municipality adds that “the one remaining individual” who had remained at the public square earlier in the week “accepted an indoor housing option from the Province of Nova Scotia” on the evening of Mar. 13. The […]
