News

There are so many things to say about the Trade Centre fiasco that it’s hard to know where to start. But maybe we step back and look at the global picture. There’s obvioulsy an unclear vision and purpose for the Trade Centre; it basically comes down to “let’s give Fred MacGillivray a bunch of money […]

Tuesday, regional council adopted a $580 million operating budget for the 2008-09 fiscal year. The police budget was bumped up by $1.5 million ($2.6 million next year) in order to expand the force by 32 officers. Crime stats are notoriously spun, politicized, racialized and, when it comes down to it, utterly meaningless—a talented bureaucrat or […]

Reportedly, Torontonian Lou Reznick has purchased the two Barrington Street buildings that until last year housed Sam the Record Man, adding to his other holdings on the street: the Roy Building (the former Dooly’s), 1556 (Attica), 1668 (just to the north of the Granite Brewery) and 1717 (Peepshow Girly Boutique). Since he is the dominant […]

During budget deliberations at Tuesday’s council meeting, several councillors suggested zeroing out the travel budget, which would bring about a savings of $928,000—$615,000 for out of town travel plus $313,000 for travel to “conferences and workshops”—for one year. That’s travel for both council members and staff, but it was pointed out that travel for staff’s […]

The provincial legislature convenes today (Thursday). Last spring the leg met for just 18 days, a brevity record it broke in the fall with a 16-day session. I held a series of off-the-record conversations with party insiders and analysts this week and the consensus seems to be that this session will be much the same. […]

“I know there are horrible things written about me on the internet,” Phil Pacey tells me as we talk in the Heritage Trust’s Barrington Street office. “I don’t read it.”As president of the trust, Pacey is in the unpopular position of opposing parts of the new HRM by Design process, which has been spun and […]

My job over the next few years, I fear, is to document exactly how Nova Scotia refuses to take global warming seriously. It’s true that last year the legislature passed the Environmental Goals and Sustainable Prosperity Act, which mandates, as law, that we meet a greenhouse-gas emission reduction target of 10 percent below 1990 levels […]

Caterpillar, Inc. announced last week that it was shifting its Halifax operations to Norfolk, Virginia. The Caterpillar loss follows last year’s departure of major shippers China Shipping and Maersk from Halifax. So now, we’re seeing major infighting among major port figures.
 First, Merv Russell, the former chair of the Halifax Port Authority, publicly blasted leadership […]

Halifax council supposedly uses its secret “in camera” meetings only for discussion of land sales, legal matters and personnel issues, but last Tuesday it met all day behind closed doors to discuss $13 million in federal funding for mass transit and voted to use the money on the Bedford fast ferry. 
 Several councillors cried […]

After heated debate over process, city council Tuesday voted to get the public’s input into the so-called “tax reform” initiative developed by the Tax Reform Committee. But it’s an open question whether the public will understand the profoundly radical shift in public policy being proposed. It will affect everyone, from apartment dwellers up to the […]

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When it comes to transit, Haligonians overwhelmingly support it—for somebody else.
 A GPI Atlantic transportation study released Wednesday shows that 90 percent of Halifax urbanites and suburbanites live within 500 metres of a bus stop, but only 12 percent actually ride the bus. Private vehicles travel three billion kilometres a year in Halifax—8,000 km per […]