The biggest worry for any municipal politician is increasing property taxes. Budget season is often the only time many voters will think about regional council; the most important voting bloc are homeowning seniors; and the pressure to limit property tax (which funds most of HRM’s budget) is intense. In Nova Scotia, limits to property tax […]
Opinion
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
Don’t listen to spreadsheet patriots
Like many of you, I raised a quizzical eyebrow reading “51st state of mind,” Michael Kennedy’s recent opinion article in The Coast. His arguments for Nova Scotia’s exit from confederation are purely financial, an exercise in citing percentages and decimal points that, in my opinion, neglects the people at the heart of the issue: Nova […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
51st state of mind
It seems increasingly likely US president-elect Donald Trump will impose a tariff on Canadian exports when he is inaugurated. If his threat of a 25% tariff comes to fruition, it will decimate Nova Scotia’s economy. If it doesn’t, we may have avoided a new disaster, but we still have the current one: an affordability crisis, […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
An incumbent politician speaks about intimate partner violence
As a woman, mother and health critic for the NSNDP, I am writing in response to Liz LeClair’s important article about making intimate partner violence (IPV) a larger issue in this current provincial election. As a caucus of mostly women and gender-diverse people, we in the NDP have been pushing to declare IPV an epidemic […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Breaking the silence on a Nova Scotia epidemic
Four years ago, the province of Nova Scotia was the site of the largest mass casualty event in Canada’s history. This event was sparked by intimate partner violence, IPV, and ended in the killing of 22 innocent Nova Scotians—including an unborn child. Families and communities were shattered by this event. The then-leader of the opposition, […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Angry property owner taking public land hostage? Dartmouth Cove isn’t the first time
Months after Transportation Canada said it would rescind its approval of a pyrite infilling project in Dartmouth Cove, Atlantic Road Construction and Paving Ltd. installed barriers blocking the nearby trails on Wednesday—a threat that ARCP will start work despite a lack of approval. It began with ARCP installing a safety fence. Later on Wednesday, […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
The Grand Parade podcast: Who wields the most power with Halifax’s Housing Accelerator Fund plans?
Some good news on Halifax’s housing front: Construction is booming across Nova Scotia—and the bulk of those new units underway are in the HRM. In the first three months of 2024, the province saw more housing starts—2,158 units—than in any other first quarter in its recorded history. It’s about time. Related Both Halifax and Nova […]
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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 […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
The Grand Parade podcast: HRM still not learning its lessons about road safety
Last October, Halifax’s Transportation Standing Committee had a lengthy discussion about road safety that, if recent history gives any indication, went rather poorly. It started with a presentation from the HRM’s director of traffic management, Lucas Pitts. Pitts told the committee that in 2022, Halifax’s streets saw 11 fatal crashes and 776 more that resulted […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
We asked: How would you solve journalism in Canada?
Don’t become the story…don’t become the story….don’t become the story. This journalism-school adage for reporters feels as important as it is impossible to avoid amid yet another round of mass layoffs across the media industry. Earlier this month, Bell Media made the “garbage” decision of cutting 4,800 jobs across all levels of the company—the media […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Let’s have a look at Tim Houston’s worst verbal blunders as premier, shall we?
Never mess with a Cape Bretoner. That memo seemed to have missed Tim Houston’s office last week, when the Nova Scotia premier publicly pondered whether Cape Breton Regional Municipality’s choice to declare a state of emergency—one the region issued in the wake of historic snowfall that, quite literally, blocked some residents into their homes—was “just […]
