Three Halifax schools dismiss students early on Tuesday following “unfounded” threats, while investigations into those responsible ongoing
Last updated: Thursday, May 2Students at Halifax West High near Clayton Park as well as Millwood High in Middle Sackville have been dismissed early for two days in a row this week in response to written threats of potential explosive devices, which police and RCMP are investigating. As of Tuesday afternoon, these investigations are ongoing.…
This weekend in Halifax, there’s a Jane’s Walk for everyone. Yes, you too.
One of the year’s biggest, most consistently fascinating volunteer-led events returns this weekend—and just in time for the good weather. On Saturday and Sunday, May 4 and 5, nearly 20 Jane’s Walks will take place all over Halifax and Dartmouth as part of a global place-making initiative. The walks are named for the late urbanist…
Are you happy?
If you could improve your overall happiness, wouldn’t you? What if it meant daily work? Probably still worth a shot. Based on that notion, five journalism students at the University of King’s College have created a podcast, called If It Makes You Happy. Over a three-episode series they ask volunteers to test out daily “happiness…
Everything you need to know about Mayworks Festival’s 2024 lineup
Halifax’s longest-running workers’ movement festival is back for its 16th year. Starting Wednesday, May 1, the Mayworks Festival will bring visual artists, poets, emcees, actors, quilters and labour organizers together for a 12-day lineup of shows, workshops and exhibits that promises a little bit of everything—and a whole lot to reflect on. The annual festival…
HRM defers abandoning the 2018 Road Safety Framework
On April 25, 2024, Halifax’s Transportation Standing Committee deferred the decision to make a mistake. The Halifax Regional Municipality Road Safety Strategy was on the agenda. Halifax’s new tactical plan to decrease road violence. If passed as written, it will replace the HRM’s 2018 strategic plan to decrease road violence. After a brief update…
Start by apologizing
Brad Johns stepped down as justice minister this week, not because his comments about gender-based violence were stupid at best and dangerous at worst, but officially, “to maintain confidence in government.” What’s most perplexing about this reasoning is that it suggests that when it comes to issues of gender-based violence, there was ever any confidence…
These three Halifax beer gardens are re-opening soon
With a flight’s worth of double-digit temperature days on the horizon, Halifax is finally turning a corner from “holy frig it’s cold” to “ah, yes, that’s what it feels like when the sun hits your face.” (Answer: It feels damn good.) And with the city warming up and May knocking at the door, it’s about…
Enfield’s Classified steps back into the booth for Luke’s View
It’s a sunny day in Enfield, and life is good. Luke Boyd—better known as rapper Classified—is hours away from premiering his newest album, the 11-track Luke’s View, and he’s taking a moment to soak it all in. It’s a rare occasion for the 46-year-old, even in a career that has afforded plenty. Nearly 30 years…
New road safety framework allows increased road violence
On April 25, 2024, Halifax’s Transportation Standing Committee will debate one of the worst strategic plans presented to councillors in recent history. That’s right, the dumpster fire of good governance that is the Strategic Road Safety Framework policy refresh is coming to the Transportation Standing Committee. For those that are unaware, one of the central…
Everything you need to know about HRM council’s April 23 meeting
Happy belated Earth Day to those who celebrate. In honour of Earth Day let’s take a look at how passing the HRM’s budget was likely not sustainable and in its own small way helped expedite the looming existential crisis of global heating. For those who are unaware, there are three main ways companies or large…
Old Man Luedecke is back off the scallop boat—and sounding as new as ever
Old Man Luedecke was feeling his age. It was the long days of COVID-19 isolation, and as the opportunity for live shows dwindled—let alone international tours and festivals—the Chester, NS, singer-songwriter wasn’t sure he wanted to get back on the road. Ditto for the studio, which had been a constant for the JUNO-winning banjo artist…
Restoring an unsung hero: How eelgrass is making its comeback in Nova Scotia
When Trinity Nicholas was a child, she would wade through lush beds of eelgrass off the shores of her home in Pictou County to swim in the warm waters of the Northumberland Strait. Meadows of the green fronds lined the coastline, providing vital habitat for lobsters, crabs, tiny invertebrates and a range of other species,…
Atlantic Canada’s largest queer arts festival returns to Halifax
These are busy days for Isaac Mulè. The Halifax-based artistic director and founder of OutFest—the largest queer arts festival east of Montreal—has been working for months, trading calls and emails with artists across Canada, booking concert venues and readying the stage for what will mark the festival’s third year in Halifax. And the stage is,…
Halifax poised to pass budget focused on the future
Being a sports fan of any team is often an unrequited love affair. For most sports fans, the odds of your favourite team winning are vanishingly small. For the next few years the best odds are in women’s hockey; as the league starts out with an original six. So the odds of seeing your favourite…
Halifax’s Auditor General drops 2024 audit plan
The Audit and Finance Standing Committee met on Wednesday April, 17, and Halifax’s new Auditor General Andrew Atherton told councillors what his team’s priorities are for the coming year. For the capital budget audit, Atherton said that the capital budget is getting bigger year over year, and it also seems like the amount of work…
Halifax Wanderers seek first win of CPL season on the road in Vancouver
It wasn’t the start Patrice Gheisar had been hoping for—though it sure felt familiar enough. On Saturday, Apr. 13, despite a performance in which the Halifax Wanderers held the lion’s share of possession, set pieces and scoring chances, Gheisar’s side found themselves on the wrong end of the scoreline against a familiar opponent: Pacific FC.…
Cruise season is back in Halifax—with newer anti-pollution rules. But how much has changed?
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…
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…
Nova Scotia teachers vote overwhelmingly for strike mandate
On Apr. 11, a record-breaking 98% of teachers in the Nova Scotia Teachers Union–NSTU–voted in favour of a strike mandate. 98 per cent of Nova Scotia teachers vote in favour of strike mandate#nspoli #OurKidsCantWait pic.twitter.com/CGSbuw33P6 — NS Teachers Union (@NSTeachersUnion) April 11, 2024 This means that the union of over 10,000 teachers and educational specialists…
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…
“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…
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…
Everything you need to know about the 2024 Halifax Burger Bash
Alittle more than week ago, we wrote that April in Halifax is marked by three things: Cruise ships, potholes and Haligonians emerging from hibernation. But there’s a fourth thing that really signals spring has sprung in our wind-blasted city. And that, of course, is Burger Bash. For 12 years running, The Coast has teamed up…
Vote of no confidence from SMU faculty union against school’s president and board chair
The union of 292 full-time faculty members and librarians at Saint Mary’s University, SMUFU, has voted 91% “No Confidence,” in SMU’s president, Robert Summerby-Murray, and the chair of SMU’s board of governors, Alan Abraham. pic.twitter.com/wvBxYvI5SU — SMUFU (@SMUFacultyUnion) April 9, 2024 In the union’s press release from Tuesday, they write that the “financial mismanagement” by…
Halifax author Elliott Gish’s Grey Dog will play with your mind
Of all the attempts to summarize Halifax author Elliott Gish’s debut novel, Grey Dog, about schoolmarm Ada Byrd’s unravelling in quiet Lowry Bridge, Canadian novelist Suzette Mayr’s words stick most in the mind. In her review of Gish’s story—a psychological horror that reads as if the Brontë sisters took a page from Stephen King—the Giller…
Don’t take a selfie with Monday’s solar eclipse! says SMU astronomer
On Tuesday, Apr. 2, Robert Thacker was doing his weekly “Science Files” call-in segment on City News’ The Todd Veinotte Show, when a caller asked a practical question about bodies, celestial bodies. The caller wanted to know if they could use their phone’s front camera, the selfie one, to safely watch the solar eclipse as…
Hailey Rose a made-in-Nova Scotia tale of family, inheritance and forgiveness
Sandi Somers knows how to bring a character to the screen. Consider the opening scene in her latest feature film, the family-centred dramedy Hailey Rose: “Some people come into your life as blessings; some come in as lessons,” the family’s tough-nut matriarch, Olga, deadpans to the camera. “Blessings are worth shit all when it comes…
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…
Students use class at King’s as opportunity to express emotions following Oct. 7
“I’m trying to choose my words cautiously,” says Dorota Glowacka, a professor at the University of King’s College. Glowacka is discussing the exceptional moments university campuses have been experiencing in the immediate and prolonged aftermath of Hamas’ violent attack against Israelis, on Oct. 7. Related In October, Glowacka was teaching a course that King’s offers…
Coast readers share their most awkward run-ins with exes
April in Halifax is a time marked by three resurgences: Cruise ships, potholes and Haligonians venturing out of their homes for the first glimpse of sun in weeks. It’s a cold, wet and windy place to live from December through March, which makes Halifax a good place to hunker down if you’re looking for a…
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…
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.…