Halifax cyclist eyes record-setting ride from Alaska to Argentina
Ashleigh Myles is not fazed by long hours in the bicycle saddle. The Halifax-based bike technician co-created the Tip 2 Tip Nova Scotia endurance race, a 1,000-kilometre haul from The Hawk Beach on Cape Sable Island to Cape Breton’s Meat Cove, in 2020. And then she went out and set the record for its time-trial…
Bill 12 includes policy that could violate university workers’ rights
A controversial bill affecting university funding in Nova Scotia is being revived. Amendments to the old bill will change how schools enter crisis-planning mode. If passed, the province can require a university in financial trouble to follow a “revitalization plan” as a condition of funding. The amendments are included in a new omnibus bill–Bill 12–called An…
Where to buy groceries during Trump’s trade war on Canada
Update: After initial negotiations on Feb 3 led to Donald Trump delaying the imposition of tariffs for a month, the Cheeto-in-Charge announced they were back on the table earlier this week, taking effect on Tuesday, March 4. In the wild weeks since convicted felon and US president Donald Trump first threatened a sweeping 25% tax…
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Sophie Rain’s OnlyFans Journey: From Viral Newcomer to Top Earner
Sophie Rain OnlyFans – a name that shot to prominence in late 2024 – exemplifies the new wave of internet-made celebrities. The 20-year-old Florida native transformed from a little-known content creator into one of OnlyFans’ highest earners within a year. Sophie’s rapid rise on the adult subscription platform has sparked equal parts admiration and controversy.…
Will council end driving subsidies and let Halifax Transit succeed?
Halifax Transit gave its budget presentation late on Feb 20 and early into Feb 21, on days two and three of the budget debates about Halifax’s operations business units. Even as Halifax Transit is bringing back routes lost to COVID and adding $1 million in new spending, its annual budget is down $7.9 million. All…
“Stories to tell”: Halifax Black Film Festival shines spotlight on local filmmakers
Andre Anderson can still recall the feeling of watching Ava DuVernay’s 13th for the first time. The Preston-raised African Nova Scotian actor—and now filmmaker—had been so moved by the 2016 documentary on the US prison-industrial complex that he screened it for his classmates at Saint Mary’s University. Then again at the Marquee Ballroom. Anderson says…
Meet the Halifax DJ celebrating the city’s underground dance scene
Taylor Mooney remembers the first underground dance party she attended. The Prince Edward Island-born electronic/house DJ had recently moved to Halifax from Ottawa, when she got an invite to a secret gig that a friend was hosting. Even now, a few years later, she won’t say where exactly the gig went down. (“Can’t blow up…
Windsor Street redesign is dead; long live the Windsor Street redesign
Much like that other saviour, Jesus Christ, the Windsor Street Exchange redesign project came back to life at Tuesday, Feb 25’s council meeting after a brief period of being dead. Last month, council crucified city staff for not prioritizing council’s priorities in the new design for the Windsor Street Exchange and rejected staff’s proposal. One…
See all the nominees for the 2025 East Coast Music Awards
The full list of nominees is here for the 2025 East Coast Music Awards, and Halifax is well-represented. Sixty-seven ECMA nominations—the annual awards celebrating the best of East Coast music—include contributions from Halifax-based artists, engineers, managers and venues this year. That includes nine ECMA shortlist nods for Enfield rapper Classified, whose album Luke’s View earned…
What to expect in the audit on university funding
Nova Scotians can once again look forward to reading reports on how the government spends public money. On Monday, premier Tim Houston caved to criticism and reversed course on a bill, specifically the parts of it threatening the independence of the province’s top watchdog, Auditor General Kim Adair. However, Bill 1, as it’s called, still…
Halifax is finally able to think about non-car options
Halifax’s budget debates, specifically the Department of Public Works budget, is where hope for the future goes to die. Even though there are reasons for optimism, it’s hard to maintain that optimism in the face of Halifax’s dire affliction: This city is suffering from a severe case of the tragedy of the commons. Before the…
The link between universities, NDAs and perpetuating racism
In 2021, C. Darius Stonebanks was fired from his full professorship at Bishop’s University after he raised complaints of systemic racism, he explains in a new video connecting non-disclosure agreements with racism. A non-disclosure agreement, or NDA, is a signed legal document restricting what information can be shared with others, depending on what is deemed…
Haligonians share the most cringe-worthy things they’ve heard on a date
“Hell is other people,” the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre famously wrote. And nowhere does that statement ring more true than on a first date with a stranger. We’re suckers for love, it seems, and in our search for that special someone—or a bit of fun with somebody who doesn’t give off the “ick”—we’re willing to…
Halifax to increase police budgets
Like most of Halifax’s recent budgets, deciding this year’s budget is not easy. Councillors are aware that Haligonians are struggling in record numbers so they’re trying to make sure every tax dollar spent is spent well. Or at least, that’s what they say they want. The Halifax Regional Police are asking for a few things…
Final fantasy: Haligonians spill on what they want to do sexually before they die
Surprise of the century: Haligonians really, really want to have a threesome. Or at least that’s what a majority of respondents shared in The Coast’s 2025 Sex + Dating Survey, our annual (and anonymous) deep dive into our readers’ thoughts on all things dating and mating-related. For 17 years, we’ve been asking Haligonians to spill…
Halifax’s Eliza Rhinelander finds her voice on debut album
“I don’t know where I’m going to,” Eliza Rhinelander sings on “Massachusetts,” the earnest and clear-voiced opener to the Halifax singer-songwriter’s debut album, The Precipice. “And I’ve never had this much to lose.” Given the 19-year-old folk singer’s trajectory this past year—from a crowdfunded EP to a sold-out show at The Carleton earlier this month—it would…
Council approves more firefighters to combat slow response times
There’s no official contest to determine which of Halifax’s business units’ budgets is the most depressing, but if there were, Halifax Regional Fire and Emergency would be annual contenders. In more than any other business unit, Halifax’s bad decision-making is most evident in fire chief Ken Stuebing’s $98-million fire department budget. Like they have been…
What’s next for Bloomfield?
Mountains of rubble piled high on Thursday morning at the same site where, less than a week ago, the former Bloomfield School stood. A hydraulic excavator sat parked inside temporary fencing off Agricola Street, its engine running. All around it, work crews shuffled about, cleaning up the wreckage from a weekend fire that tore through…
Auditor general’s university report in limbo as Tories bring forth sweeping changes in bill
Premier Tim Houston’s supermajority government could fire Nova Scotia’s top watchdog and censor her office’s reports as early as next week. The development comes just weeks before provincial auditor general Kim Adair is set to share the findings of her investigation into university funding in Nova Scotia. The audit, scheduled for release on March 4,…
“We are not going to get quieter,” advocates vow at march to end gender-based violence
You could hear the voices coming from two blocks away as dozens of demonstrators made their way down Barrington Street on Wednesday, Feb 19, descending on Grand Parade. Shouts of “End the silence, end the violence,” “No excuse for abuse” and “Education is prevention; systemic failures must be mentioned!” reverberated through Halifax’s downtown on the…
Halifax mayor vacations in the Caribbean as council debates homelessness
Last week, most of Halifax’s city council tried to debate the future of public safety services in the HRM. Only they were missing one key voice from those discussions: The mayor’s. While council waded through a bevy of issues over the course of two days, ranging from emergency response times to Halifax’s approach to homelessness,…
Back in black to school
Nova Scotia is home to 373 public schools, with more on the way. These are places of learning for more than 133,500 students. These students depend on school support workers: bus drivers, education assistants, library assistants, Mi’kmaq and Indigenous student support workers, custodians, early childhood educators and other roles integral to their school life every…
7 burning questions as Halifax Wanderers enter 2025 soccer preseason
Halifax Wanderers head coach Patrice Gheisar has had a busy winter. Two years and three months into his tenure with the Canadian Premier League soccer club, the 49-year-old is approaching the final year of his coaching contract with a familiar challenge: Winning games. It’s a challenge that has, at different times in the Etobicoke, Ont.…
Tongue-tied: Haligonians dish on the most cringe-worthy things they’ve said—and heard—during sex
Haligonians are a talkative bunch. We’ll gab at the grocery store, in line for the movies, in the middle of a crosswalk… anywhere, really. And that includes the bedroom, it seems, according to The Coast’s 2025 Sex + Dating Survey. Nearly three-quarters of respondents to our 17th annual anonymous and sexy survey say they’re into…
Raw data: Results from The Coast’s 2025 Sex + Dating Survey
Valentine’s season is upon us, so The Coast has a gift for you—the 2025 Sex + Dating Survey results. This annual Halifax heat map is like a Cupid’s arrow that gets right to the heart of local desire. Deliberately anonymous to encourage honest full disclosure, it provides a window into local bedrooms, a look at…
Baring it all: Haligonians confess their sexual secrets
Every year in The Coast’s annual Sex + Dating Survey, we give readers the same prompt: “Confess a sexual secret that you’ve never told anyone else.” The responses are a window into Haligonians’ private lives—their fears, their passions, their kinks and stories they’ve never told. Some answers will make you laugh. Some are brutally real…
How a recording trip to Nashville brought Halifax’s Newbridge to life
It was the twilight of COVID-19 lockdowns in Nova Scotia, and Keith Maddison and Jeff Mosher were doing what lifelong rock ‘n’ rollers do: Playing some tunes. The two veterans of Halifax’s music scene—the former, a frontman for Maddison Avenue; the latter, a lead singer and saxophonist with The Mellotones—were at Maddison’s home “in the…
Councillor Purdy asks city about integrating the Integrated Mobility Plan
Halifax’s aspirational and hopefully one-day transformative plan to solve congestion in Halifax got an assist from one of its biggest opponents this week, at Halifax Regional Council’s regular Tuesday meeting. Halifax’s Integrated Mobility Plan has not been implemented very well since first being passed in 2017, because city staff just can’t help themselves from prioritizing…
Customer Service has a new EP—and it’ll get your head banging
Owen Harris and Max Hayden were working the customer service desk at Quinpool Road’s Canadian Tire, dreaming about making a record. The longtime friends and next-door neighbours had grown up together where Halifax’s south and west ends meet, bonding over emo and punk music, and jamming as teenagers when the COVID-19 pandemic shut down their…
An injury to the soul, often overlooked
What is moral injury, and who experiences it? Moral injury describes “the persistent suffering, including shame or guilt, experienced by those who witness, perpetrate, or fail to stop acts of grievous harm,” write the co-organizers of two upcoming events on moral injury in frontline workers, Catherine Baillie Abidi and Ardath Whynacht. The injury is experienced…
Two If By Sea Cafe joins Best of Halifax Hall of Fame
Seventeen years ago, amateur baker-turned-entrepreneur Tara MacDonald picked up a new hobby when she moved from Ottawa to Dartmouth: Baking croissants. It wasn’t always a fun hobby. “Temperamental little buggers” is how she referred to her rich and flaky viennoiseries, which she would labour over in her home kitchen, tinkering with butter, salt and flour.…
Council approves capital budget, staff corruption
Halifax’s municipal council doesn’t normally meet on Fridays, except during budget season. That’s when Fridays are held open as a contingency meeting day, to be used as necessary when the debates about how to spend Halifax’s $1 billion-plus budget go long. This year, councillors are asking good questions to ensure that things are settled with…
How Aysanabee’s late grandfather sparked the singer-songwriter’s latest tour
Aysanabee isn’t superstitious, but these days he’s having a hard time chalking some things up to mere coincidence. Fresh off an Australian tour, the two-time JUNO Award-winner from Sandy Lake First Nation is embarking on his first headlining trip across eastern Canada. It’s a big moment for the Oji-Cree singer-songwriter, who had a banner year…
Trio of art shows on Black resilience, faith, cultural pride opens at Dalhousie Art Gallery
This February, African Heritage Month, let the Dalhousie Art Gallery be a beacon for community power, intergenerational knowledge sharing and creative resistance. Let it be a salve for the isolating chill of not winter but the racist, fascist and systematic efforts to scapegoat, divide and erase communities, cultures and histories. From Feb 4 through Apr…
For the city’s sex workers, “internet is a need, not a want”
What started out as just a realm of entertainment, information and chat rooms, the internet has evolved into a gateway for accessing basic public services, and educational and economic opportunities. It is a lifeline that connects people to society; and society to them. Imagine searching for a job, applying for an apartment or even trying…
Council sends police tank to budget playoffs
Right off the gate on Friday’s continuation of Wednesday’s Halifax Capital Budget debate, councillor Shawn Cleary took the police tank out of budget and put it on the Budget Adjustment List (BAL). For new followers of municipal budget season, the budget adjustment list debates are the playoffs of budget season. Throughout the budget season…
The high cost of low taxes
Halifax’s budget committee meeting on Wednesday, Feb 5 was spicy. The meeting, which is technically still on-going and will resume Friday, Feb 7 at 9:30am, started this year’s budget debates and officially kicked off budget season. This year Halifax is expected to have a budget of $1.3 billion, and the revenue gap is $69 million.…
Halifax Alehouse, HFX Sports Bar & Grill facing demolition
Three months after the Halifax Alehouse poured its last draught, the pub—and the 132-year-old building it called home—could soon meet its end with a wrecking ball. Months after the property and its neighbouring bar, HFX Sports Bar & Grill, changed hands amid a homicide investigation involving an Alehouse bouncer and the two venues’ forced closures…
Premier Houston, take off the CAP
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…
Police board still dodging blame for 2021 shelter siege
Five months after a bombshell report laid the blame for Aug 18, 2021’s shambolic shelter siege at the feet of Halifax Regional Police and the HRM, the oversight board that’s supposed to police the former on behalf of the latter seems to want nothing to do with it. On Monday, Feb 3, Halifax’s Board of…
Trade war, transportation, and you: A Halifax budget season preview
At the 11th hour, a temporary ceasefire deal was reached in the dumbest trade war in history. Hostilities between Canada and the USA are set to resume next month. Should the cold trade war become hot, it will have catastrophic impacts on the Canadian economy, although since most of our economic models are designed to…
Scholar Elizabeth Bearden gives second lecture in King’s College series on representations of disability.
This Tuesday evening, Feb 4, visiting English professor Elizabeth Bearden will give the second lecture in a new series from the University of King’s College, “Representations of Disability in Historical, Scientific and Artistic Perspectives.” Related Bearden is a professor of early modern literature and disability studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Her talk will reflect…
Ending harmful use of non-disclosure agreements means changing the culture
“It’s the culture that determines if non-disclosure agreements are allowed to be used,” says Kristina Fifield, a trauma therapist in Nova Scotia who is leading an NDA-informed training session on Tuesday, Feb 4, from 11am-12pm. It’s organized by the advocacy group Can’t Buy My Silence. NDAs are “gag order” agreements that are frequently used in…
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…