Halifax filmmaker shines spotlight on Indigenous women across Atlantic Canada
Growing up in Yarmouth, Stephanie Joline was always aware of her Indigenous ancestry. The daughter of an Inuk mother and Acadian father, she was raised to be “very proud” of the roots she came from. That came, in part, from her maternal grandmother, who helped raise her. “It was beading and drum circles since I…
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“I never dreamt it would be possible”: Atlantic Lottery players are winning every day, and you could be next
It was Derrek Barton’s birthday when he stopped at his local convenience store in Harvey, New Brunswick to buy milk and his usual Lotto 6/49 tickets—a weekly routine he didn’t think much of at the time. That is until a few days later, rumours began to circulate about someone in York County winning a $1-million…
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…
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…
Hartlen Point dispute between DND, environmental activists enters House of Commons
Efforts to halt a controversial $129-million Canadian naval project planned for the edge of Eastern Passage have found one ally in Ottawa: federal Green Party leader Elizabeth May. The Saanich-Gulf Islands MP has sponsored a Parliamentary petition by the Protect Hartlen Point advocacy group. It calls on the federal government to “pause all construction and…
Province and city need to work together to solve child care crisis in HRM, says daycare director
Families are struggling to access child care in Nova Scotia. In 2021, one in two young children in Nova Scotia were living without adequate access to care, in what’s known as child care deserts. So, another 9,500 child care spots by March 2026 may sound like a lot—that’s what Nova Scotia and Ottawa promised to…
Catfished: Halifax talks sex and dating on the internet
Nearly 30 years after the dawn of online dating, we’re still making fools of ourselves when it comes to finding love—or a bit of lust—on the internet. One in seven respondents to The Coast’s 2024 Sex + Dating survey say they prefer to meet potential lovers online. And nearly two in three say they’ve dated…
Halifax Jazz Festival’s new boss wants to make the music fest a year-round fixture
Tenille Goodspeed still remembers her first time on the Halifax Jazz Festival’s main stage. At age 13, the lifelong choral singer and (eventual) music industry pro was part of a “small jazz group” called Generation Jazz, and they were enjoying their first taste of the spotlight. “It was a big moment for my 13-year-old self,”…
How a trip to Antarctica offered the perfect studio space for Rich Aucoin’s next album
Most days, when Halifax alt-pop artist Rich Aucoin isn’t touring, the two-time JUNO nominee is tinkering with sounds in his basement apartment and—as he puts it in a phone call with The Coast—“staring off at the wall.” It’s been a good formula for the 40-year-old producer: The routine helped him win a pair of ECMA…
Halifax councillors ponder Parks and Recreation cuts
On Wednesday, a cold and blustery Valentine’s Day, the city’s Parks and Recreation budget got a little bit of love and a special valentine from deputy mayor Cathie Deagle Gammon. But before Cupid could hit Parks and Rec with a budgetary arrow, the Budget Committee meeting, as always, started with public engagement. The city heard…
Good Goverance is making a comeback in Halifax
Last Thursday, Feb. 15, the city of Halifax did something it hasn’t done in a while: adapted quickly to changing circumstances. The city has done this once before in recent memory, in response to COVID, and as it happens those COVID-centric amendments were one of the many things that changed with Halifax’s five-year strategic plan…
MSVU prof links Black studies with animal studies, as researcher at Cambridge
El Jones is: a spoken word poet, radio host, writer, journalist, community activist, assistant professor at Mount Saint Vincent University and a current research fellow at the University of Cambridge in the UK. Along with 160-plus full-time faculty, librarians and lab technicians at MSVU—Jones is also on strike. “No one wants to go on strike,”…
Breaking out of the suburban trap
On Tuesday Feb. 13, the city’s Budget Committee met and approved the Planning and Development Department’s $13 million budget. This year was the Budget Season™ debut for P&D’s new executive director Jacqueline Hamilton, as she replaced Kelly Dente who led this department last year. Before Hamilton could present P&D’s budget, the committee heard from the…
Bedroom blunders: Haligonians dish on the most cringe-worthy things they’ve said—and heard—during sex
It’s often been said that men only have enough blood for one head at a time, which would explain some of the out-of-left-field things they say in the bedroom. But it seems they’re not alone in that regard: Based on The Coast’s 2024 Sex + Dating Survey, it seems all of us get a little…
Who will be Halifax’s next mayor?
With mayor Mike Savage announcing he won’t be seeking re-election in October, we Haligonians now become the hiring committee tasked with filling a vital leadership position. The person we choose needs to take charge and usher the Halifax Regional Municipality into an era of change and adaptability, as we scramble to correct past development mistakes…
Pillow talk: The results of The Coast’s 2024 Sex + Dating Survey
Just as February means three-foot snowbanks and a Tim Houston scrum leads to unfortunate soundbites, Valentine’s Week in Halifax can only mean one thing: The Coast’s annual Sex + Dating Survey results are here—and as usual, the responses more than deliver. Hundreds of you took the time to spill your saucy (and 100% anonymous) secrets…
Naked truth: confess a sexual secret you’ve never told anyone
Anonymous catharsis. That’s what The Coast’s Sex & Dating Survey offers Halifax every year, the 2024 edition being no exception. Let it out. Get it off your chest. Spill, vent, discharge. And one of the most popular questions for that release is simple: “Confess a sexual secret that you’ve never told anyone else.” Sure, there…
Thinking ahead: What Halifax wants to try next in sex
It turns out some private, personal, intimate thoughts are widely shared. Three answers kept coming over and over for the Sex & Dating Survey question “What’s the next thing you want to try?” The big three are bondage, anal and threesomes—a lot of people in Halifax would like to explore these options. Which is good…
Halifax will have a new mayor in October
In a press conference just after noon on Feb 13, Halifax Regional Municipality mayor Mike Savage has announced he will not be seeking re-election this October. Savage has been Halifax’s mayor for the past 12 years, having first been elected to the job in 2012. Even though he said it was the best job he…
Did Halifax just blow $113 million?
The Department of Public Works presented its budget after lunch on Friday Feb. 9. This was a procedurally weird Budget Committee meeting because the public engagement section was first thing in the morning, and in between those two events, council deferred the police budgets. All in all the Department of Public Works is a pretty…
MSVU faculty on strike after weekend-long bargaining fails to reach agreement
As the noon gun sounded on Monday, members of the largest union at Mount Saint Vincent University went on strike after failing to reach an agreement with the school’s bargaining team over the weekend. The union, with approximately 160 members of full-time faculty, librarians and technicians, has been working without a collective agreement since June…
Halifax city council starts the process of police reform
At Friday’s Budget Committee meeting, which was an extension of Wednesday’s Budget Committee meeting, city council decided to make a minor administrative change that will set the city up to successfully reform its police services, thanks to a motion from councillor Waye Mason. Mason argued that since public safety is more than just policing, and…
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…
How City and Colour’s new album helped Dallas Green process unimaginable grief
Editor’s note: A version of this story first appeared in The Georgia Straight, The Coast’s Vancouver-based sibling publication, before City and Colour played on the west coast in early February. “I think I’ve just gotten better at singing,” muses Dallas Green. The man behind indie folk and rock outfit City and Colour’s voice has changed over…
Universities have to fix their housing issues or lose millions, says province
Nova Scotia’s universities are scrambling to grasp the implications of a new provincial funding agreement, announced last week. On Friday Feb. 2, the Department of Advanced Education presented their replacement plan for the current memorandum of understanding—or MoU—signed by Nova Scotia and all 10 provincial universities in 2019. That five-year MoU will expire on Mar.…
Everything you need to know about HRM council’s Feb. 6 meeting
Tuesday’s council meeting was dominated by food—specifically the fact that Halifax is in a bit of a pickle because it doesn’t produce much. But council couldn’t dig into the meat and potatoes of that debate right away, they had to do a tip of the hat and flipping of the bird before getting to work…
Here are all your Halifax nominees for the 2024 JUNO Awards
When the JUNO Awards return to Halifax on Mar. 24, 2024, there will be a healthy dose of homegrown talent in the running for silverware. Six current and former Haligonians are up for JUNOs at the annual Canadian music industry awards ceremony: Reggae artist Jah’Mila, indie-electronic act Rich Aucoin, classical soprano and conductor Barbara Hannigan,…
An Atlantic Canada first: new Masters of nursing in mental health and addictions coming to Dal
Registered nurses who are working in mental health and addictions services will soon be able to advance their skills in the classroom through a new Masters of nursing program. The first of its kind in Atlantic Canada, Dalhousie’s Master of Nursing, Advanced Practice, Mental Health and Addictions, is accepting applications up until April 1 for…
Canada’s longest-running all-Black comedy tour visits Halifax—and it’s a must-see
Rodney Ramsey has been a stand-up comedian for more than 20 years. A co-creator of the Unknown Comedy Club, a first-of-its-kind virtual showcase for Canadian comics, he has appeared on Kevin Hart’s Laugh Out Loud network, closed out a BBC World Service comedy special and starred in CBC’s Absofreakinglutely—a round-up of some of Montreal’s funniest…
Why hiring more people costs the city less
The city’s budget process looks different this year, thanks to some changes that city council asked for when it adopted councillor Tim Outhit’s radical motion from November 2023. But some councillors are struggling with these changes, so at the start of the Budget Committee meeting on Wednesday, Jan. 31, they got an explanation about how…
How Jeff Bezos gets your Halifax tax dollars
At a budget meeting on Friday Feb. 2, the HRM approved Halifax Public Libraries’ proposed $25 million budget for 2024/25, an increase of $1.5 million from last year. What makes this a bitter pill to swallow, even if it was pre-approved in December, is that nearly half of the increase—$692,355 of your hard-earned tax dollars—is…
Weekend snowstorm hammers Halifax, rest of Nova Scotia
Just when you thought last Monday, Jan. 29, brought us one heck of a snow dumping, Mother Nature seems hell-bent on Round Two. Continued weekend flurries and strong winds have prompted Environment Canada to issue both a snowfall warning and blowing snow advisory for all of central Nova Scotia. All HRCE schools are closed on…
7 burning questions as Halifax Wanderers approach soccer pre-season
When the Halifax Wanderers report for preseason training at the end of February, there will be more than the usual intrigue entering the Canadian Premier League soccer club’s new season. For perhaps the first time in the club’s six-year history (and with apologies to a pandemic-shortened 2020 tournament), there are real championship aspirations in Halifax.…
6 things to do in Halifax this weekend (Feb. 2-4, 2024)
February is here, which means two things in Halifax: Snow and rain. Thankfully, our fine Atlantic peninsula has enough going on through the dreary months to tide things over until Shubenacadie Sam—or one of his secret understudies—says spring is on its way. Related This weekend is no different, with no less than seven (!!!) noteworthy…