Halifax’s housing crisis uniquely impacts the city’s sex workers
Alex MacDonnell had no idea that a routine outreach visit to a correctional facility would lay the foundation for where she is today—in the most literal way possible. At the time, she was the executive director of the Hepatitis Outreach Society, where she did a lot of resource fairs in the Nova Institute for Women—one…
Final report on Nova Scotia Loyal program reveals current model was untested
While some cheer for the opportunity to earn more Scene points and Air Miles, others remain confused about the Nova Scotia Loyal program. Announced on Tuesday, July 23 at the Fundy Trail Sobeys in Truro, the Nova Scotia Loyal program seeks to supply national grocery chain Sobeys and the provincial liquor corporation with the…
Dal reopens campus Wednesday after multi-day closure following student pro-Palestinian encampment removal
Dalhousie University reopened its Halifax campuses today, Wednesday July 31, after unexpectedly shutting down on Monday following the police removal of a coaltion of pro-Palestinian students who had camped on the Studley quad since May. Halifax Regional Police were called to the university to remove campers from the Kenneth C. Rowe Management building Monday around…
Nova Scotia’s wine future is safe—for now
It’s never a great look when the provincial government decides to release the amount of money it spent on an initiative—that it presumably thought was a decent idea to begin with—because the figure “was going to come out in public accounts anyway.” But that’s exactly what finance minister Allan MacMaster did when he announced earlier…
PUP’s Stefan Babcock ‘riding the wave’ of dread and creativity
Stefan Babcock is no stranger to feeling like his world is falling apart. The lead singer of award-winning Toronto punk rock band PUP, Babcock pens most of his lyrics from a place of existential angst, from the self-spiraling anthem “DVP” to uncontrollable external conflicts described in “Scorpion Hill”. But what contrasts ideas about navigating through…
Entrepreneurship not a decision, but a necessity for many in trans community
When it comes to all things financial planning, Laura Whiteland, CFP, CIM knows what she’s doing. Right off, you can tell by all the letters after her name. She has worked as an investment advisor and portfolio manager, with securities licensing including derivatives and options—which is some of the highest certification you can attain in…
Letterkenny’s K. Trevor Wilson and friends hitting up Halifax’s Spatz Theatre
K. Trevor Wilson, known for playing the lovable observationist Squirrely Dan in Letterkenny, is coming to Halifax. Stopping into the Spatz Theatre on Sept. 20, the show is a part of his K. Trevor Wilson and Friends cross-country tour featuring a whole host of Canadian comics. His Halifax stop will feature Albertan comic Clare Belford,…
Councillor Cleary backstops HRM’s failed strategic plans
Thanks to Liberal member of Parliament Andy Fillmore talking to some of his constituents about municipal politics, the Transportation Standing Committee started with a lot of public speakers talking about the city’s ongoing water main replacement around Coburg Road. Part of this work includes building a mixed-use pathway on Coburg Road because it will save…
Police remove students from inside Dal administrative building Tuesday, without dismantling encampment
On Tuesday July 23, Students for the Liberation of Palestine – Kjipuktuk (SLPK) members held a joint press conference beginning at 4pm with faculty supporters and student union presidents inside an administrative building behind the student encampment at Dalhousie University (Dal). Speakers and supporters stayed inside after the conference wrapped. At 5pm, SLPK members began…
‘Pride belongs to us’: Pro-Palestine protest organizer speaks on parade demonstration
Since the Halifax Pride Parade on June 20, news outlets have reported that a group of pro-Palestine protesters demonstrated during the event. While some call this a hijacking of a day meant to celebrate the 2SLGBTQIA+ community, others see it as standing in solidarity with people who, like many in the queer community, are…
Residential Tenancies Act remains toothless as support systems become overwhelmed
Nova Scotia’s New Democratic Party is once again calling on Houston’s Progressive Conservative government to create a tenancy enforcement unit to ensure both tenants and landlords are following the rules. In their statement released on July 17, the NSNDP claims Houston’s government has been “sitting on a consultant’s report” recommending the creation of such…
Two years after Halifax tree-girdling incident, art show reminds us of ‘importance of human relationships with trees’
Two years ago Thursday, “some asshole broke into the Halifax Public Gardens and vandalized trees,” as captured by a headline that ran July 26, 2022 in the Halifax Examiner. The mystery of who did this is an unsolved whodunit. Two years later, some of the trees that were girdled in the gardens—or intentionally had their…
R.I.P. Spring Garden Transit-only pilot, Dec 2021 – July 2024
The Spring Garden Transit-only pilot is dead for at least another year. On December 7, 2021, Halifax’s city council directed staff to develop a plan to make Spring Garden Road available only for buses. But even though city staff in the road safety world know that signs, education and enforcement don’t really change driver behaviour,…
Five Nova Scotian wines you need to try this summer
The Lieutenant-Governor’s office honoured five wines with Awards of Excellence earlier this month. Given out by Taste of Nova Scotia and Wine Growers Nova Scotia, in partnership with the Lieutenant-Governor’s office, wineries across the province were able to submit up to three commercially available wines. Awards were given out at the Government House on…
NSCC Akerley Campus opens 100-bed student housing building, says it’s already full for September
Student housing is a piece in the housing crisis puzzle plaguing Halifax and Nova Scotia. On Monday July 22, the Nova Scotia Community College (NSCC) Akerley Campus officially opened a new 100-bed student housing building that students will begin moving in to this August, for classes starting in September. The building at Akerley is modern,…
New MSVU gallery director nearly a year into the job, says ‘no regrets’
A year ago, when Melanie Colosimo started as the new director of the Mount Saint Vincent University (MSVU) Art Gallery, she was worried about making relationships with students at a school without a fine arts program. Colosimo had spent the last 15 years working in various positions at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design…
Halifax spent $208,572 to offer three foreign workers private sector jobs
Sometimes, like when it comes to housing, Halifax’s city council cares a lot about not straying into what is provincial jurisdiction. Sometimes, like when it comes to labour, Halifax’s city council is more than happy to waste our tax money on things that are under provincial jurisdiction. At Thursday’s Community Planning and Economic Development standing…
Halifax’s bureaucracy fails two emergency readiness audits
On a muggy morning which promised a heat warning in the afternoon, Halifax’s auditor general turned up the heat early in council chambers at the Audit and Finance Standing Committee meeting of July 17, 2024. The city’s AG, Andrew Atherton, put the city’s feet to the fire as he dropped two reports, The Management of…
In Labatt’s north end brewery, the water will flow like beer
The sun is beating down, the UV index is high, temperatures are sky-rocketing and the people, well, the people are thirsty. In other words: it’s beer time. Breweries around Atlantic Canada are pumping out beer like water, with the exception of one, that is actually pumping out water like beer. The Oland Brewery in the…
NSCAD students have two ways to tell union how they feel about demands, potential strike action
On Monday July 15, the Student Union of Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (SUNSCAD) emailed all members of the union requesting their participation in a survey released the same day. The SUNSCAD executive and council created this survey to gauge how members are feeling regarding their experience as students at NSCAD overall, such…
King’s Students’ Union president says letter from university on divestment, disclosure shuts down conversation
On Thursday, July 11, University of King’s College president William Lahey published a statement to the King’s community writ large on the school’s divestment and disclosure status—which included complying with the university’s Responsible Investing Policy. Within it, he mentioned three student and alumni groups by name that have sent demands, written open letters or, as…
King’s president says funds invested in weapons manufacturers reduced to zero
On Thursday, July 11, the president of the University of King’s College (King’s), William Lahey, put out a statement reiterating the university’s Responsible Investment Policy, and providing updated actions on divestment and disclosure, following months of demands received from students and alumni groups in solidarity with Palestine. He shared that the current market value of…
Dungeons & Dragons class at MSVU this winter, nearly full already
First things first: you don’t have to know how to play Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) to take a new course developed by Jeff MacLeod for January 2025, called Wizards, Rogues and Elves: Exploring Politics Through Dungeons & Dragons. It’s a 3000-level (or upper year) special topics course, cross-listed within the departments of political studies and…
June Body sings of melancholic heartbreak on ‘Last Everythings’ LP
Connor James described his seven-year relationship as existing within a snow globe. He could see each individual scene play out within the glass. The morning when it finally happened. All of the complex feelings leading up to it. The freeing hopelessness that came afterward. “I never wanted to wake up from the dream you…
Alan Syliboy massive retrospective at Dal Art Gallery hosts artist talk next Saturday
Alan Syliboy’s largest retrospective ever is up at the Dalhousie Art Gallery (DAG), until Aug. 11. The Journey So Far exhibition spans 50 years of work from the prolific self-taught Mi’kmaw artist from Millbrook First Nation. It offers a wide and diverse display of Syliboy’s multimedia work that continually draws material and figurative inspiration from…
The Regional Watersheds Advisory Board is gone. What’s next?
As of the city council meeting on July 9, Halifax’s Regional Watersheds Advisory Board (RWAB) has been canned. The volunteer board had been mandated to support the environment subcommittee with advice, though according to some members of the board, communication with this subcommittee didn’t exist. These members—Céofride Gaudet, Sue Belford, and Martin Willison—announced on…
HRM passes road safety strategy allowing for social murder
In the name of road safety, urged on by “professional” traffic engineers, Halifax’s city council have approved a little bit of social murder. Social murder is a bit of an old concept first defined by Friedrich Engles in 1844 in his book The Condition of the Working Class in England and more recently reported on…
Sylvia Hamilton’s long career of telling African Nova Scotian stories
Sylvia D. Hamilton, a filmmaker and poet who has spent her career telling the stories of African Nova Scotians, is now a member of the Order of Canada. On June 27, Gov. Gen. Mary Simon listed 83 appointments to the Order of Canada. Amongst the appointments were high-profile names such as pop star Avril…
Universities are the new hotels in Halifax over the summer
If you’re travelling to Nova Scotia this summer and need a place to stay, consider making one of the local university residences your home base. Most have opened their doors since May while school is not in full swing and are offering a variety of rooms to book until Aug. 11. Across Halifax, each university…
Two weeks after being attacked on Argyle Street, this couple is still waiting for answers from the police
On June 23, Emma MacLean and her girlfriend Tori were attacked—verbally and physically—by a group of young men in the early morning hours on Argyle Street. When The Coast reached out to Halifax Regional Police (HRP) to request an interview about the attack, Const. Anne Giffin said: “an assault occurred at approximately 1:50 a.m. on…
Last chance to see artist Mitchell Wiebe’s show at SMU gallery
If you plan it right, you’ll be able to catch Mitchell Wiebe gallery-sitting his own show at the Saint Mary’s University Art Gallery in Halifax’s south end during its final week. His exhibition, Third Elbow, has been up since April 23, has been extended twice and will finally disappear next Sunday, July 14. Wiebe, the…
Jah’Mila proves reggae is going strong on new record, ‘Woman of the Sun’
JUNO-nominated reggae powerhouse Jah’Mila considers her newest album to be an evolution of her sound. Striking out in 2022 with the success of Roots Girl, earning Jah’Mila her 2024 JUNO nomination, she thought her next musical endeavour should show how she’s progressed since making songs during the pandemic. Roots will eventually rise above the…
Student union president hopes Dal will fulfill divestment before her term is up
Mariam Knakriah, the re-elected president of the Dalhousie Student Union (DSU) as of May, has been pushing the university divestment movement since she took office. She tells The Coast that the reason she ran for a second term was because she wanted to see these changes through to finish before leaving office. She has been…
Alice in Wonderland pits femme icons against each other, but love wins in the end
At the risk of dating myself, I must confess that as a child, I wore out my VHS recording of a live action version of Alice In Wonderland. I remember being equal parts horrified and intrigued by the insanity of it all; the unsettling riddle-speak, the unhinged characters and don’t even get me started on…
Wu-Tang Killa Beez performing in Halifax for a good cause
A few of the Wu-Tang Killa Beez will stop by Halifax this month for a fundraising concert supporting the Union of Black Artists Society (UBAS). The concert will be the union’s first big fundraising effort after their successful Block Party celebrations last summer, which launched the organization. With help from Obediya Jones-Darrell’s Sound Body Culture…
Giving Appalachian old-time music a Nova Scotian spin
When Nova Scotians think of traditional music, some may conjure Celtic tunes that they’ve heard over the years. For the Halifax-based Old Beef String Band, their minds go to a more southern style. The band has been fiddling and step-dancing since 2015 when they were just jamming. Now, they’ve released their debut EP Ride Home,…
New teachers contract signed, made public
School is out for the summer but the province has a lot of homework to get done in the next few months. The Nova Scotia Teachers Union (NSTU) ratified a new collective agreement back on April 26 with their employer, the minister of education and early childhood development (EECD), Becky Druhan. On Thursday June 27,…