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Educating players to provide a space for healthy play: Atlantic Lottery
Promoting healthy play and ensuring that gambling remains fun and for entertainment is a core value at Atlantic Lottery. The company was created nearly 50 years ago by the four Atlantic provincial governments to provide responsible, regulated games to Atlantic Canadians while returning 100 percent of profit back to the region. Now, in this increasingly…
The Wanderer Grounds podcast: The Halifax Wanderers are playoff-bound—and damn, it feels good
Triston Henry must be tired of seeing Dan Nimick lined up at the penalty spot. Three times this Canadian Premier League season, the Halifax Wanderers centre-back has bested the Forge FC goalkeeper—and on Saturday, Sept. 30, Nimick made his third penalty count, lifting the Wanderers to a 2-1 victory over the defending CPL champions and…
Halifax’s Sydney Hayden vies for cake crown on The Great Canadian Baking Show
It was 1am in February, and Sydney Hayden was baking up a kitchen flurry. The goal: A three-tier, eight-layer snowman cake that would impress the judges enough to nab her a spot on the upcoming season of The Great Canadian Baking Show. Auditions were the following morning at Marriott’s Residence Inn on Grafton Street. The…
Two years later, what are your thoughts on $10-a-day child care?
Since 2021, families in Nova Scotia have been promised $10-a-day child care, on average, by March 2026. This promise, made through the Canada-Nova Scotia Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care Agreement, pledges $605 million from Ottawa plus $40 million from Nova Scotia over five years to make sure all families find “high-quality, affordable, flexible and…
Everything you need to know about HRM council’s Sept. 26 meeting
There are now 21 tents in Grand Parade; this is an increase of four tents from the last council meeting. Speaking of the housing crisis, it dominated most of Tuesday’s council meeting since the federal Liberals, finally, decided to start using their power. What this looks like for the HRM is an increased amount of…
Halifax sees two of the busiest cruise ship days of the year this week
As many as 35,000 cruise ship passengers could filter through Halifax this week. And no two days are busier than Tuesday and Wednesday, Sept. 26 and 27, when four ships—the Liberty of the Seas, Norwegian Pearl, Mein Schiff 6 and Carnival Venezia—will bring an estimated 12,500 visitors through the Halifax Seaport and into downtown. Each…
Daniel James McFadyen’s Songs to Show Your Friends lives up to its billing
Picture yourself under the night sky at Kejimkujik, staring up at a blanket of stars as bright as the campfire warming your feet. That’s the feeling of listening to Daniel James McFadyen’s “Find My Way to You,” the latest single off his forthcoming Songs to Show Your Friends EP. The Hortonville, NS-based indie folk artist…
Halifax is trying to make municipal elections more equitable
The majority of Monday’s HRM executive committee meeting was devoted to trying to make municipal elections more fair. The debate started with a seemingly innocuous request from councillor Paul Russell to remove the word “spouse” from the municipal elections bylaw. After a prolonged debate, this item was deferred and will come back to this committee…
The Wanderer Grounds podcast: The Halifax Wanderers and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day
Nothing good happens in Langley—at least, that is, if you’re the Halifax Wanderers. Twice in 2023, the Canadian Premier League soccer club has made the trip west to British Columbia’s Fraser Valley and left empty-handed, despite holding the better record. On Saturday, Sept. 23, the Wanderers seemed to be well in control of the game…
Jonathan Torrens makes Neptune debut in The Play That Goes Wrong
In some ways, you could trace the origin of Neptune Theatre’s latest production to a late 1990s-era Canadian TV drama and the back row of an airline flight from Halifax to Sydney. It was there, in between shoots for CBC’s Pit Pony—which also happened to star a young Elliot Page in his first acting role—that…
Nia Summit centres voices of Black Nova Scotian youth
Making their way inside the Black Cultural Centre of Nova Scotia in Cherry Brook, 130 African Nova Scotian/Black students pass under an archway of purple balloons on the morning of Friday, Sept. 22. Nia Summit youth ambassadors clad in black shirts and purple lanyards pass out swag bags to each participant. Round tables across the…
Who pays for a $40-million stadium at Wanderers Grounds?
Halifax Wanderers president Derek Martin has dreams of a permanent 8,500-seat stadium in Halifax’s downtown. Last week, the Canadian Premier League soccer club founder made his pitch to the HRM’s Community Planning and Economic Development Standing Committee to overhaul the municipally owned Wanderers Grounds—where his club plays—in favour of an all-purpose venue. The cost? An…
Halifax’s $100 million police headquarters pipe dream
On Wednesday, Sept. 20, the HRM’s Board of Police Commissioners met. Since last year’s police budget consultation process went so poorly, the city is starting police budget discussions early this year. At Wednesday’s meeting, the board was supposed to get a presentation on next year’s proposed budget, but new acting Halifax Regional Police chief Don…
Tim Baker announces new EP, pair of Halifax shows in December
One of Atlantic Canada’s favourite balladeers is ready to hit the road this fall—and tickets are already flying for his two Halifax shows. St. John’s, NL-based singer-songwriter Tim Baker is gearing up for the release of his newest EP, Along the Mountain Road. The five-track project is due Oct. 20, 2023 via End Times Music.…
A major motion picture star arrives in Halifax Harbour this week
Did you ever watch the movie After the Sunset? Salma Hayek and Pierce Brosnan? Woody Harrelson and Don Cheadle? (You don’t remember it? It, uh… didn’t do very well at the box office.) The film revolves around a diamond thief (Brosnan, naturally) and an FBI agent determined to catch him (Harrelson). There’s a mega-expensive diamond…
How Halifax spent $11 million on fencing
Wednesday morning, the HRM’s audit and finance committee met to find out just how dire the city’s financial situation is. City staff told the committee that first quarter reporting shows Halifax is expecting to be out approximately $20 million due to climate change—and a municipal public service that’s incapable of dealing with climate emergencies. So…
Counter-protesters outnumber anti-queer movement in Halifax
Update, Wednesday, Sept. 20: At 9:30am, a few dozen members of the Million Person March Halifax protest arrived at the steps of the Grand Parade in downtown Halifax. Handmade signs read “Groom Dogs Not Kids”, “Secrets Hide A Nefarious Curriculum”, “A.B.C. not S.E.X.” and “Protect Childhood Innocence,” while others waved Nova Scotia and Canadian flags.…
#BlackInSchool author Habiba Diallo joins activist Lynn Jones in conversation at the Halifax Central Library this week
Habiba Diallo’s experience as a Black high schooler in Halifax left a mark on her. She remembers, one November day in 2012, watching police arrest a fellow Black student on school property and hearing an onlooker say, “he knows the drill.” She recalls the classmate who would admonish others for wasting food, “because there are…
The Wanderer Grounds podcast: Halifax summons extra-time magic in tense battle with Ottawa
Two days before his Halifax Wanderers hosted Atlético Ottawa in a match with playoff ramifications galore, Wanderers head coach Patrice Gheisar spent a moment to wax philosophical on pressure. His Halifax side has felt its share in recent weeks: In the past fifteen days, the Wanderers have played four matches against playoff-bound opponents—or those eager…
Fixed-term leases that let Nova Scotia landlords avoid rent cap rules are popular and legal, but are they fair?
When Bridget moved into her north end Halifax apartment in late 2020, she thought it would be her final long-term stop until she could afford a home of her own. She settled in over the next three years. Living close to Fort Needham Park, with its wooded trails and views of the Narrows, she could…
Clean-up begins in earnest after post-tropical storm Lee leaves Halifax behind
Todd Ashley is having the morning of all mornings. The co-resident manager of 5240 Kent Street, a three-storey apartment building owned by Killam Apartment REIT, has been on the phone for most of early Sunday looking to corral someone to clear up the mess in front of his building so his neighbours can get their…
“I was 12 and already felt betrayed by the people in power”
Jane Elliott stands poised with her back to the red stone tower of Halifax City Hall. She’s dressed in a sleeveless top and rain pants. Ready for heat. Ready for rain. The northern face of the seven-story tower faces out towards Grand Parade, dotted with tents wet with the morning’s rain. The clock on the…
Halifax’s student climate strike is happening, rain or shine or hurricane
A singularly-named weather event is blasting towards Halifax/K’jipuktuk as if in dialogue with this year’s annual School Strike 4 Climate rally. Our rapidly changing climate, which recently thrashed Nova Scotia with record-breaking weather events, is once again sticking its outraged hand in the air at this year’s climate strike. Though Hurricane Lee will not arrive in…
Everything you need to know about HRM council’s Sept. 12, 2023 meeting
On Sept 12, 2023, Halifax council decided not to go ahead with putting an encampment on the Common. Councillors briefly considered treating the housing crisis like the immediate and ongoing emergency it is. But ultimately their decision was underwhelming. Related There’s not much more to be written on this that hasn’t already been said before,…
Everything you need to know about the Atlantic International Film Festival in Halifax
Queer director Fawzia Mirza was well into her twenties before she went to her first gay bar. Born into a Muslim family in London, Ont. and raised in Sydney, NS, the Pakistani-Canadian wasn’t ready to come out as lesbian—“so instead, when I met a woman, I’d tell her that I was 50% gay,” she says…
Everything you need to know about the 2023 Prismatic Festival
Celebrate Indigenous artists and Canadian artists of colour at the annual Prismatic Festival as they challenge barriers with their creative projects under a national spotlight. This year’s lineup includes works in theatre, dance, music, film, visual arts, media arts and more. Here’s everything you need to know before attending the festival. What is the official…
Late Wanderers surge not enough to match league-leading Cavalry FC
One of the all-time great television characters, the stick-up artist Omar from HBO’s The Wire, said it best: “You come at the king, you best not miss.” On Tuesday, Sept. 12, the Halifax Wanderers had their shot at a league-leading Cavalry FC side fatigued from their third road match in 11 days. A win, and…
More tents coming to Halifax parks
The start of Tuesday’s city council meeting was spicy. Councillors came in hot. Councillors like Tim Outhit, Sam Austin and Lisa Blackburn were all visibly upset about the growing scale of human suffering that’s being caused by government inaction on housing. Council got an update about just how badly Haligonians are being failed by all…
Jagmeet Singh says he’ll deliver affordable housing. So why isn’t he using the full weight of his powers?
One would think, for all of Jagmeet Singh’s self-touted years of martial arts training, the federal NDP leader would know a thing or two about leverage. The concept is central to the Brazilian jiu-jitsu the 44-year-old Singh practices: It’s how a smaller force can exert its will over a larger opponent. It’s also how a…
Everything you need to know about Halifax’s 2023 Hopscotch Festival
One of the buzziest groups in alt-rap is coming to Halifax’s Hopscotch Festival this year. Grammy-nominated duo EARTHGANG, who first made a splash when they signed to J Cole’s Dreamville Records in 2016, are performing at the Light House Arts Centre on Sept. 21. Along with Los Angeles-based rapper-producer The Alchemist, they make up the…
Halifax police chief Dan Kinsella is retiring
Halifax Regional Police chief Dan Kinsella is retiring at the age of 57. The move—announced right before Thursday’s Board of Police Commissioners meeting—comes four years into Kinsella’s reign as the city’s top cop, and his last day will be Sept. 15. It’s a bit of an unexpected and abrupt exit for Kinsella, but if Chadwick…
Julius Caesar meets Van Halen in Halifax Harbour this week—sort of
Van Halen was a little before my time. David Lee Roth had already left the metal band for the first of his three stints before I emerged from the womb, not a hair on my head to compete with their mop-tops. Sammy Hagar was just in the middle of his first run as lead vocalist—a…
Massey lecturer Astra Taylor on “the age of insecurity”
In a year of wildfires, floods and ringing climate alarm bells, Astra Taylor has been thinking a lot about insecurity. Not just in the existential sense—“we’re all going to die,” the 43-year-old Canadian American filmmaker says, even if “we don’t like to admit that,”—but in the myriad ways, under capitalism in Canada and elsewhere, in…
Dartmouth remembers rapper Pat Stay, one year after tragic killing
A man who had always seemed larger than life—both onstage and in the collective memory of those who knew and loved him—is now, fittingly, the size of a building. Over the Labour Day weekend, artists unveiled a 25-foot-high mural of late battle rapper Pat Stay in Dartmouth Cove, overlooking the Halifax Harbour. The painted tribute comes…
The Halifax Wanderers are officially in playoff hot water
The Streets’ critically-hailed concept album, A Grand Don’t Come For Free, starts with a seven-word lament that sounds like the diaries of the downtrodden: “It was supposed to be so easy.” Those seven words, one imagines, will ring in the Halifax Wanderers’ heads long after Monday afternoon’s Labour Day loss to York United FC. The…