New York, Toronto and Calgary are abuzz about Halifax, thanks to robot doctors, gas regulations and a billion-dollar deal. And in less metropolitan company, our town’s on lips in Charlottetown and Sydney courtesy of a new government office and an award for tourism. Full links below.
RURAL ANGST
from Sydney
Premier RodMac must have been playing to a hometown crowd of Halifax haters when he opened the new office of African Nova Scotian affairs yesterday in Sydney. The Cape Breton Post quotes the former Cape Breton gym teacher saying:
“It is a move to get more services out to the rural parts of Nova Scotia,” MacDonald said. “It’s been a long-standing issue here in Sydney and for Cape Breton Island to see more government services.” (story here)
Yes, pity poor Cape Breton, the Quebec of Nova Scotia, whose only legacy of government support over these last untold years is a steady stream of cash and disproportionate political influence.
CREDIT FOR MICROCREDIT
from Charlottetown
Bill Campbell, the PEI man involved in getting last fall’s big microcredit summit to Halifax, has been honoured by the city’s tourism promoters. According to The Guardian newspaper, the Paragon Award is a “prestigious” honour. This may be so (note my restaint in not calling this item “Microcredit for microcredit”), but if we’re handing out awards it would be nice to see Campbell getting further accolades from higher levels of government. Even though it was not awash in tartan and lobster, and even though he’s from PEI, the summit was a huge deal for the city slash province slash country.
Campbell received the award for his efforts to bring the Global Microcredit Summit to Halifax. He has been working on the Microcredit Summit Campaign since 1997.
He has attended four summits and helped organize three Atlantic regional conferences, two in P.E.I. and one in Nova Scotia.
He started seriously trying to interest the Microcredit Summit Secretariat in Washington to come to Canada in 2002 while attending the global summit in New York City.
The summit finally happened Nov. 12-15, 2006, with 2,300 delegates from 112 countries in attendance. (story here)
Apparently Campbell is aiming to get the summit back to Halifax in 2016. Sly bugger’s really going after those Paragons, isn’t he?
SET YOUR RED TAPE ON FIRE
from Calgary
This isn’t a shocker. The province’s report on the effects of its gas price regulations was finally made public, and Oilweek responded with the headline “Gas price regulation in Nova Scotia costing consumers millions: study.” Although I’m no fan of the gas regulations, the wire story from Halifax that’s under that headline is way more nuanced than the head implies:
A consultant gave a qualified nod Thursday to Nova Scotia‘s system of gasoline price regulation despite higher costs to consumers and lingering questions about the long-term impact for retailers.
The independent review by Gardner Pinfold Consulting says prices have risen under the nine-month-old system, costing consumers up to $11 million.
But the report‘s author, Michael Gardner, stressed that the average price rise across the province of about 0.8 cents per litre could not be solely attributed to the new regulated system. (story here)
Of course, few Oilweek readers want headlines like “Regulation seems to be working.”
MARKET ECONOMY
from New York
The Sobey family, which started the business that became the giant Sobeys grocery chain, wants its stores back. A chunk of the company is traded on the stock market, and the Stellarton-based family is spending $1.06 billion to buy that chunk and return the business to private hands. This is obviously big local news; so big that it’s gone international. The Bloomberg business news organization is covering the story, which technically means Empire (the family’s holding company) is buying all the available stock in Sobeys (the publicly traded company).
Empire was founded in 1907, when the Sobey family opened its first butcher shop in Stellarton. Sobeys is Empire’s biggest asset. Empire also has an interest in 57 movie theaters and owns real estate through the Crombie Real Estate Investment Trust.
Empire increased its holding in Sobeys to 72 percent from 62 percent when Sobeys went public.
“There’s little doubt Empire thought it was undervalued for a while,” said Ken Chernin, an analyst with Beacon Securities Ltd. in Halifax, Nova Scotia. “Sobeys gave up some profit margin to maintain sales, and they worked hard to keep the market share they captured.” (story here)
I don’t have a clue what that last part means, but the guy who said it is Haligonian, so it’s gold.
A CURE WORSE THAN THE DISEASE
from Toronto
Forget the supposed innovation by the tourism department we talked about Wednesday. Today’s technological breakthrough is truly innovative. You can tell because it’s so fucking scary. The Globe and Mail has a big story about the robot doctor that the QEII’s chief of neurosurgery, Ivar Mendez, recently demonstrated:
Despite costing $200,000 – the money came from an anonymous donor – the medical robot doesn’t actually look very high tech, resembling a flat-screen TV balanced on top of a bulky, upright vacuum cleaner.
But take another look. This specialist, designed by InTouch Health of California, is the first and only remote-presence technology robotic system in Canada. And while it may not be particularly nimble, on its feet, its inelegant body conceals state-of-the-art technology.
In a preview for the media yesterday, Dr. Mendez sat on the 12th floor of Dalhousie Medical Centre and consulted with patients and staff several blocks away at the Halifax Infirmary.
He praised the subtlety of the robotic controls and said they were very easy to use. When the Halifax trial concludes in a few weeks, the robot will be tested at other regional hospitals. Dr. Mendez hopes that before long there will be a team of robots at every major medical centre in Atlantic Canada. (story here)
There was no comment from premier RodMac about the possibility of a robot army being ready to fill in when the IWK staff go on strike Monday.
Searching robots needed. Send Halifax links here.
This article appears in Apr 26 – May 2, 2007.