The municipality admits it’s not going a good enough job in creating a diverse and supportive work environment, and is promising—once again—to do better. The acknowledgement comes after 20 public employees demonstrated outside City Hall on Tuesday in protest of racial discrimination inside HRM’s workforce. The mostly African Nova Scotian group was speaking out against […]
City Council
Posted inNews + Opinion
A housing-first model will help end homelessness in Nova Scotia
In 2015, the city of Medicine Hat, Alberta took a compassionate and unprejudiced approach to ending homelessness by using a housing-first model. Homes are offered to anyone who needs them. Ten days are now the most an individual or family stays in a Medicine Hat shelter. With a roof over their head, people are able […]
Posted inLifestyle
Halifax in the weeds on cannabis regulation
This city needs a lot more muscle if it wants to control the legalized drug game. On Tuesday, Halifax council voted to create a municipal framework for cannabis to help fill in some of the blanks on what exactly the municipality’s role will be once the plant is legalized for recreational use this fall. Councillor […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Council split on budget approval
It’s a bit of a bad news story if you ask Tim Outhit. Council approved HRM’s billion-dollar 2018-19 budget on Tuesday after some three hours of debate, with Outhit and fellow councillor Shawn Cleary being the only two votes against. The financial plan increases the average tax bill in Halifax by 1.975 percent—about $37 per single-family […]
Posted inArts + Music
Afua Cooper is Halifax’s new poet laureate
The municipality’s next poet laureate has no shortage of work experience. Afua Cooper, best-selling author and one of the country’s most celebrated voices of Black Canadian history, is now Halifax’s poet-in-residence. “Poetry brings people together,” Cooper writes in a press release announcing the news. “It is my honour to serve as the municipality’s poetry ambassador.” […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Council stuck with Convention Centre quagmire
City council is finally coming around to the notion that the Halifax Convention Centre might not be the boffo moneymaker that was promised. Halifax’s elected leaders begrudgingly voted on Tuesday to pay an additional $301,500 in marketing costs the province claims we owe for setting up downtown’s new crown jewel. The city also agreed to […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Glut of office space disastrous for Halifax Convention Centre financials
The Halifax Convention Centre just opened its doors and it’s already costing the city far more than initial estimates. New financial figures are projecting that a planned $1.8-million shortfall in the city’s HCC reserve fund has now nearly doubled to $3.5-million. Worse still, a projected $6-million surplus after 10 years of convention centre operations has […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Matt Whitman has a media sensitivity problem
City councillor Matt Whitman says he should have been explicitly warned that his conversation with a CBC reporter was on the record, but the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s ombudsman disagrees. Whitman submitted an official complaint to CBC’s ombudsman back in February after a phone interview with journalist Emma Davie about his retweet of a white supremacist […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Council looks at options for curbing “driveway spam”
Halifax wants to install some real-life spam filters for unwanted flyer deliveries. On Thursday HRM’s Environment and Sustainability committee approved a staff recommendation to strengthen regulations on how printed commercial advertisements can be distributed to the city’s doorsteps. The motion—which still needs final approval from Regional Council—would create a new bylaw banning bagged commercial leaflets […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
City Council Report Card 2018
There’s a renaissance of buffoonery at City Hall. Whatever goodwill towards fellow councillors existed two years ago, when this self-righteous clique was elected, seems to deteriorate daily. There are spiteful remarks and passive aggressive attacks, on social media and in front of TV cameras. Some turn the other cheek. More than a few dig in […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Council finds Whitman breached code of conduct, released confidential information
Matt Whitman walked away from an in-camera discussion on public complaints held Tuesday, refusing to take part in a debate on councillor conduct largely centred on his own words and actions. It didn’t go his way. After a two-and-a-half hour discussion behind closed doors, council voted 12-3 that Whitman was guilty of breaching the municipal […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Outdoor alcohol on Argyle and Grafton
Soon you might not need a patio to party downtown. A staff report headed to city council this week wants to make it easier for outdoor events to allow public drinking on Argyle and Grafton. The proposed amendment to the Municipal Alcohol Policy would create a new category of “HRM Streets Where Alcohol is Permitted When […]
