After months of debate, consultation and meetings, the Dennis Building has been granted heritage status. Regional council approved the designation this week after a short public hearing, making the Dennis one of the city’s only successful third-party heritage applications. Paul Armstrong, on behalf of the Maritime Institute of Civil Society, appeared before HRM’s Heritage Advisory […]
City Council
Posted inNews + Opinion
City hall to pay for side guards on garbage trucks
Halifax will spend nearly a quarter of a million dollars installing side guards on trucks owned and operated by private businesses. Regional council voted on Tuesday to cover the costs for the life-saving devices on the 83 solid-waste collection trucks belonging to GFL Environmental and REgroup, respectively. The total cost to HRM works out to […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Plastic bag ban still up for debate
Plastic bags may be in peril in the HRM. The municipality’s environmental standing committee is holding off on a vote to reduce single-use plastic waste through voluntary collaboration with the city’s businesses. Back in January, regional council asked for a report to come to the Environment and Sustainability standing committee outlining options to reduce or […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Letters to the editor, October 25, 2018
Tory mudslingers The late-stage mudslinging in the Nova Scotia PC Party leadership race makes one thing clear: While Julie Chaisson respectfully focuses on her campaign, three of her fellow candidates believe Tim Houston is way out in front. Cecil Clarke, John Lohr and Elizabeth Smith-McCrossin left the final debate in Truro seemingly in agreement that […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Quebec shipyard not happy with “Ships Stay Here” campaign
A spokesperson for Davie Shipbuilding strongly takes issue with comments that the Quebec company is stealing work from Halifax. “It’s being portrayed as if Quebec will steal jobs, contracts from Irving,” says Fred Boisvert, vice-president of public affairs for Davie. “Where if you look properly, closely, there’s nothing like it happening at all.” Federal procurement officials […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
“We owe an apology to the public”
“I feel like we have let the public down,” deputy mayor Waye Mason says about the launch of Halifax’s new smoking ban. With hours to go until cannabis is legal across the country, Halifax is admitting that its complicated, city-wide ban on smoking needs some fine-tuning. “I think we owe an apology to the public […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
The inevitability of Uber
Ask anyone and they’ll tell you it’s the way of the future. Mayor Mike Savage tells the newspapers “it’s the way the world is moving.” Deputy mayor Waye Mason says in a radio interview that Halifax can’t call itself a high-tech city without it. A recent survey from Corporate Research Associates found over two-thirds of […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Petition to rename Cornwallis Street delivered to city hall
“The statue coming down was a great first step, but there’s more that can be done,” says Angel Marcus-Panag. On Thursday, the Halifax resident went to City Hall and delivered his petition containing over 1,700 signatures in favour of renaming Cornwallis Street to Rocky Jones Boulevard. The vast majority of those names come from an […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Delay in addressing workplace racism a “slap in the face,” says councillor
It shouldn’t be taking this long. This week at council, staff presented a progress update on efforts to address widespread racism within city hall’s workforce, as documented in the 2016 Employment Systems Review. The update on that external consultant’s report comes more than two years since its completion and nine months after Peninsula North councillor Lindell […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Cigarette smoking still restricted on Halifax property
Regional council defeated a motion Tuesday that would have exempted tobacco from the city’s new anti-smoking bylaw. Despite councillor Sam Austin’s attempt to amend the nuisance bylaw and separate cannabis and tobacco use, all smoking and vaping on municipal property will be restricted to designated areas after October 1. It wasn’t the outcome Austin was […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
City hall lawyers say smoking ban needs to include tobacco
A new staff report recommends Halifax continue its prohibition for all types of smoking on public property—that is if the city ever wants to be successful in prosecuting cannabis users. City council passed new bylaw amendments back in July outright banning smoking and vaping on municipal property outside of specially designated smoking areas. The motion […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Matt Whitman and Faith Goldy
Matt Whitman doesn’t want you to get the wrong impression about his support for Toronto’s most prominent white-nationalist mayoral candidate. “Retweeting for a friend. Stay calm,” writes Whitman in a retweet from earlier this week of Lindsay Shepherd’s March 22 Macleans story, “Why I invited Faith Goldy to Laurier.” The Hammonds Plains–St. Margarets councillor has since […]
