Editorial

Metro Transit misses the bus again: Real-time schedule information is available to managers, but sharing it with riders has no arrival time. In a stunning display of bureaucratic tin-ear, Metro Transit is completely failing its riders. At issue: real-time scheduling information that can be accessed through a web interface and mobile phone apps. The need […]

In a stunning display of bureaucratic tin-ear, Metro Transit is completely failing its riders. At issue: real-time scheduling information that can be accessed through a web interface and mobile phone apps. The need for such a system is obvious. We live in a hilly city with narrow streets and crappy weather, so inevitably buses will […]

Dear Darrell D: Thanks for commanding your overworked spinmeisters to drop everything whenever I call for government info. Now, with their guidance, my reporting will never stray too far from truth, justice and the NDP way. Let me give thanks by offering these political insights on the $6.2 billion Lower Churchill power project. Darrell, watch your […]

Last week, allnovascotia.com reporter Paul McLeod revealed a new policy with the provincial government: All media requests to government PR offices must be cleared by premier Darrell Dexter’s political staff. Any PR person who gets a request for information must pass it on to her boss who, in turn, passes it to Dexter’s office, overseen […]

I thought of my dear departed parents last week when a guy in Amherst collared a would-be bank robber and held him for the cops. The CBC dubbed the guy a hero, but my parents, who grew up poor in the Dirty Thirties, would have sided with the robber. “I hope they never catch him,” […]

A lot of people in Halifax want the city to build a new stadium—but at what cost? Should we get one even if it means flirting with potential payola, kickbacks, graft and bribery? Don’t get me wrong; I haven’t made up my mind on the stadium issue. There might indeed be a case for a […]

“Tuition increases limited to 3%,” a Herald headline proclaimed last week, over a story labelled EXCLUSIVE. It quoted “a senior government official,” who cheerily said the province was imposing a three percent tuition cap “designed to protect Nova Scotia students, ensuring that their tuition will remain below the national average over the long term.” The […]

Halifax councillors spew a lot of pretty rhetoric about their support for downtown, but when it comes to putting hard money on the table, the real support is for suburban highways. Last week, council was told the Washmill underpass project into Bayers Lake, originally priced at $10 million, is an astounding $8 million over budget. […]

Peaceniks, eat your hearts out: Finally, good news! In spite of the global recession, business is booming for arms makers. In 2009, global military spending reached a record $1.5 trillion US—a solid gain of nearly six percent over 2008 and a whopping increase of 49 percent since the year 2000. The authoritative 2010 yearbook from […]

A new study ranks Canada dead last in an international comparison of freedom-of-information laws,” reported the Canadian Press last week. The news came as no surprise whatsoever. Last year I participated in a forum attended by a dozen other journalists, academics and activists working on Freedom of Information issues who were all appalled at the […]

Father Robert McNeil drew chuckles at a Pictou County funeral last week when he recited a Depression-era verse: “Life is mysterious/Don’t take it too serious/You work, you save/You worry so/But you can’t take it with you/When you go, go, go.” The Roman Catholic priest was speaking during a funeral mass for June MacDonald, 65, a […]