Regional council approved an agreement Tuesday to sell the former Red Cross property on Gottingen Street to the Mi’kmaw Native Friendship Society. Terms and conditions of the deal are contained in a confidential report that wasn’t released to the public, but what is known is that the sale will be at market value and is […]
Indigenous
Posted inNews + Opinion
How we choose to remember the Halifax Explosion
If a hurricane passes over a deserted island, says Jacob Remes, no one calls it a disaster. According to the historian, a disaster is defined by people—how society responds or doesn’t respond to its impact. In his book, Disaster Citizenship: Survivors, Solidarity and Power in the Progressive Era, Remes examines those issues through the aftermath […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Families want answers on loved ones, MMIWG commission hears
The National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls held community hearings in Membertou First Nation this week. Journalist Maureen Googoo live-blogged the hearings each day on Twitter and shared coverage from her crowd-funded news site, Kukukwes.com, with The Coast. ——— The families of Virginia Sue Pictou-Noyes and Tanya Jean Brooks told the […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Treaty education an ongoing project in Nova Scotia
At a Halifax Regional School board meeting last June, a motion was approved to acknowledge that HRSB schools occupy unceded Mi’kmaw territory. South Shore-Bedford board representative Jennifer Raven, who put forward the motion, also announced that the department of Education and Early Childhood Development would be introducing treaty education into the province’s education curriculum come October, […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Family seeking justice in Mi’kmaw woman’s death testify in Day 2 of MMIWG hearings
The National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls is holding community hearings in Membertou First Nation this week. Journalist Maureen Googoo is live-blogging the hearings each day on Twitter and sharing coverage from her crowd-funded news site, Kukukwes.com, with The Coast. ——— More stories of pain, survival and seeking justice were heard […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls Inquiry: Day One
The National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls is holding community hearings in Membertou First Nation this week, from October 30 to November 1. Approximately 40 families have registered to make statements. Journalist Maureen Googoo is live-blogging the hearings each day on Twitter and her crowdfunded news site, Kukukwes.com. Googoo is sharing […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
David Hendsbee surprised Halifax didn’t use a red tarp to cover Cornwallis statue
Days after calling Indigenous protestors “hotheads on the warpath,” Halifax Regional councillor David Hendsbee privately joked with his council colleagues about smoking a “peace pipe” and expressed surprise that the tarp the municipality used to cover the statue of Cornwallis wasn’t red. The comments were made this past summer after hundreds of protesters gathered in […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Update: Matt Whitman all-lives-matters Cornwallis panel
Update: Mason clarifies his since-deleted tweet was agreeing only that Whitman, Adams and Hendsbee need public shaming, not that they are shitheads. The councillor previously told The Coast he stood by his comment when asked about “shitheads” Tuesday evening, but today says he thought we were referencing a different comment. “Sorry, totally my bad,” Mason tweets. […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Police board to discuss new services for First Nations communities
Halifax’s police oversight board wants to help serve and protect the municipality’s First Nations-owned lands. Councillor Waye Mason will put forward a motion at the next Board of Police Commissioners meeting looking to establish a more formal relationship between Halifax Regional Police and the city’s First Nations. Three Indigenous bands currently own addition-to-reserve lands that fall […]
Posted inArts + Music
Dancing to the power of women at Prismatic
“R e-Quickening is the first moment a woman feels life in her womb,” says Santee Smith. “When a baby starts to move and you feel that life, that is a term called ‘re-quickening.’ In my Mohawk background we have a re-quickening address, which is about bringing people back to wholeness and wellness.” Smith is the […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Welcome to Mi’kma’ki
The Indigenous people of this land call ourselves Mi’kmaq (from ni’kmaq, “my kin;” originally L’nu, “the people”). While some celebrate Canada 150, the Algonquian-speaking Mi’kmaq people have been on this land for over 13,000 years. Although pre-colonial Mi’kmaq had no written language, evidence of their history is found in petroglyphs. These petroglyphs, called Komqwejwi’kasikl (“sucker-fish […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Watch this: Cornwallis protester disrupts council, records video
Instead of a press conference and symbolic tarp, members of the public who repeatedly disrupted Tuesday’s meeting of Regional Council were escorted out of council chambers by security. Trish MacIntyre, a Métis activist with Halifax Anonymous and one of the organizers of last weekend’s protest at Cornwallis Park, was at City Hall to watch mayor […]
