[Image-1] The most famous lawyer in the country is coming to Halifax. Marie Henein, of Toronto’s Henein Hutchison LLP, will be the keynote speaker at the Atlantic Women in Litigation conference, taking place May 5 at the Prince George Hotel on Market Street. Already a formidable legal expert, Henein became a household name over the […]
Justice
Posted inNews + Opinion
Weapons of mass intimidation
[Image-1] It was a police emergency like few others. A man, possibly armed with a sword, had broken into a house and was fleeing the scene in a canoe on the Northwest Arm. Two police cars arrive at the Armdale Yacht Club, the officers inside looking to hitch a ride on a boat so they […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Photos from Friday’s We Believe Survivors rally
Last Friday, in the wake of the verdict that found defamed CBC host Jian Ghomeshi ‘not guilty’ of sexual assault, the Mount Saint Vincent University Feminist Collective organized a rally outside of the Nova Scotia Provincial Courthouse to stand in solidarity with survivors of sexual assault in Canada. “It was definitely a very emotional afternoon that […]
Posted inLifestyle
Federal court strikes down medical marijuana regulations
[Image-1] Medical marijuana patients in Canada won a major victory today, as a Federal Court judge ruled they’re once again legally allowed to grow their own medicine. Judge Michael Phelan’s ruling on Wednesday struck down the federal regulations introduced by Stephen Harper’s former Conservative government that restricted medical marijuana patients from growing their own cannabis. […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Halifax’s crime rate dropped nearly 8 percent last year
[Image-1] Overall crime is once again down in Halifax, but 2015 saw a dramatic increase in homicides, robberies and traffic violations. Year-end statistics released by Halifax Regional Police show a nearly eight percent decrease in total Criminal Code offences in 2015 compared to 2014. That includes double-digit drops in attempted murder (by 35 percent), theft […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Slow road to justice for Home for Colored Children residents
Without a media launch, formal announcement or much fanfare at all, the long-awaited $5-million inquiry into past abuse at the Nova Scotia Home for Colored Children has begun. But Nova Scotians hoping to find out how a disturbing chapter in the province’s child-welfare history was able to unfold as it did will have to be […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Tony Smith is still looking for the truth
[Image-1] The restorative model of the long-sought public inquiry into decades of abuse at the Nova Scotia Home for Colored Children is designed to answer questions about what went wrong and help with healing for Tony Smith and others who lived at the home. The Coast: What are you hoping to get out of the […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Laura Doucette awarded $54,640 in damages after being defamed by officer
[Image-1] A decision released today by Justice Denise Boudreau awards $52,640 in damages to Laura Doucette, the Nova Scotian woman who was defamed by Department of Justice investigator David Grimes in 2012. As we’ve previously reported, Grimes was the officer assigned to evaluate Doucette for a firearms license so she could complete the Correctional […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Bending towards justice: Nova Scotia’s human rights trials
[Image-1] Many of us have never been the victims of intolerance or persecution—or worse. But other Nova Scotians have unfortunately been subject to civil rights abuses. The history of this province also includes decisive human rights triumphs, and late-hour victories that came decades after the wrongs had taken place. In honour of Human Rights Day […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Police conduct investigators had a banner year in 2015
[Image-1] Nova Scotia’s investigative-oversight agency probing major police incidents has been managing more cases than expected, its annual report says. The report for 2014-15 from the Serious Incident Response Team says 34 new investigations were opened during the year. “SIRT is now handling a workload almost 75 percent greater than originally anticipated,” lawyer Ron MacDonald, […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
How the province defamed Laura Doucette
[Image-1] Laura Doucette stands facing the wall of windows that dominates the Supreme Court room at Summit Place. Outside, a massive Canadian flag snaps in the wind and the Woodside ferry crosses the harbour. It’s hard to tell if she’s looking at either or simply trying not to think about the fact that the man […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
How I helped the Cuban Five escape from a Cold War prison
Halifax: December 17, 2014 Inside the second-floor King’s College boardroom, close to a dozen of us huddled around a meeting table, wake-up coffees in hand, listening while our university’s director of finance walked us through her PowerPoint presentation of bad news we already knew, but in far more excruciating detail than any of us wanted […]
