ACCESSIBILITY INACCESSIBLE Steve Craig is fed up with the lack of accessible transportation options in HRM. It’s been three years since the Lower Sackville councillor tried to expand the city’s door-to-door paratransit service, and now he’ll have to wait at least a few more months for an outside consultant’s strategic review of Access-a-Bus service. “I’m […]
Race
Posted inNews + Opinion
Toronto criminology professor hired to study Halifax police street checks
The Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission has hired one of the country’s leading experts on racial bias in policing for an independent review of police street checks. University of Toronto criminology professor Scot Wortley appeared before Halifax Regional Police brass and the city’s Board of Police Commissioners on Monday to answer questions about his upcoming […]
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Wade Smith’s Afrocentric legacy
Andre Fenton barely made it to class in his first two years of high school. But the poet and activist eventually graduated with honours after finding inspiration in an Afrocentric literature course he took his senior year. “If it wasn’t for that class, I would not be doing spoken word poetry,” says Fenton. “It influenced […]
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Police commission to look for new legal rules on street checks
Police commissioner Waye Mason is calling for HRM’s legal team to look into new rules around the department’s use of street checks. 
On Monday, the city councillor told his colleagues at the Board of Police Commissioners that he’d be making a motion on the matter at its next meeting in September. Mason wants the municipality’s […]
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Where are all of Halifax’s Black-owned nightclubs?
According to some members of the entertainment community, the city’s vibrant nightlife is missing some colour. Almost none of the bars or nightclubs in HRM are Black-owned*. Halifax DJ Ryan Somers, known as R$ $mooth, can remember very few clubs having Black owners since he became part of the music scene in 1993. If people […]
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Pathetic, dumb and dangerous: The Proud Boys make their debut in Halifax
On July 1, a group of Indigenous activists and their allies gathered at the statue of Edward Cornwallis that inexplicably still stands in downtown Halifax to commemorate and mourn the genocide of Canada’s First Nations. In the midst of the sombre ceremony, a group of five idiots in matching polo shirts showed up singing, waving […]
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Canada’s myth of multiculturalism
Canada is a concept. A concept that’s been formed on the basis of many myths. The myth of discovery by European settlers and the myth of confederation are two that come to mind. However, there’s another myth that Canadians shy away from discussing; the myth of multiculturalism and how it came to be the centrepiece […]
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Halifax police hoping to improve use of street checks
A report before Monday’s meeting of the Board of Police Commissioners is recommending several new efforts to improve the police department’s continued use of street checks. New deputy chief Robin McNeil is planning to oversee a privacy impact assessment and policy review on the controversial practice of collecting data on residents who haven’t committed any […]
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Checking up on street checks
Halifax police are still waiting for an independent analysis of its street check data before deciding what, if any, action to take on the controversial practice. In the meantime, more and more records keep getting added to the pile. A January CBC investigation analyzed over a decade of Halifax Regional Police data and found that […]
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A strong defence
One of the newest members of the Canadian Senate says a criminal case in Nova Scotia perfectly demonstrates what’s wrong with the justice system—even though the process has been fair. Senator Kim Pate is talking about the release of Christopher Calvin Garnier from jail for a second time. The 29-year-old is charged in the second-degree […]
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“Destroy the Indians”
On October 1, 1749, governor Edward Cornwallis gathered his council in Halifax to discuss the growing French and Mi’kmaq threat. Cornwallis’ bright successes at the Battle of Culloden and in the Scottish Pacification may have been illuminating his mind when the councillors met in his Parade Square home. The Halifax settlement was small, isolated from […]
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Joseph Laroche and the Titanic
As the final resting place for about 150 people who perished in the April 15, 1912, sinking of the Titanic, Halifax draws a steady stream of tourists to the local cemeteries where the dead were interred: Mount Olivet Catholic, Baron de Hirsch and Fairview Lawn. The three graveyards comprise the largest burial ground for Titanic […]
