I’m continually amazed that new councillors often don’t have the slightest clue what’s going on. You saw it during the campaign– many candidates weren’t aware of the controversial issues that were splashed across the newspapers every day, or even had passing knowledge of fundamental council governing documents, like the regional plan or the transit capital […]
Reality Bites
Posted inNews + Opinion
Breaking news: Sweet Basil building being razed
The oldest all-wooden building in Halifax is being taken down. I just took these photos of the Sweet Basil building downtown:While I was there, Phil Pacey from the Heritage Society arrived, and handed out a flyer explaining the history of the building. He believes that the building was constructed in the 1840s. City directories weren’t […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Daily News comes through
I just interviewed Ron Colman, director of GPI Atlantic, publisher of the Nova Scotia GPI accounts. You’ll be hearing a lot about this on the TV news tonight and in the Chronicle-Herald tomorrow morning (and I’ll be writing about it in next week’s Coast); a short description comes from GPI’s press release: For 12 years, […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Obama!
This will surprise no one, but I voted for a secret Muslim, America-hating redistributionist as president of the United States last week.
Posted inNews + Opinion
The end of Halifax?
Sunday, I drove through the site of the proposed Melford terminal on Canso Straight, and took photos of the now-abandoned site:If everything goes as planned, a new deep water port will be constructed at this site, consisting of a 315-acre terminal (including 60 acres of fill into the Canso Straight). The principals have announced that […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Losing money
Andrew Younger: “I don’t think Ben McCrea’s bluffing,” Younger said. “He’s losing $250,000 a year on these buildings… By this logic, I’m losing a billion dollars a year because the city won’t let me build a nuclear power plant in my back yard. Or, if the argument is that McCrea is “losing” the money because […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
The next Trudeau
No, no, not Pierre. Gary: Buoyed rather than daunted by his distant third-place finish in the recent mayoralty race, perennial candidate David Boyd is now throwing his hat into the federal Liberal leadership race.
Posted inNews + Opinion
Building a healthy economy
I’d really like to say: you get a healthy economy, prosperity for all, by doing thing one, thing two and this other thing, #3. Just follow my advice, and we’ll all be rich. Alas, that’s falling into the pony fallacy. Truth is, there are no simple answers, no ponies to magically appear and carry us […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Ponies!
Yesterday, I used three examples of how Nova Scotian political and business elites have utterly failed in three mega economic development schemes: offshore gas, Atlantic Gateway and the Commonwealth Games. What these schemes have in common is the idea that they’re a simple solution to all our perceived problems— a pony, if you will, that […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Ben McCrea threatens to sue Peter Kelly
According to allnovascotia.com, Bes McCrea, principle owner of the Armour Group, the developer of the proposed Waterside Centre development, is threatening to sue Halifax mayor Peter Kelly for defamation. McCrea alleges that Kelly implied that McCrea “went to the province” to get around the Halifax council’s rejection of Waterside. Seems like a weak charge to […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
The downtown blame game
Psychologists speak of “displacement,” a neat little mental trick to blame others for your own failures. We’ve got a pretty nice example of it going here in Nova Scotia. Let’s review. The business and political elites of the province, most of them based here in Halifax, have chased one pipe dream after another in pursuit […]