Hundreds of Unifor protestors gathered outside of the Halifax Legislature Building on Thursday, rallying for an extension for the closure of the Northern Pulp mill from Premier Stephen McNeil. Premier McNeil announced Friday that there would be no extension, and the Boat Harbour Act—which called for the closure of the effluent treatment facility that poured […]
Reality Bites
Posted inNews + Opinion
Nova Scotia will uphold its promise to Boat Harbour
Premier Stephen McNeil will enforce the Boat Harbour Act, which says as of January 31, 2020 the waters of Boat Harbour can no longer be used as a place to dump waste effluent. By standing behind the 2015 law, McNeil keeps his promise to the Mi’kmaq people of Pictou Landing First Nation and seals the […]
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Board of Police Comissioner’s last meeting of 2019 gives update on street checks
At a Board of Police Commissioners meeting on Monday, both the HRP and RCMP Chiefs gave updates on how community engagement is going following the Wortley Report. The 186-page report from University of Toronto criminology professor Scot Wortley found that street checks overwhelmingly target people of colour. On average, from 2006 to 2017, Black people […]
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One step closer to Uber, baby, is one step closer to you
Just over a year after 88 percent of survey respondents told HRM they wanted services like Uber and Lyft in the municipality, the transportation standing committee took the first step toward making it a reality. Halifax Regional Municipality’s Transit Standing Committee saw staff’s first draft of the by-law changes this week that will allow Transportation […]
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“We have failed you,” police chief Dan Kinsella tells Black community
It was an important day for Halifax’s Black community as it heard, for the very first time, the official apology from one of the institutions that has caused it harm and grief for generations. Halifax Regional Police chief Dan Kinsella addressed an audience of about 100 people Friday morning at the Halifax Central Library. […]
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NS municipalities call for inquiry on offshore drilling risks
Tonight, Offshore Alliance is meeting in Mahone Bay to speak about international efforts from municipalities to stop offshore drilling. This comes on the heels of a Tuesday press conference held just prior to the start of the Fall Conference of the Federation of Nova Scotia Municipalities, where twelve Nova Scotia municipalities—Halifax not included—announced their request […]
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Love the way we list
Well hello there. You’re a person-about-town who’s working on a play/concert/one-human-show that’s not so much confessional as it is semi-autobiographical, really, and if you love Fleabag you’ll be totally into it. Or maybe you’re home on your couch and wondering where to see a play or concert or just do something other than re-watch Fleabag […]
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Liberals hold on to all four HRM seats in federal election
After a nearly too close for comfort six-week campaign that did little more than expose how poorly we Canadians are educated in the ins and outs of our governance system—and puff unearned wind into fringe party ideology—Halifax (and the country) gets another go at Liberal leadership. All four Liberal incumbent MPs in Halifax Regional Municipality […]
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The alarming links between climate, ocean and cryosphere
We’ve been dumping oil, plastic, toxic chemicals, radioactive sludge, sewage and fishing gear into the ocean for decades. We depend on oceans for so much, including half the oxygen that keeps us alive. They’re a source of protein for many people worldwide, and they absorb much of the rising heat from our indiscriminate fossil fuel […]
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Nova Scotia’s street check moratorium to become permanent ban
Seven months after the release of Scot Wortley’s report on street checks—which found that Black people were five to six times more likely to be street checked than their proportion of the population would predict—the province has made up its mind. Today, justice minister Mark Furey announced a permanent ban on the practice of street […]
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District 11 Councillor Stephen Adams says he won’t be running for council again
With plenty of deep breaths and a few sideways smiles, Stephen Adams made it through his announcement with almost no tears in City Hall Friday morning. Adams, Halifax’s longest-serving councillor, told colleagues and media that this year would be his last in politics. Adams, says he chose to make this announcement now in order to give […]
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Joan Kuyek’s book Unearthing Justice is a light in the darkness
When author and activist Joan Kuyek moved to Sudbury, Ontario, she noticed unusual surroundings. “I couldn’t believe the city when we first came in. I mean, at that point it was black rocks everywhere,” she says by phone from Ottawa. The landscape had been burnt by a hundred years of smelting in North America’s richest […]
