The bridge of the HMCS Charlottetown was cool and muggy. The ship’s air conditioning was running full blast, but the doors were open, so the sailors on watch could hear if something happened ashore. During the day, the Charlottetown would stay far off the coast of Libya to be out of range of land-based missiles. […]
War
Posted inNews + Opinion
A war on every front
You are eight years old and today is the first day of fishing season. Your father has finally taken you out with him and even bought you your own pole. Though you’re too young to understand adulthood, you can tell that this is how you become the person you hope to be. Your chest swells […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Plenty to protest as Trudeau comes to Halifax (again)
From pipelines to airstrikes, Justin Trudeau will arrive in Halifax later this week still dealing with the fallout from a week of controversial political decisions. The prime minister will join hundreds of other Party faithful attending the Liberal’s national convention, which takes place Thursday through Saturday at the newly opened and already burdensome Halifax Convention Centre. Trudeau […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
The perfect silence in Syria
I was in Grade Five when the teacher asked me, “What do you want to learn as a second language, English or French?” In some parts of Syria, kids had the chance to choose between the two. That was the first important decision I had to make. I felt joy at the idea of having […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
National conference showcases women taking action for peace
[Image-1] Tamara Lorincz feels Canada spends too much on the military—and she’s not alone. Lorincz is a board member with the Canadian Voice of Women for Peace (VOW) and was a prominent local activist when she lived in Halifax. She’s back in the city for the first time in three years to take part in […]
Posted inArts + Music
Review: Eye in the Sky
The actor-writer-director Gavin Hood follows up the mostly computer-generated Ender’s Game—about a boy training to fight intergalactic war through a simulator that turned out to be real—with a similar but much more realistic battle pitched across nations in Eye in the Sky. Colonel Katherine Powell is played by Helen Mirren—a terrific, welcome force to have in a typically manly environment […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Memories that are hard to forget
[Image-1] Newfoundlander Norman Crewe was a member of Canada’s Merchant Navy during the Second World War. He served in operations on the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific, but many comrades aboard these enemy-targeted vessels carrying crucial equipment and supplies never returned home. Chances of survival were slim because convoy ships weren’t allowed to stop to rescue […]
Posted inArts + Music
AFF Review: Hyena Road
This week, Paul Gross (Due South, Passchendaele) premiered Hyena Road, the first Canadian contemporary war film, which he wrote and directed, at TIFF and last night at the Atlantic Film Festival. The Afghanistan-based, Jordan-shot film also stars Allan Hawco (The Republic of Doyle) and Rossif Sutherland (son of Donald Sutherland). And, just like the film, I’m conflicted. It […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Child soldiers receive “full complement of horrors”
[Image-1] There are hundreds of thousands of child soldiers across the world. Roméo Dallaire wants Canadians to know those kids aren’t any different than our own children. The retired Lieutenant-general is speaking in Halifax this Tuesday at an event coordinated by his Roméo Dallaire Child Soldiers Initiative. His aim is to influence young people at […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Objector accounts pay for peace
American war vets from Iraq and Afghanistan were testifying before the Congressional Progressive Caucus last month when Barbara Lee, a Democrat from California, wondered how the US military dehumanizes the “enemy,” making it easier for soldiers to kill. Kristofer Goldsmith, a former US Army sergeant who fought in Iraq, replied that in basic training, recruits […]