For mayor, surely we can do better
Let me ask an awkward question. Why is that we—citizens of the modestly immodest cosmopolitan, metropolitan metropolis of Halifax—seem incapable of electing a mayor who offers vision and hope, and is not… well, how can I put this?
Exhibit Number 1: the late Ron Wallace, prominent local optometrist, nice guy and undistinguished Liberal MLA who is Halifax’s longest serving (1980-91) mayor.
Wallace’s perhaps-having-us-on pet project was to hollow out Citadel Hill as an underground parking garage. When Wallace died in 2008, commentators seemed hard-pressed to recall a single significant accomplishment from his time in office. But he was—quite rightly—celebrated as “a charming, lighthearted man with a smile that lit up his whole face.”
That’s something, I suppose.
Oh, and then there was Edmund Morris-s-s, Halifax’s tiny pluperfect mayor (1974-80) best remembered for his small stature, polysyllabic pontifications and stereophonic sibilance.
Morris, in fact, did distinguish himself in other political spheres. In the sixties as a Tory MP, he helped bring down the Diefenbaker government on a matter of principle. But as mayor, he was, well… unmemorable. I found a 341-word bio of him online. Its 13-word summation of his mayoral legacy: “Between 1974 and 1980 Morris served as Mayor of the City of Halifax.”
Uh, OK.
And then there’s Walter Fitzgerald, whose modest claim to fame is that he was the last mayor of the old Halifax (1994-1996) and first mayor of the new HRM (1996-2000). Though an excellent companion and all-round-good fellow, can you really take seriously a leader whose nickname is “Googie?”
Which brings us to Peter Kelly, our current—soon to (heaven help us!) surpass Ron Wallace for longevity—mayor.
Boyishly earnest, occasionally schoolmarm-ish, Peter Kelly seems constitutionally incapable of herding, let alone leading his fellow elected representatives, not to even imagine offering them, or us, a vision of what our city could be in 10 years.
And yet… we keep re-electing him. We’re now slightly less than two years from our next trip to the municipal polls. It’s time to think seriously, first about the kind of city we really want and then about who can make that happen.
Surely we can do better.
Copyright 2011 Stephen Kimber
What Havana could teach Halifax
After spending the last three weeks in Havana researching a book—and avoiding winter—I have reached a few modest conclusions.
First, there are things Haligonians could teach Habaneros.
About pooper scooper laws, for example. Havana’s sidewalks are a canine-created minefield. That becomes more understandable, of course, when you realize Havana has a shortage of plastic bags. But still...
A living, belching car museum.
Just as it understandable that—largely because of the 50-year-old U.S. trade embargo—Havana is a living, belching, vintage car museum. Still, Cuban lungs could benefit from a few North American-style exhaust emissions regulations.
And 21st century Canadians—for whom recycling is now routine—might be appalled at how casually Habaneros dispose of their disposables. People eat on the run, buying snacks from sidewalk vendors. When they’re done, they’re more likely to drop the remains than look for a waste bin. (That said, the nightly scouring of Havana’s streets and sidewalks is magical. By dawn, the city is pristine again—yesterday’s remnants swept into block-sized green bins and carted off—and ready for another day’s droppings.)
But Halifax could learn from Havana too.
Consider downtown redevelopment.
Though much of Havana still resembles a bombed-out city—there are daily reports of building collapses—the Cuban government is investing a huge chunk of tourism revenues in renewing its historic core.
The billion-dollar rebuilding of Havana Veija—the five-square-kilometre district founded in 1519—only began in earnest in 1993 after the collapse of the Soviet Union forced the country to turn to tourism.
But unlike most North American urban redevelopment schemes—in which history becomes tourist artifact and ordinary life is eliminated—the guiding philosophy behind Havana’s historic restoration has been that “the inhabitants become the beneficiaries.”
Esculia Primeria José Marti in session.
Wander through the pedestrians-rule side streets of Old Havana. Kids play soccer, dogs sleep where they please. Glance into open doorways. You’re as likely to see a family gathered around the TV as a souvenir shop. On Obispo, Havana’s main tourist artery, there’s a primary school. In lovingly restored Plaza Veija, there are trendy restaurants, even a popular micro-brewery. But if you look up, you’ll see a family’s laundry drying on a balcony.
During the restoration process, Plaza Vieja's residents were relocated to other apartments. But as soon as the work was completed, they were allowed to return—only to much improved accommodation.
In Halifax, when we renewed our historic core, we pushed traditional residents out of the inner city—and, in the process, sucked the life out of downtown.
Havana has seemingly found a balance between its history and life.
Halifax should take something from that.
Oh yes, and a little sunshine too.
Copyright 2011 Stephen Kimber
Reading Recovery created a reader… and a writer
Education Minister Ramona Jennex’s this-really-is-good-news-considering announcement she’ll cut school funding by “just” two per cent next year masks a truth she dismissed outright last week.
“Based on this budget,” Jennex declared, “a child in a classroom should see no difference in… the education they receive.”
My experience suggests otherwise.
That’s not to minimize Jennex’s achievement in whittling costs in a system where the number of students continues to decline while expenses escalate.
The province’s initial, what-were-they-thinking request school boards figure out how to cut 22 per cent of their budgets over three years certainly concentrated public attention. Making these cuts more politically palatable.
In the end, most reductions—15 per cent carved out of administrative; 50 per cent lopped off “consultants” budgets—rightly recognize the classroom as the central education funding focus.
But Jennex eliminated at least one clearly educational-if-not-classroom program—Reading Recovery—she claimed is not efficient enough to justify its $7-million price tag.
It was efficient enough—essential—for my youngest son.
As a five-year-old, Michael had no interest in mastering the mysteries of the alphabet, much less figuring out how to put letters together to form words, sentences, stories. He didn’t need to know how to read, he told his mother. He was going to be an actor. Logic was not his strong suit.
By the end of primary, he’d fallen behind—just as school became more challenging. It was a recipe for frustration, failure.
Enter Reading Recovery.
During Grade 1, Michael spent a few minutes each day with his school’s reading recovery specialist. I have no idea how it worked, but the results were magical. By the end of that year, Michael was not only reading at his grade level, he was a reader.
As a teenager, in fact, Michael became notorious along Quinpool Road for reading-while-walking. Today, he is 26 and a writer too—a very good one, if I say so myself—with a literary agent, a book proposal and, we hope, a professional future.
Reading Recovery set him on that path.
Jennex may be right to suggest it can be replaced with another initiative that will help more children at less cost.
I hope so.
But every cut has its cost.
Copyright 2011 Stephen Kimber
May these games be like those games
It was the sweet summer of 1969, two years after the glories of Centennial and Expo ’67 ignited a sense of what our country might become in its second century, but a full year before the October Crisis snuffed out that particular dream-flame.
It was a time—the last?—when Canadians still believed in the possibilities.
I had landed my first journalism job. Still a few courses short of a degree, I signed on as a fulltime reporter at CFDR, Arnie Patterson’s Dartmouth fledgling radio station. Its 5,000-watt signal was so weak it couldn’t be heard in parts of Halifax, but that didn’t matter.
Arnie had a plan to put us on the map.
We would become The Voice of the Canada Games.
It was the first-ever Canada Summer Games, and no one quite knew what to expect.
But Arnie, an inveterate civic booster, decided to go all out. To supplement the station’s lone official vehicle, he slapped CFDR’s logo on the manager’s convertible and my beat-up old VW, hired a bunch of eager young reporters and instructed us to cover all Canada Games all the time.
We did. Paddling on Lake Banook, diving at the new Centennial Pool, shot-putting at the Wanderer’s Grounds, relay racing at Dal… We were there for every event. And, of course, for the post-event partying, celebrating or commiserating at the official hospitality events, followed by deep-into-the-night-until-dawn at after-hours clubs like the Arrows or at impromptu parties in Point Pleasant Park. There were even a few fleeting romances with athletes we would hear about later at the Olympics.
It was a time.
And now, 42 years later, the Canada Games—Winter Edition—is back.
Much has changed since those first Games, not all of it for the better.
But I like to think that the still relatively modest Canada Games—unlike their too-expensive, too-hyped Commonwealth cousins, or, God forbid, the Olympic dreams some harbour—represents the perfect kind of ambitiousness for Nova Scotia.
We can be part of these games—as volunteers, as spectators, as citizens—in ways those other events have become too grand to accommodate.
So let the Games—and the fun—begin!
Copyright 2011 Stephen Kimber
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About
STEPHEN KIMBER, a Professor of Journalism at the University of King's College in Halifax, is an award-winning writer, editor and broadcaster. He is the author of one novel -- Reparations -- and seven non-fiction books.