The federal government should reassess its policy on international students and consider a cap on a program that has seen “explosive growth,” putting pressure on rental markets and driving up costs, Housing and Infrastructure Minister Sean Fraser said… “The reality is we’ve got temporary immigration programs that were never designed to see such explosive growth […]

Where to begin? Here. Again. CBC requested an interview with HRP to discuss the events of the protest.  HRP declined, citing the ongoing external review.  In last week’s column, I followed up on the CBC Atlantic Investigation Unit’s year-long struggle to wrest 11 years of internal discipline decisions from the Halifax Regional Police. The CBC […]

When the CBC’s Atlantic Investigative Unit wanted to understand better how police handle complaints from the public for a project called “Police and Public Trust,” it filed freedom-of-information requests asking all provincial police forces for 11 years of internal discipline decisions. Every force complied, except one. Halifax Regional Police declined to release any information at […]

The problem with trying to police truthiness in political debate is where should it begin and where will it end? Let’s begin with the Preston byelection. Voters there went to the polls on Tuesday, August 8. The Houston government had known since January 25, 2023 — when incumbent Liberal MLA Angela Simmonds announced she planned […]

When Alonzo Wright was appointed Director of Nova Scotia’s Serious Incident Response Team (SIRT) in December 2022, he gave his first interview to Matthew Byard, the Examiner’s Local Initiatives Reporter. Wright’s appointment as SIRT’s first director of African descent came at a fraught moment in the decade-long existence of the civilian police oversight body, whose […]

We are trying to balance the risks of under- and over-tightening monetary policy. If we don’t do enough now, we will likely have to do even more later. If we do too much, we risk making economic conditions unnecessarily painful for everybody… — Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem I am not now, nor ever […]

“Anyone who comes forward does so voluntarily, and we will be taking a trauma-informed approach when we’re speaking with them,” explained Cst. Shannon Herbert, an investigator with Operation Headwind, the RCMP’s investigation into allegations of sexual assault at the Nova Scotia Youth Centre in Waterville. Operation Headwind, she told a press conference last week, was […]

Nova Scotia Provincial Court Chief Judge Pamela Williams. Does the Houston government have it in for the province’s judicial system? And, if so, what impact is that having on the timely but carefully considered delivery of justice in Nova Scotia? There is much to discuss here. But let’s start with Chief Provincial Court Judge Pamela […]

“I had hoped that more than halfway through my five-year term as Information and Privacy Commissioner for Nova Scotia, I would be able to report better news and not have to repeat that the same challenges continue to plague the [Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner] despite our best efforts to resolve them… Unlike […]

I have come to think of it as the Betsy Boomerang — that moment when something you didn’t know, had forgotten, ignored, dismissed, avoided or pretended wasn’t something… suddenly becomes a thing that you desperately need to understand and can no longer forget, ignore, dismiss, avoid or pretend wasn’t anything. Until that moment passes too, […]