So, let me see if I understand this correctly. Nova Scotia’s Department of Motor Vehicles takes in $120 million a year to register vehicles, peddle license plates, test drivers, promote highway safety, etc. The DMV costs $30-35 million a year to operate, meaning it nets the provincial treasury $85-90 million a year. But the DMV’s […]
- 07/27/2015
- StephenKimber
- 4 Comments
Flora MacDonald, Canada’s first female Secretary of State, died today (July 26, 2015). She was 89. In the fall of 1979 — the year she became Secretary of State — I spent a few days following the North Sydney, NS, native around her adopted hometown of Kingston, ON, for a profile in the November 1979 issue of Atlantic Insight magazine. […]
There is something rich — and richly ironic — hearing Stephen McNeil fret about the number of voters who didn’t bother to cast ballots in last week’s three provincial by-elections. McNeil, after all, chose the date. He could have called the by-elections for late spring when voters might conceivably have been more engaged. Instead, he picked […]
- 07/20/2015
- StephenKimber
- 1 Comment
Stephen Kimber jokes that he’s in his “Cuban-ist period” though it might more appropriately be called his “Cuban Five period.” Kimber, the award-winning author of 10 books who accidentally discovered the case of the Cuban Five while researching a novel in Havana in 2009, says he is now planning to write a second nonfiction book […]
- 07/16/2015
- StephenKimber
- No Comments
What Lies Across the Water: The Real Story of the Cuban Five is currently in development as a major motion picture. Canadian producer Barrie Dunn, best known for his role in bringing the cult series Trailer Park Boys to the small and big screens — the television series has been sold to more than 30 […]
- 07/16/2015
- StephenKimber
- No Comments
“Maybe I’m idealistic, but I’m a true believer in the strengths Cuba has as a nation. One of the most precious things we have is our people. And this will help in our new relations with the United States…” During the four years Josefina de Caridad Vidal Ferreiro spent as first secretary of the Cuban […]
- 07/16/2015
- StephenKimber
- No Comments
Let’s begin with a worst-case-scenario hypothetical. A young woman attending last weekend’s Evolve Music Festival — Antigonish’s three-day “celebration of music, culture, and social awareness” — decides she wants to alter her mind with some mind-altering substance. She asks around, discovers a guy selling what she thinks she wants to buy. She buys. She takes. […]
- 07/13/2015
- StephenKimber
- No Comments
The United Way’s report on what it takes to live in Halifax, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business’s knee-jerk response to the report and the need for an open, honest debate… So what’s the difference between minimum wage and a living wage? In Halifax, about $10 an hour. That was the recent surprise-but-no-surprise conclusion […]
- 07/08/2015
- StephenKimber
- No Comments
“I hope one day you will be able to update the story with the happy ending that many justice-seeking people around the world are still working for.” — Gerardo Hernández in a 2013 letter to the author This is the Epilogue to What Lies Across the Water: The Real Story of the Cuban Five by Stephen […]
- 07/07/2015
- StephenKimber
- 3 Comments
Who killed Mills Brothers? The iconic Spring Garden Road women’s retailer — which launched in 1919 when “carriage trade” was still more literal than metaphorical — shuttered its sliding doors Tuesday. It disappeared into receivership, putting 20 employees — some of whom had greeted customers for 30 years — out of work. Perhaps it’s because […]
- 07/06/2015
- StephenKimber
- No Comments
STEPHEN KIMBER, a Professor of Journalism at the University of King's College in Halifax and co-founder of its MFA in Creative Nonfiction Program, is an award-winning writer, editor and broadcaster. He is the author of two novels and eight non-fiction books. Buy his books
THE LATEST COMMENTS