Harry Bruce, RIP

I first met Harry Bruce one morning in 1971 in the offices of The 4th Estate newspaper. Harry had recently moved to Halifax from Toronto and stopped in to say hello to its editor, Nick Fillmore. I was a young freelancer who’d just dropped off an article I hoped Nick would buy. Nick introduced us. […]

The Phelan Feud: Available for pre-order now

The Phelan Feud: The Bitter Struggle for Control of a Great Canadian Food Empire by Stephen Kimber will be released on June 6, 2024, by Barlow Books. It is now available for pre-order. Award-winning journalist Stephen Kimber takes readers behind the scenes of an epic family feud inside the Phelan clan—one of Canada’s wealthiest families—who […]

Stephen Kimber appointed to the Order of Nova Scotia

Stephen Kimber was among five Nova Scotians named to the Order of Nova Scotia, the province’s highest honour, during a ceremony at Government House on November 9, 2023. The citation: As the author of two novels and eleven non-fiction works, Stephen Kimber is a distinguished writer, journalist and educator. In the academic realm, he served […]

The Saltwire Saga

For more than 40 years, I’ve been writing about the Halifax Chronicle Herald, its predecessors and successors—including its oddly-named and ill-fated recent owner, Saltwire. In 1981, in the aftermath of a failed attempt to unionize the newsroom, I wrote this feature about the paper and its role in Nova Scotia life and politics. That story’s […]

My own Mulroney moment

In 1978, when I was a young freelance magazine writer, Financial Post Magazine assigned me to profile Brian Mulroney. Two years earlier, Mulroney had lost his bid to lead Canada’s Progressive Conservative Party to Joe Clark and had then taken a very different job as president of Iron Ore Canada. Financial Post editors wanted me […]

It’s time to write -30- and thank you for the privilege

Our columnist says he’s had a great run, and some days he wants to continue doing this forever. But it’s time. For more years than I care to count, I have been professionally — and often personally — “shocked and appalled” on a regular basis about the goings on going on in our world. Luckily, […]

Putting bureaucratic foxes in charge of cleaning up the freedom of information henhouse

An internal working group of bureaucrats who benefit from “a culture of disregard for access and privacy laws” are reviewing Nova Scotia’s freedom of information system. What can go wrong? Tricia Ralph is Nova Scotia’s Information and Privacy Commissioner, the person best positioned to know what’s wrong with our failed and flailing freedom of information system […]

Jamie Baillie, his spokesperson and that about which they still have ‘nothing to add’

Former PC leader Jamie Baillie was quick to categorically deny — through his spokesperson — that he’d ever assaulted a former aide. But he is still silent — through his spokesperson — about whether he forced her to sign a non-disclosure agreement. The story had already been published by the time Parker Donham’s email landed […]

Nova Scotia Power wants us to pay for its failures

That’s because the private utility’s more-than-well-compensated executives prioritize shareholders over customers, profits over service. So, Nova Scotia Power Inc. wants its customers — which is to say, us — to foot the remaining $26.4 million “restoration costs” from September 2022’s “unprecedented weather event,” otherwise known as Hurricane Fiona. First, it’s worth noting that we’re already […]

Monitoring implementation of the Mass Casualty Report’s recommendations. So far, so bad …

Commissioner Michael MacDonald, chair, leaves the stage after delivering the Mass Casualty Commission inquiry’s final report into the mass murders in rural Nova Scotia in Truro, N.S., on Thursday, March 30, 2023. The problem begins with the self-serving decision by Ottawa and the province to make the committee that’s supposed to be publicly accountable for […]