Encounter re-encountered, with lessons for today

In 1970, a dozen outside experts came to Halifax for a week to turn the city ‘upside down.’ Last week, a local group played excerpts from ‘Encounter on Urban Environment,’ the NFB’s documentary on that cataclysmic week in Halifax, and discussed whether it’s time for another upside-downing. This column first appeared in the Halifax Examiner January 28, 2019. I […]

Health minister promises to fix long-term care, but offers no money to actually fix it

Last week’s expert-panel report into the province’s flat-lining long-term care system offered a clarion call for the government to finally fix our ailing long-term care system. But the panel didn’t provide a clear, costed pathway to do that, in part because the government didn’t provide it with enough useful data about the existing problems and […]

Encountering Halifax

“Encounter on the Urban Environment,” 1970, became the week that shook Halifax to its core “In the final week of February 1970, 12 specialists—most of them men of international reputation—gathered in Halifax, Nova Scotia, to take part in an experiment utterly new to the Western Hemisphere,” wrote Ken Hartnett, a Washington-based urban affairs reporter for […]

The Fang-less Five, the McNeil government and (un)accountability

In his own Trumpian, alternate-fact world, MLA Gordon Wilson wants us to believe the public accounts committee can’t venture beyond the narrow confines of published auditor general’s reports when examining public spending because… well, that would be against the law. Time for Wilson to re-read the “law.” This column originally appeared in the Halifax Examiner […]

Hard conversations: why was ‘fantastic principal’ Lamar Eason suspended from his job?

“People don’t like to talk about race, culture, bias,” Bayview Community School principal Lamar Eason explains, adding elliptically: “Doing your job can lead to questioning the people employing you. Understandably, people get defensive. But [race relations officers] are not there just to support schools; we’re also there to support students and their families. There can […]

Gerald Regan and the legacy of our #MeToo moment

It isn’t the jury’s verdict from 1998 we should be remembering, but the fact the RCMP and prosecutors finally chose to believe women over one of the country’s most powerful political men. And, more important, that women — lots of them — stood up for other women, and said ‘me too’ before #MeToo. This column […]

Aphrodisiac: Sex, Politics, Power and Gerald Regan

Prologue (Excerpted from Aphrodisiac: Sex, Politics, Power and Gerald Regan) On the morning of December 18, 1998, Canadians awoke to the shocking news that Gerald Regan, the former premier of Nova Scotia and onetime federal cabinet minister — who was on trial in Halifax on charges of rape and attempted rape involving three women — had […]

Shrubsall: Andy Fillmore’s challenge and opportunity

Is Halifax Liberal MP Andy Fillmore just one more mindlessly reliable yes-vote for whatever Justin Trudeau’s Liberals propose or oppose? Or could he fill what is now a political void and champion a non-partisan attempt to make sure our parole system helps those who deserve it while protecting the rest of us from dangerous offenders […]

Eric Smith: human rights champion

“HALIFAX — A former Nova Scotia school teacher who spent decades advocating for the rights of people with HIV accepted a provincial human rights award Monday, December 10, 2018. Eric Smith was among six individuals and groups recognized by the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission at the Halifax ceremony…” Eric Smith’s recognition is well deserved and […]

Race in Nova Scotia: one small step forward, another giant leap into the past

Back in the fall of 1968, Stokely Carmichael’s mere presence scared the hell out of Halifax. Are there lessons for today? The column first appeared in the HalifaxExaminer December 3, 2018. Last month, the Bank of Canada released its new $10-banknote featuring an image of Viola Desmond, the iconic Canadian civil rights pioneer who refused to give […]