A jury of whose peers?

This column originally appeared in the Halifax Examiner on February 19, 2018. Let’s start with this. Any jury might have acquitted Gerald Stanley, the 56-year-old white Saskatchewan farmer who shot and killed Colten Boushie, a 22-year-old indigenous man, on his farm in August 2016. There are two competing narratives about what happened, and even more about the meaning […]

Peter Stoffer: former MP, former hugger, accused groper

This column originally appeared in the Halifax Examiner February 12, 2018. There is much to ponder in the latest dispatch from the world of #metoo — if indeed what I think of as the latest in the cascade of distressingly similar stories of inappropriate conduct by men in positions of authority hasn’t already been […]

Does Cornwallis matter? More than I thought

This column originally appeared in the Halifax Examiner February 5, 2018. Count me among the countless Nova Scotians happy to see the back of Eddie Cornwallis’s scraggy, statue-head as it was ignominiously carted off last week to some dank, secret storage depot somewhere, out of sight and — hopefully — out of mind for at least […]

PC party’s response to Baillie sexual harassment allegation: better but no gold star

This column originally appeared in the Halifax Examiner January 29, 2018. There is much to praise in the Nova Scotia’s Progressive Conservative party’s swift, decisive response last week to an allegation of sexual harassment against party leader Jamie Baillie. Especially in Nova Scotia with our tradition of look-the-other-way politics as usual, and boys will be boys, […]

Can we trust the Armoyans to act in the public interest? No, that’s what council is for…

This column originally appeared in the Halifax Examiner January 22, 2018. Last week’s lopsided Halifax city council decision to decide not to decide — for now — how to respond to APL Property’s proposal to erect a taller-than-OK 25-storey tower at the corner of Quinpool Road and Robie Streets was interesting for all sorts of […]

What if they created another immigration program and nobody came?

Suzanne Ley (CBC) This column originally appeared in the Halifax Examiner January 15, 2018. Reading news accounts of last week’s meeting of the legislature’s committee on economic development, you could be forgiven for assuming the much fooforahed Ivany Report — with its now-or-never, change-or-die, flashing yellow, sotto-voiced, urgent CALL-TO-ACTION on immigration — had already become […]

When being poor equals poor parenting…

“There is a difference between parents who are poor, and poor parents. Ms. C and Mr. S are parents who are poor. The minister argues that they are poor parents and that their 20-month-old daughter, D, should be in the minister’s permanent care and custody. The minister says there is substantial risk of D’s […]

The Desmond file: belatedly untangling the threads that led to a murder-suicide

This column originally appeared in the Halifax Examiner January 2, 2018. One year ago tomorrow, on January 3, 2017, 33-year-old Lionel Desmond parked his car on a logging road in Upper Big Tracadie, NS, just as the sun was setting. Armed with two rifles, including an SKS semi-automatic Soviet military weapon he’d bought a few days earlier […]

Doctor, doctor, who needs a doctor? 42,198 Nova Scotians and counting…

This column first appeared in the Halifax Examiner December 18, 2017. Nova Scotia has a doctor problem. Perhaps lack-of-doctor might be more accurate. And “crisis” is certainly a more apt description than the mundane problem. According to the province’s one-year-old “Need A Family Practice” list, 42,198 Nova Scotians — 4.6 per cent of the province’s population — […]

Northern Pulp bullies Canada’s biggest bookstore chain, wins… and then loses

This column appeared originally in the Halifax Examiner December 11, 2017. Joan Baxter’s personal Northern Pulp story begins on “one of those stunningly clear, blue-sky mornings that nature sometimes bestows on Nova Scotia.” It was June 2, 2016, and Baxter had decided to start the day with a run near her home in Colchester County, NS. […]