Now what? With this year’s municipal elections history, the question becomes what should our new-old council do first? Answering that question is complicated by the reality our mayor and councilors are elected individually and independently. We don’t have political parties at the local level, either traditional or uniquely municipal parties. While that can be positive […]
- 10/18/2016
- StephenKimber
- 2 Comments
It will come as a surprise to no one — least of all to Lil herself — when I predict Lil MacPherson will not be mayor of Halifax after all the votes are counted this Saturday. But that was never the point, especially for MacPherson. And that is a point the rest of us should […]
- 10/11/2016
- StephenKimber
- No Comments
North Preston’s Miranda Cain tells Metro’s Zane Woodford the key issue in her District 2 is “lack of recreation.” Rod Brunt’s main concern, reports Haley Ryan, is cycling safety on Halifax’s “shark-infested” streets. “Our issues,” Musquodoboit Harbour’s Kim Young tells reporter Yvette d’Entremont, “are just basically the oppression of rural development.” And so it has […]
- 10/04/2016
- StephenKimber
- No Comments
It goes with saying the Tilt-a-Whirl that is Halifax city council has too long tilted toward men, who traditionally also happen to be white, middle-aged and middle class, usually involved in business of some sort and been recycled through at least a couple of election wash-dry cycles. There are plenty of people — count me […]
- 09/27/2016
- StephenKimber
- 1 Comment
Why do we pay so little attention to the simplest — yet most important — opportunity to influence what happens in our everyday lives: voting in municipal elections? In 2012, only 36.9 per cent of us — barely one-third of those eligible — cast ballots to choose our current mayor and councilors. The irony is […]
- 09/20/2016
- StephenKimber
- No Comments
Too often, our criminal justice system is ill-equipped to deal with the sad brutishness of real life. Consider the recent case of the 43-year-old Dartmouth man convicted of an incestuous relationship with his then-17-year-old daughter. The facts are relatively straightforward. In September 2012, the young woman — who’d been living on the streets in Ontario, […]
- 09/13/2016
- StephenKimber
- No Comments
At 2:30 p.m. on July 4, 2016, Nova Scotia Minister of Labour Kelly Regan issued a news release. Athletes playing on Nova Scotia-based teams are exempt from parts of the Labour Standards Code… It was the Monday after the Canada Day long weekend, the beginning of our traditional summers-long political disengagement. This out-of-nowhere decision hadn’t […]
- 09/11/2016
- StephenKimber
- 1 Comment
We could begin today’s globe-girdling adventure almost anywhere and at almost any time. In eastern Siberia, perhaps. Circa 1756. That’s when a Russian explorer and naturalist first identified the delectably healthful properties of a blue-ish, tart-tasting, strange-looking, oblong fruit from the lonicera caerulea plant. Or perhaps on Hokkaido, Japan’s most northern island, during the 1940s when […]
- 09/11/2016
- StephenKimber
- No Comments
Could the answer to the pressing-to-pundits question — why hasn’t Stephen McNeil called the much-anticipated-by-pundits fall provincial general election? — be… “Halifax Needham.” Last week, the NDP’s Lisa Roberts, a former journalist and community activist, convincingly won that north-end Halifax riding with 51 per cent of votes in a by-election. McNeil’s chosen standard-bearer, Rod Wilson, […]
- 09/06/2016
- StephenKimber
- 2 Comments
Carolyn Abraham, Stephen Kimber and Emily Urquhart will judge the 2016 Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize, Canada’s richest literary award for a work of nonfiction. The finalists for this year’s $60,000 prize will be announced on Sept. 28, 2016. Carolyn Abraham, a journalist and author, has twice been nominated for the Governor General’s Literary Award […]
- 09/02/2016
- 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
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