It’s been a year since the Government of Nova Scotia’s surreal slashing of its film tax credit. Why did they do it? What did they hope to accomplish? How has it impacted production? Stephen Kimber investigates. “Mr. Speaker, the tax credit is important, and it is a powerful tool to our economy… The film industry […]
- 07/07/2016
- StephenKimber
- 1 Comment
If you failed to submit written objections to Judge Heather Robertson’s “Facilitator’s Report” on proposed Blue Mountain-Birch Cove Regional Park boundaries by 3 p.m., Monday, July 4, forget it. If your written objections ran to over three pages and you failed to submit 35 copies, no one will read them. No matter. It was too […]
- 07/05/2016
- StephenKimber
- 2 Comments
The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives recently released an evaluation of the 1990s private-public partnership (P3) program under which four private contractors built 39 public schools they then leased back to Nova Scotia. P3 shell-game deals are “typically used to conceal government expenditures and provide guaranteed long-term profits for contractors.” In Nova Scotia, the CCPA […]
- 06/28/2016
- StephenKimber
- 6 Comments
Call it vindication. But — after 14 years, four premiers, three changes of government, the merging of nine regional health authorities into one and a there-must-be-an-end, 33-day trial — don’t call it victory. On Friday in a landmark decision, a seven-member civil jury awarded Halifax cardiologist Gabrielle Horne $1.4 million in damages, her legal fees […]
- 06/21/2016
- StephenKimber
- 5 Comments
My most recent article — with John Kirk — for World Financial Review on the state of U.S-Cuba relations in the Age of Obama: “Ending the embargo remains the sine qua non for improving US–Cuba relations. While only Congress can eliminate it, Obama is doing his best to eviscerate its provisions. Before he left for […]
- 06/16/2016
- StephenKimber
- No Comments
There is, it is fair to say, nothing new in the incestuous relationship between journalism and politics. Joseph Howe was a journalist — can you say freedom of the press? — before he (belatedly) became our father who art in confederation. The 27th premier of Nova Scotia — a.k.a. Darrell Dexter — trained as a […]
- 06/14/2016
- StephenKimber
- No Comments
If you want to understand the un-understandable appeal of Donald Trump, you could do worse than begin with Stephen McNeil. That is not as far-fetched as it might initially seem. We are not talking here about Stephen McNeil, the individual, but Stephen McNeil, the symbolic end result of far too many years of all-too-usual politics […]
- 06/07/2016
- StephenKimber
- 2 Comments
It’s fair to say no one likes Halifax’s development planning process. Consider developer Joe Metledge, who successfully sued the city over its flip-flopping on his St. Pat’s-Alexandra School redevelopment project. During a recent breakfast meeting of developers, planners and lawyers, Metledge complained about the city’s failure to defend his industry against the “demonization of development […]
- 05/31/2016
- StephenKimber
- 2 Comments
My recollection — which is wrong — is it happened out of nowhere and for no reason. It was a Sunday in November 2009. My wife and I and Michael, our youngest son, sat in a Quinpool Road restaurant, waiting too long for the dim sum we’d ordered too much of to finally arrive. Suddenly, […]
- 05/24/2016
- StephenKimber
- No Comments
The best news about the just-ended Nova Scotia legislature session is that there was so little government news. There were no new zigging announcements the government was eviscerating working-just-fine programs, like Seniors Pharmacare or the film tax credit (oh wait, Stephen McNeil’s Liberals already attacked those), and no zagging gifts to money-pit ferries (oh, wait, we’re […]
- 05/24/2016
- 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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