Stephen McNeil thinks we need electoral reform; just don’t ask him to do anything about it…

There is something rich — and richly ironic — hearing Stephen McNeil fret about the number of voters who didn’t bother to cast ballots in last week’s three provincial by-elections. McNeil, after all, chose the date. He could have called the by-elections for late spring when voters might conceivably have been more engaged. Instead, he picked […]

Kimber to write second Cuban Five book

Stephen Kimber jokes that he’s in his “Cuban-ist period” though it might more appropriately be called his “Cuban Five period.” Kimber, the award-winning author of 10 books who accidentally discovered the case of the Cuban Five while researching a novel in Havana in 2009, says he is now planning to write a second nonfiction book […]

Soon to be a major motion picture…

What Lies Across the Water: The Real Story of the Cuban Five is currently in development as a major motion picture. Canadian producer Barrie Dunn, best known for his role in bringing the cult series Trailer Park Boys to the small and big screens — the television series has been sold to more than 30 […]

Josefina Vidal: meet the Cuban diplomat who knows more about America than most Americans

“Maybe I’m idealistic, but I’m a true believer in the strengths Cuba has as a nation. One of the most precious things we have is our people. And this will help in our new relations with the United States…” During the four years Josefina de Caridad Vidal Ferreiro spent as first secretary of the Cuban […]

Why haven’t we Evolved?

Let’s begin with a worst-case-scenario hypothetical. A young woman attending last weekend’s Evolve Music Festival — Antigonish’s three-day “celebration of music, culture, and social awareness” — decides she wants to alter her mind with some mind-altering substance. She asks around, discovers a guy selling what she thinks she wants to buy. She buys. She takes. […]

Is that any way to start a discussion?

The United Way’s report on what it takes to live in Halifax, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business’s knee-jerk response to the report and the need for an open, honest debate… So what’s the difference between minimum wage and a living wage? In Halifax, about $10 an hour. That was the recent surprise-but-no-surprise conclusion […]

The Happy Ending

“I hope one day you will be able to update the story with the happy ending that many justice-seeking people around the world are still working for.” — Gerardo Hernández in a 2013 letter to the author This is the Epilogue to What Lies Across the Water: The Real Story of the Cuban Five by Stephen […]

Who killed Mills Brothers?

Who killed Mills Brothers? The iconic Spring Garden Road women’s retailer — which launched in 1919 when “carriage trade” was still more literal than metaphorical — shuttered its sliding doors Tuesday. It disappeared into receivership, putting 20 employees — some of whom had greeted customers for 30 years — out of work. Perhaps it’s because […]

To keep grads in Nova Scotia, we have to first attract students

The Halifax Partnership, the community economic development organization set up to — ta-da! — “bring private and public sector stakeholders together to create prosperity,” says Halifax needs to “focus on creating opportunities for recent graduates, both domestic and international, to enter the local labour force.” That’s the key take-away — perhaps penetrating glimpse into the […]

Nova Scotia’s generational highway mega projects: an idea whose time has gone?

On Friday, the government issued a request for proposals for a $1.5-million study to figure out whether to twin eight sections of 100-series highways and — as importantly — how to raise the $1.5 billion that will be needed to complete what Transportation and Infrastructure Renewal Minister Geoff MacLellan calls a “once-in-a-generation set of mega-projects.” […]

Stephen Kimber

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