DFO mismanages minor elver fishery into major crisis

Until recently, I could not have told you the difference between an elver and one of Santa’s elves. Now, thanks largely to excellent ongoing reporting by the CBC’s Paul Withers, I know more than I ever thought I would want to know about those slithery, slimy, ghostlike creatures. (Bless the public broadcaster — and our […]

Tim Houston’s idea of accountability, then and now

“The government doesn’t want to be here. This is the place where opposition parties, where media, where Nova Scotians can hold the government to account on their record, and they don’t want to be here. This is a government that doesn’t like to be held accountable.” Welcome to today’s Political Pop Quiz. Which of our […]

Tim Houston wants to ‘move forward’ from his very bad week. Our columnist has a suggestion

It was an unsettling, uncomfortable week in the Nova Scotia legislature, and Premier Tim Houston was clearly eager to “move forward.” Move forward from what seemed clear enough. To what was less obvious. Houston’s very bad week actually began the week before, on March 29, when now-independent MLA Elizabeth Smith-McCrossin rose in the legislature to […]

The Mass Casualty Commission report meets the ‘somewhat surprised’

I was not surprised by the numbers of people who pronounced themselves “somewhat surprised” by the sweeping and consequential content of last week’s report of the Mass Casualty Commission. Many of those same people had spent much of the past three years dismissing, marginalizing and otherwise declaring the whole exercise a waste of time at best, […]

Bedford school stabbings: the talking points memo

Education minister Becky Druhan had an opportunity to address larger issues of violence in our schools and lack of mental health supports. Instead, she retreated into bland obfuscation and deflection I have no doubt Becky Druhan is a smart person, more than capable of standing her ground, holding her own in the cut and thrust […]

What Michelin wants, Michelin gets… always

I knew it. I don’t know it, of course. Not officially. Still. But that’s only because of all the usual bafflegab from all the usual sources. Let’s backtrack. Start with this Saltwire headline from last Tuesday: “Michelin to Spend $300 Million to Expand, Modernize Nova Scotia Operations.” In smaller print, there was this subhead: “Tire […]

March break, Cuban beaches and… politics?

The CBC continues to push an anti-Cuban line while downplaying the U.S. embargo On Monday, March 6, CBC Radio’s local morning newscast carried a report on Cuba by national reporter Evan Dyer, which also appeared on cbc.ca. “As holidaying Canadians return to Cuba,” it began, “Cubans themselves are fleeing in record numbers.” CBC’s Information Morning […]

Beware CSIS ‘whistleblowers’ bearing scoops

For me, the most intriguing aspect of the current federal foofaraw over allegations that the Chinese government has been attempting to meddle in… well, everything everywhere is not that they are. That’s what superpowers do with their super powers. Evidence? How about the last 150 years of US mucking about in the internal affairs of […]

Coach Brandon, his players and their parents versus mindless zero-tolerance policies

In an earlier, less perfect world, we wouldn’t be texting about it. Journalists wouldn’t be reporting on it. I certainly wouldn’t be writing a column about it. It probably would never have happened at all. But here we are. The reality is that we still don’t know exactly what happened in that gym in tiny […]

There was an emergency, Ottawa was right to act, but others might reasonably see it differently

It was all so… Canadian. On Friday, Feb. 17, Ontario Appeal Court Judge Paul Rouleau released his Public Order Emergency Commission Report, the blandly named, legally mandated, historically consequential results of his 10-month inquiry into last winter’s controversial convoy protests and — more to the point — whether those protests justified Justin Trudeau’s decision to invoke the […]