Nova Scotia’s something-for-everyone holiday a cowardly copout

It began with a January phone call from a school principal, inviting Wanda and Joe Robson to travel from their home in Cape Breton to metro to attend a Feb. 17 unveiling of a portrait honouring Wanda’s sister, Viola Desmond. Desmond — who was convicted for sitting in the whites-only section of a New Glasgow […]

Trinity Western U — Freedom of Religion v Freedom from Intolerance

Last week, the Nova Scotia Barristers’ Society heard unprecedented arguments about whether to recognize graduates from a new law school at Trinity Western University, a privately-funded British Columbia Christian college. The issue isn’t whether graduates will be competent to practise law. The Federation of Law Societies of Canada gave the program its preliminary seal of […]

Stephen McNeil, Freedom of Information and the Perks of Patronage Power

Back in late September 2013, in the warm afterglow of the celebration of yet another Right to Know Week in Canada and the publication of yet another report decrying the creaking weaknesses in Nova Scotia’s 35-year-old freedom of information legislation, the province’s Freedom of Information Review Officer Dulcie McCallum expressed guarded optimism. Both Liberal leader […]

Canada’s veterans: collateral damage in Harper’s war on unions

What are we to make of delicate-flower Veterans Affairs Minister Julian Fantino? Last week, after missing a meeting in Ottawa with a delegation of Canadian veterans — including Ron Clarke, a 73-year-old, 36-year career military man from Sydney — Fantino breezed into the room an hour late without so much as an apology as the […]

Should Glen Race be punished because of his mental illness or treated for it?

Michael Knott did not deserve to die. Trevor Brewster did not deserve to die. Their family and friends should have more than memories today. That said, Justice Kevin Coady was right Friday to declare Glen Race, the man who murdered both men, not criminally responsible for their 2007 deaths. Three psychiatrists testified. Two were hired […]

We need an electricity review. This isn’t it…

So Energy Minister Andrew Younger is launching a year-long review of Nova Scotia’s electricity system. Although energy supply and demand are supposedly both on the table, Younger has already made clear his obsession with cutting power rates, not reducing energy demand. During the last election campaign, Younger offered two concrete proposals the Liberals claimed would […]

Why are we charging children with child pornography offences?

The RCMP are investigating yet another child pornography case involving local teenagers sharing intimate photos on social media. That case — in which a boy at Auburn Drive High allegedly circulated a picture of a female student to his friends without her permission — surfaced the same day two other local teenagers were to appear […]

Stephen McNeil, patronage and the benefit of the doubt

It is too soon to draw conclusions, but the patronage portents from Stephen McNeil’s first three months in power are not promising. First, there was the case of Glennie Langille, the defeated Liberal candidate and former party communications chief. Without benefit of a competition, McNeil handed her an $85,000-per-year plum as the province’s new chief […]

Lenore, the L- Word and the law as bully

Nic Scissons thought he was being funny. He was just being 17. “What happened to the old Lenore?” the Truro high school student tweeted to his 629 followers in late November, uncleverly linking his post to a 2008 photo of a nude scene from The L-Word featuring hometown actress-turned-MLA Lenore Zann. Zann tweeted back, demanding […]

Mandela, Rocky and the whitewashing of heroes

What a difference a few decades make. The world has spent the last week rightly celebrating the life and legacy of Nelson Mandela, a man one letter writer to The New York Times summed up as a “universal champion of freedom, humanity and equality, and as an ardent proponent of tolerance, compassion and forbearance.” Last […]

Stephen Kimber

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