Butts kicks some

In his first major public act as the city’s new Chief Administrative Officer, Richard Butts stared down concert promoter Harold MacKay—and won. Sort of. Last year, the mayor and former CAO fronted MacKay $400,000 toward the costs of two concerts on the Common. It was a sweet deal that allowed MacKay to walk away from […]

Heroes and blemishes: Edward Cornwallis and Cesar Chavez

“Edward Cornwallis is deeply offensive to members of our Mi’kmaq communities and to Nova Scotians generally who believe school names should recognize persons whose contributions to society are unblemished by acts repugnant to the values we wish our schools to embody and represent.” Kirk Arsenault Aboriginal Halifax School Board member *** The Atlantic’s latest issue […]

Peter Kelly: The joke’s on us… still

Peter Kelly has become the journalistic gift that keeps on giving, our local, 21st century version of those famous “Franco-is-still-dead” Saturday Night Live sketches from the mid-1970s. Breaking News just in. Peter Kelly is still the mayor. And will be for at least another year. If not for life. And perhaps after death… So is […]

The real crime of Concertgate

Was it criminal? That seems to have become the question. It’s the wrong question. Last week’s 96-page auditor general’s report into the great concert fiasco-fandangle dissected and bisected the ever escalating series of high-level handouts that rambled merrily along—unchecked and in secret—from one faux-successful Common concert to the next fluff-the-numbers extravaganza to, oops, there goes […]

Hypocrisy, patronage and the cleansing power of transparency

Michel Samson is right on both counts. The Liberal MLA is right to acknowledge that last week’s collection of NDP appointees to various provincial agencies, boards and commissions is clearly a well qualified lot. But he is right too to point out the unbecoming hypocrisy of a government that—while in opposition—railed so righteously against patronage […]

Do boots on the ground equal votes in the hand?

Time flies when you’re having fun. Ask Darrell Dexter. Next month, he will celebrate his second anniversary as the province’s first ever NDP premier. In two years—probably less—he will try to become Nova Scotia’s NDP premier to win a second majority government… or, perhaps, settle for a minority… or, failing one of the above—and politics […]

So really, why do we love this town?

The question, of course, is why? According to the latest CityThink survey—conducted for Metro Halifax and the Greater Halifax Partnership—91 per cent of us are pleased as punch to live in our awkwardly named Halifax Regional Municipality. Forty-two per cent of us, in fact, are very smug about it. Why? Consider that this particular poll […]

Is this any way to run a country?

One last—I promise—look back in befuddlement to the results of last week’s federal election. If we are to believe the pundits—and who are we not to—Canada has just gone through a dramatic, head-shaking, concussion-making electoral re-alignment in which our national consensus has become far more conservative and the political centre has disappeared, leaving us with […]

Election 2011: a strange sweet trip that may not be over

What a short, strange, sweet trip it’s been—made all the sweeter because not a single politician, party insider, pollster, pundit or person predicted it. Including me. My first post-election-call column was a lament that—in a campaign focused so tightly on just 50 swing ridings—the votes of the rest of us wouldn’t count. Uh, right… What […]

It's don't-blame-me-I-voted-for time

Rick Howe was interviewing the organizer of an upcoming all-candidates’ debate on poverty issues. Three of the four major parties, the man told the News 95.7 talk show host, would be sending a representative. “Let me guess which one won’t,” Howe cut in. He didn’t have to guess. Neither do you. An hour before what […]