Will the mass casualty commission report even matter?

Last week, Examiner editor Tim Bousquet asked ‘What’s the point of the Mass Casualty Commission?’ In his column today, Stephen Kimber offers a (slightly) more hopeful take. He says it’s too soon to know. So… is it already too late for the Mass Casualty Commission’s final report to matter? Was its credibility irreparably shredded even […]

Lisa Banfield and the search for ‘truth’

Cross-examination isn’t the only valid — or always best — truth-seeking method of testing evidence. And, in light of last week’s controversy over Lisa Banfield’s appearance before the mass casualty commission, it’s worth asking whether the truth was all that was being sought. “We keep getting confronted by people who seem to have a perception […]

Of elephants and tidal waves and the future of the bar society

The now-available video of the bar society’s incoming president’s remarks to the annual general meeting puts a new — and more hopeful — spin on what she actually said than the one I suggested in last week’s column. In last week’s column about the annual meeting of the Nova Scotia Barristers’ Society — “NS Bar […]

NS Bar Society: another day, another racism investigation

The Nova Scotia Barristers’ Society’s new president, already under fire from within over her speech at the society’s AGM, has hired a Toronto law firm to investigate more allegations from within of “direct and systemic discrimination and harassment.” We can only hope that former provincial ombudsman Doug Ruck’s internal review into allegations of systemic discrimination […]

What the Mounties don’t want you to know? Everything…

The latest foundational document from the Mass Casualty Commission details everything the RCMP didn’t say in the days after the worst mass killing in Canadian history. It’s a long list. [Canadian Press:] Canadians would very much like to know how many people have died? [Chief Superintendent Supt. Chris Leather:] I can tell you that in […]

Random thoughts on a random day in a random June

Whatever happened to Thursday? What’s so affordable about so much housing? Why so little information about power company pay? And other thoughts on a June day. Whatever happened to Thursday? On Thursday, the CBC’s Anjuli Patil reported the Houston government had decided not to release passenger numbers for our controversial, heavily subsidized Yarmouth-to-Bar-Harbor ferry. When […]

When a worker dies, silence descends…

It’s been a month since a Michelin worker died at the Waterville plant. Why don’t we know more about what really happened? Will we ever? I WAS CURIOUS. I thought I remembered seeing a brief news report last month about a man who’d died in an industrial accident at Michelin’s Waterville plant. The details I […]

NS Power rate increase: just more corporate obfuscation, jiggery-pokery and sleight of hand

Nova Scotia Power doesn’t want you to know how much it pays its executives, or why. There are lots of things the utility doesn’t want you to know. But it still wants more of your money. You might imagine that somewhere in its controversial, hydro-damn-blocking 3,100-page(!) application for an electricity rate increase, Nova Scotia Power […]

The mass casualty commission and the Catch-22 of ‘accommodation’

Allowing two RCMP officers to testify in pre-recorded sessions without the direct involvement of lawyers for the families undermines the credibility of the commission. And that’s unfortunate for all of us. I have not watched every minute of every witnesses’ testimony at the Mass Casualty Commission. As I have with the commission’s 18-and-counting foundational documents […]

The clock is ticking down on the Mass Casualty Commission

With less than six months to go before the inquiry is supposed to file its final report, it’s worth asking if it needs an extension to what was never a realistic timetable. Nova Scotia Mass Casualty Inquiry commissioners (MCC) (d) direct the Commissioners to submit, in both official languages, an interim report on their preliminary […]