Our columnist says he’s had a great run, and some days he wants to continue doing this forever. But it’s time. For more years than I care to count, I have been professionally — and often personally — “shocked and appalled” on a regular basis about the goings on going on in our world. Luckily, […]
- 02/18/2024
- StephenKimber
- 1 Comment
An internal working group of bureaucrats who benefit from “a culture of disregard for access and privacy laws” are reviewing Nova Scotia’s freedom of information system. What can go wrong? Tricia Ralph is Nova Scotia’s Information and Privacy Commissioner, the person best positioned to know what’s wrong with our failed and flailing freedom of information system […]
- 02/10/2024
- StephenKimber
- No Comments
Former PC leader Jamie Baillie was quick to categorically deny — through his spokesperson — that he’d ever assaulted a former aide. But he is still silent — through his spokesperson — about whether he forced her to sign a non-disclosure agreement. The story had already been published by the time Parker Donham’s email landed […]
- 02/02/2024
- StephenKimber
- No Comments
That’s because the private utility’s more-than-well-compensated executives prioritize shareholders over customers, profits over service. So, Nova Scotia Power Inc. wants its customers — which is to say, us — to foot the remaining $26.4 million “restoration costs” from September 2022’s “unprecedented weather event,” otherwise known as Hurricane Fiona. First, it’s worth noting that we’re already […]
- 01/26/2024
- StephenKimber
- No Comments
Commissioner Michael MacDonald, chair, leaves the stage after delivering the Mass Casualty Commission inquiry’s final report into the mass murders in rural Nova Scotia in Truro, N.S., on Thursday, March 30, 2023. The problem begins with the self-serving decision by Ottawa and the province to make the committee that’s supposed to be publicly accountable for […]
- 01/19/2024
- StephenKimber
- No Comments
Pete’s Frootique workers on the picket line in front of the grocery store in Halifax. Sobeys-owned Pete’s Frootique offered its workers a wage increase below even what will be the provincial minimum wage in April. And then refused to budge until a sure-to-be-embarrassing National Day of Protest shamed it into settling. Is this the best […]
Tim Houston’s in-house committee to review our outdated freedom of information legislation refuses to even meet with an outside expert group suggesting improvements. Accountability? Don’t count on it. Let us begin with a return to a Better Ghost of Christmas Premiers Past — to wit, Timothy Jerome Houston, Progressive Conservative Premier in Eager Anticipation, circa […]
Acting Police Chief Don MacLean wants more money for more cops to handle those requiring involuntary psychiatric treatment. Except that’s not quite true. He just wants more front-line cops. Who will care for those in mental health crisis? And who will pay for it? “To be clear,” Acting Halifax Police Chief Don MacLean said, being […]
It should have been — it was — good news. Excellent news, in fact. Mainland Nova Scotia’s Elizabeth Fry Society — “a non-profit, charitable organization devoted to improving the lives of marginalized groups of identified women, girls, non-binary, and gender diverse individuals who have been let down by broken systems that perpetuate inequality” — had just […]
A Nova Scotia Power truck parked on Woodlawn Road in Dartmouth after Fiona, on Monday, Sept. 26, 2022. Let’s start with this news item from October 31, 2023: Nova Scotia Power asked regulators for permission to collect $24.6 million in Fiona-related operating costs — like meals, travel and overtime — from ratepayers over an unspecified period of […]
STEPHEN KIMBER, a Professor of Journalism at the University of King's College in Halifax and co-founder of its MFA in Creative Nonfiction Program, is an award-winning writer, editor and broadcaster. He is the author of two novels and eight non-fiction books. Buy his books
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