Stephen Kimber

On almost feeling sorry for Conrad I did try — for almost a second — to resist the temptation to gleefully pile on. But how to follow all those happy headline writers? “CON-rad Black…” “Lord Greed…” “Lord Fraud…” Or one-up all those many other former ink stained wretches — all once also in the employ […]

Feasting at the Horne of plenty Capital District Health Authority has so far officially taken at least $1,024,649.90 out of this province’s badly under-funded health care system to pay for expensive private lawyers to fight the unwinnable, never-should-have-happened legal case against Dr. Gabrielle Horne. I must qualify with so far… officially… at least… because that […]

Wright the wrong man for the job If you want to begin to understand the utter disdain Nova Scotia’s department of community services has for its own legislation — and for the people it is supposed to serve — consider its recent appointment of Robert Wright to the committee that is supposed to review the […]

Fast Eddie’s bullying ‘brilliance’ I don’t pretend to know whether a jury of his lessers will find our own British peer, the peerless Conrad Black, guilty of any or all of the many and various complicated crimes with which he is charged. I hope they do, not so much because I believe the evidence supports […]

Can Rodney recover? CBC Radio’s As It Happens was playing in the background in our kitchen Monday evening as my wife and I went about the clattering, chattering routine of preparing supper. “Atlantic Accord…” the distractingly insistent, disembodied voice declared over the din. “Broken promise…” “Unfair…” “Nova Scotians expect…” “Get loud…” “Who’s that speaking?” my […]

The high cost of refusing to say ‘sorry’ June 7, 2007 The war of attrition the Capital District Healthy Authority seems so eager to wage against some of its best and brightest has now opened on yet another front with the opening salvo in another nasty, pointless — and expensive — skirmish. Last week, Dr. […]

The Book of Negroes By Lawrence Hill HarperCollins 486 pages, hardcover. ISBN-13: 978-0-00-225507-3 Reviewed by Stephen Kimber It hit me like the text’s “sack of hammers.” Somewhere around page 389 of Lawrence Hill’s The Book of Negroes, I realized I’d become so completely engrossed in his masterful telling of the hard life and crueler times […]

An Open Letter to Capital Health To Chris Power, CEO, Capital District Health Authority Dear Ms Power: As you may be aware, the Capital District Health Authority turned down my recent freedom-of-information request for the names of all private law firms providing advice to the authority in the Gabrielle Horne case “and the amounts billed […]

Polls are for dogs “With a provincial election call possibly a week away,” the Montreal Gazette breathlessly reported on Feb. 13, “the Liberals have pulled farther ahead of the Parti Quebecois while the Action democratique du Quebec party’s support may be slipping… The survey, conducted between Feb. 7 and 10 by Leger Marketing and made […]

Revisiting the (non) review committee If my email inbox is any indication, there are plenty of Nova Scotians who have serious concerns with this province’s Children’s and Family Services Act. Back in 2004, there was a dramatic three-day standoff between a Halifax police swat team and parents Carline VandenElsen and Larry Finck over the Children’s […]