Development: now’s the time to ask

Stephen Kimber’s freelance journalism appears in local, regional, national and international publications.

Development: now’s the time to ask

North Preston’s Miranda Cain tells Metro’s Zane Woodford the key issue in her District 2 is “lack of recreation.” Rod Brunt’s main concern, reports Haley Ryan, is cycling safety on Halifax’s “shark-infested” streets. “Our issues,” Musquodoboit Harbour’s Kim Young tells reporter Yvette d’Entremont, “are just basically the oppression of rural development.” And so it has […]

Stephen Kimber’s freelance journalism appears in local, regional, national and international publications.

Halifax council: time for change, but what? And how?

It goes with saying the Tilt-a-Whirl that is Halifax city council has too long tilted toward men, who traditionally also happen to be white, middle-aged and middle class, usually involved in business of some sort and been recycled through at least a couple of election wash-dry cycles. There are plenty of people — count me […]

Stephen Kimber’s freelance journalism appears in local, regional, national and international publications.

We care… so why don’t we vote?

Why do we pay so little attention to the simplest — yet most important — opportunity to influence what happens in our everyday lives: voting in municipal elections? In 2012, only 36.9 per cent of us — barely one-third of those eligible — cast ballots to choose our current mayor and councilors. The irony is […]

Stephen Kimber’s freelance journalism appears in local, regional, national and international publications.

Justice and the sad brutishness of real life

Too often, our criminal justice system is ill-equipped to deal with the sad brutishness of real life. Consider the recent case of the 43-year-old Dartmouth man convicted of an incestuous relationship with his then-17-year-old daughter. The facts are relatively straightforward. In September 2012, the young woman — who’d been living on the streets in Ontario, […]

Stephen Kimber’s freelance journalism appears in local, regional, national and international publications.

League Misconduct

At 2:30 p.m. on July 4, 2016, Nova Scotia Minister of Labour Kelly Regan issued a news release. Athletes playing on Nova Scotia-based teams are exempt from parts of the Labour Standards Code… It was the Monday after the Canada Day long weekend, the beginning of our traditional summers-long political disengagement. This out-of-nowhere decision hadn’t […]

Stephen Kimber’s freelance journalism appears in local, regional, national and international publications.

Berry Good

We could begin today’s globe-girdling adventure almost anywhere and at almost any time. In eastern Siberia, perhaps. Circa 1756. That’s when a Russian explorer and naturalist first identified the delectably healthful properties of a blue-ish, tart-tasting, strange-looking, oblong fruit from the lonicera caerulea plant. Or perhaps on Hokkaido, Japan’s most northern island, during the 1940s when […]

Stephen Kimber’s freelance journalism appears in local, regional, national and international publications.

Is Halifax Needham why Stephen McNeil hasn’t called a general election?

Could the answer to the pressing-to-pundits question — why hasn’t Stephen McNeil called the much-anticipated-by-pundits fall provincial general election? — be… “Halifax Needham.” Last week, the NDP’s Lisa Roberts, a former journalist and community activist, convincingly won that north-end Halifax riding with 51 per cent of votes in a by-election. McNeil’s chosen standard-bearer, Rod Wilson, […]

Stephen Kimber’s freelance journalism appears in local, regional, national and international publications.

What does Sobeys really regret?

If you’d like an object lesson in how not to conduct corporate public relations, consider how Sobeys, the iconic, Nova Scotia-rooted company that operates the second largest supermarket chain in the country, bungled a racial profiling case. The story began back in May 2009 when an assistant manager at the Sobeys Hammonds Plains outlet confronted […]

Stephen Kimber’s freelance journalism appears in local, regional, national and international publications.

University, government, CEOs: let the students pay

So this is embarrassing. For whom? Well, it should be shame-making for everyone involved. Back in April, Dalhousie University’s Board of Governors approved a three per cent across-the-board tuition fee hike — even higher for students in engineering, pharmacy and agriculture — and squeezed faculty budgets to achieve its goal of a balanced budget. At […]

Stephen Kimber’s freelance journalism appears in local, regional, national and international publications.

The Cat, the commitment and the costly complication

“Let me be clear,” Stephen McNeil said clearly last August even after Nova Star’s cash-sucking Yarmouth-Portland ferry had taken on sinking-level financial water. “As premier I’m committed to that link to the New England States… to a ferry service from Yarmouth.” Our question today. As Nova Star’s replacement — Bay Ferries high-speed Cat — sails […]