Trinity Law School: ‘discomforting’ our comfortable bar society

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

Trinity Law School: ‘discomforting’ our comfortable bar society

The Nova Scotia Barristers’ Society is pondering appealing July’s Nova Scotia Court of Appeals decision green-lighting graduates of Trinity Western University Law School to ply their trade in Nova Scotia. But, in a post-decision interview, the society’s president almost seemed to be making the case for the conservative Christian university, which requires students to sign […]

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

Taxi sexual assaults: Is there too much focus on what women ‘can do’?

Last week, Halifax police outlined what women who take cabs “can do for their own personal safety.” The warnings follow a spike in reported sexual assaults in taxis: five in the last year, three in the last month. Women should: telephone, rather than hail a taxi so there’s a record of their call; note […]

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

Yarmouth ferry: We pay money, Portland makes money

Transportation Minister Geoff MacLellan doesn’t want you to jump to conclusions. If he had his way, you wouldn’t know enough to jump to even the most preliminary conclusions. Unfortunately for him, Portland, Maine, requires Bay Ferries, operator of the Yarmouth-Portland ferry service, to submit a monthly accounting showing just how many passengers the Nova-Scotia-government-funded ferry […]

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

Do elections toll for us?

It is interesting — and perhaps instructive — to compare the McNeil government’s stealth, stroke-of-a-pen, done-and-dusted announcement it had clawed back a basic human right (a minimum wage) for teenaged hockey players with its aw-shucks, no-rush, we-just-want-what-you-want chorus for last week’s release of a study on twinning the province’s 100-series highways. The study itself was […]

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

Do teenage athletes playing for for-profit teams deserve the same protections as other workers?

Bobby Smith, majority owner of the Halifax Mooseheads, wasn’t available to talk to reporters last week about government changes to labour laws exempting his QMJHL team from paying its teenaged hockey players minimum wage, or vacation pay, or limiting the hours they work. No matter. The government’s press release helpfully quoted Smith, declaring teams like […]

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

We need to talk about Edward

Between playing a key role in putting down the Jacobite uprising at the Battle of Culloden in 1746 and being named Governor of Gibraltar in 1761, British Lieutenant General Edward Cornwallis served a three-year stint as the first Governor of Nova Scotia and, in the process, became the de-facto founder of Halifax, my hometown. For […]

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

Film Noir… film no… no film

It’s been a year since the Government of Nova Scotia’s surreal slashing of its film tax credit. Why did they do it? What did they hope to accomplish? How has it impacted production? Stephen Kimber investigates. “Mr. Speaker, the tax credit is important, and it is a powerful tool to our economy… The film industry […]

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

Robertson’s independent facilitator’s report: independent? facilitator?

If you failed to submit written objections to Judge Heather Robertson’s “Facilitator’s Report” on proposed Blue Mountain-Birch Cove Regional Park boundaries by 3 p.m., Monday, July 4, forget it. If your written objections ran to over three pages and you failed to submit 35 copies, no one will read them. No matter. It was too […]

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

P3s: Do we trust the McNeil government to act in our interest, or in the interest of its own re-election?

The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives recently released an evaluation of the 1990s private-public partnership (P3) program under which four private contractors built 39 public schools they then leased back to Nova Scotia. P3 shell-game deals are “typically used to conceal government expenditures and provide guaranteed long-term profits for contractors.” In Nova Scotia, the CCPA […]

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

Dr. Gabrielle Horne and the lessons not learned

Call it vindication. But — after 14 years, four premiers, three changes of government, the merging of nine regional health authorities into one and a there-must-be-an-end, 33-day trial — don’t call it victory. On Friday in a landmark decision, a seven-member civil jury awarded Halifax cardiologist Gabrielle Horne $1.4 million in damages, her legal fees […]