The proposed $66.6 million payout to McInnes Cooper for its successful legal work in the veterans’ benefits case is—in the words of Defence Minister Peter MacKay—“excessive and unreasonable.” Topped, of course, only by the excessively excessive and unconscionably unreasonable seven-year battle MacKay’s federal government has waged against disabled veterans. The issue—which dates back to 1979 […]
Stephen Kimber’s freelance journalism appears in local, regional, national and international publications.
- 02/18/2013
- StephenKimber
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Stephen Kimber’s freelance journalism appears in local, regional, national and international publications.
The old Young Mike Duffy would have been all over it. A Senator playing fast and loose with parliamentary rules of residence, claiming as his full-time home a modest bungalow of a summer cottage that hasn’t seen a snowplow in a year’s worth of winters. A Senator pocketing more than $30,000 for the inconvenience of […]
- 02/11/2013
- StephenKimber
- 1 Comment
Stephen Kimber’s freelance journalism appears in local, regional, national and international publications.
Another February. Another African Heritage Month. Another plaintive plea—from me and a few lonely others—for an official day to honour Viola Desmond’s contribution to the human rights movement in Canada. On Nov. 8, 1946, Desmond, a pioneering black businesswoman from Halifax, found herself stuck in New Glasgow overnight. She decided to see a movie. The […]
- 02/04/2013
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Stephen Kimber’s freelance journalism appears in local, regional, national and international publications.
“You obviously have something against Nicole Ryan,” declared a reader of my column last week. In it, I’d questioned the Supreme Court’s decision not retry Ryan on charges she’d hired a hit man to kill her husband. “I’m not sure what it is,” the reader continued, “but it was extremely distressing to deal with the […]
- 01/28/2013
- StephenKimber
- 2 Comments
Stephen Kimber’s freelance journalism appears in local, regional, national and international publications.
In the third last paragraph of his 2010 decision finding Nicole Ryan not guilty of hiring a hit man to kill her abusive husband, Justice David Farrar notes he was “struck” by the fact the husband “did not take the stand to give evidence with respect to any of the assertions that were made against […]
- 01/21/2013
- StephenKimber
- 11 Comments
Stephen Kimber’s freelance journalism appears in local, regional, national and international publications.
One of the enduring myths among those who bow down to the gods of the marketplace is that someone who screws up in the private sector—unlike the cosseted public sphere—will suffer inevitable, inevitably dire consequences for failure. While there may be truth to that at the lower rungs of the corporate ladder, those at the […]
- 01/14/2013
- StephenKimber
- 1 Comment
Stephen Kimber’s freelance journalism appears in local, regional, national and international publications.
On January 1, 1992, Andrea Lynn King, an 18-year-old woman from British Columbia flew to Halifax to begin a travel-work adventure… She phoned her sister from the airport to say she’d landed and would be staying the night at a downtown hostel. She would call the next day, she said, with her new address so […]
- 01/07/2013
- StephenKimber
- 2 Comments
Stephen Kimber’s freelance journalism appears in local, regional, national and international publications.
Forget this year’s faux feints and fevered fantasies. Two thousand and thirteen will be the year we get to pass electoral judgment on the government of Darrell Dexter. Will we decide, on balance and measured against his less-than-stellar competition, that Dexter has earned a second majority term? Or will we, seeing more potential than performance […]
- 12/27/2012
- StephenKimber
- 2 Comments
Stephen Kimber’s freelance journalism appears in local, regional, national and international publications.
With the pre-holiday spate of comment-worthy local news and the upcoming holiday absence of venue to vent my inevitable shocked-and-appalled-at-it-all spleen, today’s column will be an assorted stocking stuffer. No charges in Home for Coloured Children investigation: I’m less shocked than I’d like. But winning convictions when allegations date back decades, involve children and include […]
- 12/17/2012
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Stephen Kimber’s freelance journalism appears in local, regional, national and international publications.
How and why did avuncular, reasonable-man-trying-to-do-the-right-thing Opposition leader Darrell Dexter morph into prickly, why-should-I-answer-your-reasonable-question Premier Darrell Dexter? Last week, as the House of Assembly wrapped up its fall sitting, Dexter announced—not in the legislature where you might have expected it, but in a puffed up State-of-the-Province speech to an audience of 400 Chamber-of-Commerce types—that his […]
- 12/10/2012
- StephenKimber
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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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