Why don’t we cut to the chase? Is it time to eliminate elected school boards and let the provincial government shoulder real responsibility/blame/credit for how our schools are operated/paid for? I ask, in part, because of last week’s dust-up between the Chignecto-Central school board and Premier Darrell Dexter and Education Minister Ramona Jennex. Earlier this […]
Stephen Kimber’s freelance journalism appears in local, regional, national and international publications.
- 04/16/2012
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Stephen Kimber’s freelance journalism appears in local, regional, national and international publications.
The thing I don’t understand—one of many actually, but let’s start with this one—is whatever happened to the debt? Whenever governments decide to put us on short rations—as the NDP did after it came to power in 2009, as the federal Liberals did in the 1990s—they do their best to frighten us into submission with […]
- 04/09/2012
- StephenKimber
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Stephen Kimber’s freelance journalism appears in local, regional, national and international publications.
In the all-too-brief interregnum between Thursday’s bad-news federal budget and tomorrow’s more-bad-news provincial budget, it’s worth noting the across-the-board, cost-cutting Kool Aid fiscal policy makers in Ottawa and Halifax have swallowed is not the only—or necessarily best—way to slay the deficit dragon. The Nova Scotia branch of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, for example, […]
- 04/02/2012
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Stephen Kimber’s freelance journalism appears in local, regional, national and international publications.
The stadium is dead. Long live the dream. But let’s keep it a dream instead of the reality turning into a taxpayers’ nightmare. A brief history is in order. Peter Kelly, our in-search-of-a-legacy-to-match-his-longevity mayor, has long been eager to have the city to erect an expensive new stadium, most recently—and urgently—in the faint hope we […]
- 03/26/2012
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Stephen Kimber’s freelance journalism appears in local, regional, national and international publications.
Why did Nova Scotia business wail wolf over first contract legislation? On Dec. 14, 2011, Sobeys announced it was swallowing whole every one of Shell Canada’s 250 service stations east of Ontario. No big deal. The day before, Empire, which controls the Canadian super-sized supermarket chain, had reported a quarterly profit of $78.1 million. Sobeys […]
- 03/14/2012
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Stephen Kimber’s freelance journalism appears in local, regional, national and international publications.
John Risley, the president of Clearwater Fine Foods and a columnist for Atlantic Business Magazine, says I’ve got it all wrong when it comes to the Occupy Movement. “In the previous issue of Atlantic Business Magazine,” Risley writes, “my fellow columnist — Stephen Kimber — attempted to explain the Occupy movement. Unfortunately he got it […]
- 03/13/2012
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Stephen Kimber’s freelance journalism appears in local, regional, national and international publications.
While not nearly as addictive as Angry Birds, spending a few hours with the province’s You-Be-The-Finance-Minister teeter-totter app—more prosaically known as backtobalance.ca—is entertaining. And depressingly, face-slappingly educational. The government created the interactive online budget-making tool as part of its pre-budget consultations. It allows taxpayers to virtually raise and/or reduce revenues and expenses—and immediately see the […]
- 03/12/2012
- StephenKimber
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Stephen Kimber’s freelance journalism appears in local, regional, national and international publications.
By 2009, Richard Homburg’s glitzy, buzz-worthy annual office parties had become corporate Halifax’s post-Christmas social hot ticket. Two hundred of the city’s elite investors, investment advisors, developers, lawyers, accountants and assorted corporate hangers-on would gather in the January freeze to mix and mingle at Homburg Citadel, Homburg Invest’s global corporate headquarters. A modern building insinuated […]
- 03/08/2012
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Stephen Kimber’s freelance journalism appears in local, regional, national and international publications.
It’s time to make transit an essential service. By that, I don’t—necessarily—mean it’s time to take away bus drivers’ right to strike. What I do mean is that, however the current labour dispute ends, it’s long past time city council made transit a can’t-live-without service. And not just for those who, because they can’t afford […]
- 03/05/2012
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Stephen Kimber’s freelance journalism appears in local, regional, national and international publications.
Peter Kelly’s final mayoralty meltdown announcement last week was not triggered by any of the many mis-governance issues that should have long since ended his political career. Ironically, the mayor was ultimately hoist on the petard of his own sloppy-and-perhaps-worse handling of the estate of a friend, a private matter unrelated to his duties as […]
- 02/27/2012
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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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