It has been a crazy rollercoaster of a pin-balling, ping-ponged week for those of us who get our knickers knotted about seemingly esoteric matters like public access to public information and government accountability. But all’s well that ends well… sort of. Let’s start with NDP MLA Howard Epstein’s “inadvertent” leak of confidential caucus information indicating […]
Stephen Kimber’s freelance journalism appears in local, regional, national and international publications.
- 10/04/2010
- StephenKimber
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Stephen Kimber’s freelance journalism appears in local, regional, national and international publications.
Is it possible nanny-state community services officials have decided to punish the grandparents of a boy who dared question their decision to send him out of province for treatment by dumping him back in their laps with minimal supports, setting them—and him—up for I-told-you-so failure? That seems the most rational conclusion after reading the vague […]
- 09/27/2010
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Stephen Kimber’s freelance journalism appears in local, regional, national and international publications.
The Canadian Taxpayers’ Federation is right to raise alarms about the growing inequity between generous pensions paid politicians and the reality too many in the private sector have inadequate, or no pensions … Uh… right… That isn’t exactly what the libertarian-when-it-suits-them CTF has its knickers in a knot about. The CTF—which bills itself as a […]
- 09/20/2010
- StephenKimber
- 1 Comment
Stephen Kimber’s freelance journalism appears in local, regional, national and international publications.
Dear Darrell, As you begin your second full year—summers don’t count in Nova Scotia—as premier of all you survey, allow me to offer some gratuitous, unsolicited and unlikely to be appreciated advice. (But given your government’s precipitous free-fall from electoral grace, you need all the advice you can get.) First, stop trying to be a […]
- 09/13/2010
- StephenKimber
- 5 Comments
Stephen Kimber’s freelance journalism appears in local, regional, national and international publications.
I’ve been writing about child protection issues since 2004 when I got interested in the story of a Halifax couple embroiled in a highly publicized, 67-hour, shots-fired standoff with police. The issue: Children’s Aid had seized their five-month old daughter, not because of anything the couple had done to the child—in fact, evidence indicated they […]
- 08/30/2010
- StephenKimber
- 11 Comments
Stephen Kimber’s freelance journalism appears in local, regional, national and international publications.
Nova Scotia’s Community Services Department has upped the ante: last week it severed family access to a troubled Cole Harbour teenager it had shipped off to an Ontario residential care facility last year. It will now apply to family court “to vary the current order with respect to access,” thus legalizing the elimination of the […]
- 08/23/2010
- StephenKimber
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Stephen Kimber’s freelance journalism appears in local, regional, national and international publications.
I accept the argument. Those involved in the recent decision to provide a group of—white—residents in Lake Major with keys to an old logging road so they could avoid having to travel an extra 5.5 km through the—black—community of North Preston were providing a small but reasonable favour to those most inconvenienced by a local […]
- 08/16/2010
- StephenKimber
- 4 Comments
Stephen Kimber’s freelance journalism appears in local, regional, national and international publications.
When did we realize we had finally entered the deeps of the news-challenged rat… er, dog days of summer? Was it when that story about the number of rats per city block in Halifax—75; You count ‘em, I’ll pass—made CBC Radio’s marquee World at Six news show last week? Or perhaps it was when we […]
- 08/09/2010
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Stephen Kimber’s freelance journalism appears in local, regional, national and international publications.
Tough questions get short shrift in Lawrence Scanlon’s A Year of Living Generously, an account of volunteering for 12 charities in as many months. Lawrence Scanlan’s idea was deceptively simple. “I decided I would volunteer with 12 charitable organizations and dedicate a month of hands-on involvement to each one,” the veteran Canadian journalist and community […]
Stephen Kimber’s freelance journalism appears in local, regional, national and international publications.
Forget dueling interviews, competing psychologists, contradictory studies, even the difference between physically assaulted and “placed in a position of control.” Ask yourself one question: is the 15-year-old Cole Harbour boy at the centre of the controversy over his care better off now than when community services shipped him off to Ontario 13 months ago? A […]
- 07/26/2010
- 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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