Nova Scotia’s black history is rich and remarkable—Birchtown, for example, was North America’s largest settlement of free blacks when it was founded in 1783—but that realty is rarely acknowledged. Now finally, that may be about to change… Shortly before 10 on the evening of March 31, 2006, residents along the Old Birchtown Road near Shelburne […]
Stephen Kimber’s freelance journalism appears in local, regional, national and international publications.
- 02/25/2010
- StephenKimber
- 1 Comment
Stephen Kimber’s freelance journalism appears in local, regional, national and international publications.
Yes, the MLA expenses scandal is a scandal. Some of what some MLAs filed as legitimate expenses were not. A few claims may even be criminal. Let’s make MLAs pay back what they can’t justify, and prosecute those whose actions crossed the line. Let’s fix a screwed-up system. Then let’s move on. When it comes […]
- 02/19/2010
- StephenKimber
- 3 Comments
Stephen Kimber’s freelance journalism appears in local, regional, national and international publications.
For Family Court Judge Beryl MacDonald, the question seemed simple. Does she have the authority to order the minister of community services to provide a service the department, by policy, doesn’t offer? Her answer, delivered during a family court hearing this week, was equally simple. She does not. The legal issue may be simple; the […]
- 02/12/2010
- StephenKimber
- 1 Comment
Stephen Kimber’s freelance journalism appears in local, regional, national and international publications.
Tonight, 600 Nova Scotia Tories will gather at the Westin Hotel to pay perfunctory tribute to Rodney MacDonald, their thankfully former, now hardly ever mentioned leader. After that—if not before—conventioneers will get down to the real, if unspoken business at hand: making sure the party doesn’t blow it again like they did in 2006. That’s […]
- 02/05/2010
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Stephen Kimber’s freelance journalism appears in local, regional, national and international publications.
So here is our question for today. Should the Charles Morris House—a down-at-the-heels, 240-year-old wooden structure that once served as the headquarters of Nova Scotia’s chief surveyor but today sits, forlorn, beached and abandoned in a downtown parking lot—be resurrected and spiffed up to serve as a living memorial to the man who is credited […]
- 01/29/2010
- StephenKimber
- 3 Comments
Stephen Kimber’s freelance journalism appears in local, regional, national and international publications.
So whose privacy are they protecting? On Dec. 2, 2008, an RCMP constable shot and killed John Andrew Simon, a member of Cape Breton’s Wagmatcook First Nation. Simon, everyone agrees, was alone inside his house, drunk and suicidal, at the time he was killed. According to what police reportedly told Simon’s family, he was unarmed, […]
- 01/22/2010
- StephenKimber
- 1 Comment
Stephen Kimber’s freelance journalism appears in local, regional, national and international publications.
The real question, Dr. Charles Emmrys testified, is, “What works?” What doesn’t work—what research shows doesn’t work, he adds—is shipping troubled kids out of their home provinces, away from family and community, and into residential institutions where they are more likely to be warehoused than treated. Emmyrs, a Moncton-based clinical psychologist and court-recognized expert in […]
- 01/15/2010
- StephenKimber
- 5 Comments
Stephen Kimber’s freelance journalism appears in local, regional, national and international publications.
Mainstream media online comments sections were supposed to be one of those glorious triumphs of citizen democracy in the new Internet age. They offered a public space where ordinary readers could talk back to writers and to the people they wrote about, a free-range forum for spirited, intelligent discussion of civic issues… Instead, it has […]
- 01/08/2010
- StephenKimber
- 2 Comments
Stephen Kimber’s freelance journalism appears in local, regional, national and international publications.
Russell Walker, Chair of Halifax’s Board of Police Commissioners, isn’t happy with me. It has to do with my comments two weeks back about his lack of comment on the city’s startling number of unsolved murders. I’ll save the specifics of Walker’s complaints for another column. Today I want to talk about something Walker said, […]
- 12/18/2009
- StephenKimber
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Stephen Kimber’s freelance journalism appears in local, regional, national and international publications.
Nova Scotia’s new New Democratic Party government isn’t so new anymore. A week from tomorrow, it will have been in office six months. How well has it performed? At one level, the answer would have to be very well. Darrell Dexter’s government has demonstrated a level of calming, policy-wonkish competence sadly lacking during the chaotic, […]
- 12/11/2009
- StephenKimber
- 1 Comment
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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