Mike Savage Part 1: Not quite his father’s son

It’s hard to imagine a 30-minute conversation with former mayor Peter Kelly that could skip seamlessly: from the rebuilding Halifax Mooseheads; to a previous life as a backbench opposition MP (“the only less relevant position being a backbencher on the government side”); to the job of Halifax mayor (“I like it, sometimes more than I […]

Halifax Transit’s not-so-public response to its own public consultation

In 2013, Metro Transit began a series of public consultations to figure out how our public transportation system should look five years from now. The company was seeking answers to four basic questions: should the system focus on routes providing the biggest passenger bang for the buck, or offer service to as many local neighbourhoods […]

Heritage Trust v Joe Ramia and the Be-Bolders

So Joe Ramia, developer of Halifax’s new, significantly publicly financed $500-million convention-centre-hotel-office-residential-retail behemoth, is suing Heritage Trust and its 27 volunteer directors for what could be tens of millions of dollars for their “persistent efforts to quash downtown development” — especially his. Last week, 300 of Halifax’s self-anointed finest—“just rattle your bracelets,” as John Lennon said—cheered […]

07/07/2014
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Lyle Howe, David Sparks and the race question

Let me begin with this. I don’t believe Lyle Howe was convicted of sexually assaulting a 19-year-old woman because he was black, or that “those that represent the white power structure” conspired to put down an uppity black lawyer. David Sparks does. Sparks is spokesperson for a group planning a rally outside the law courts […]

06/23/2014
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Mike Savage, Peter Kelly, Rob Ford and keeping the bar low

Perhaps it’s as simple as the fact Mike Savage is not… oh, there are too many to choose from. His predecessor, for starters. Peter Kelly, the unlamented former mayor of Halifax whose major lasting legacy was his longevity in an office for which he was so obviously unsuited. He, belatedly, had the good sense to […]

Rocky Jones, thank you and rest in peace.

The last time I talked face to face with Rocky Jones was in November 2011, a few nights before he was scheduled to deliver a public lecture on “The Struggle for Human Rights in African Nova Scotian Communities, 1961-2011.” It could have been the too-wordy title for his autobiography. (Metro File Photo) We met at […]

A mayor we can laugh with… Hey, it's a start

The good news — for all concerned — is that Mike Savage is not Brad Pitt. The better news is that he isn’t Bruce Banman either. Banman is the beleaguered mayor of Abbotsford, the currently virally — not to forget bacterially — in-the-news B.C. community where city officials recently scattered chicken manure around a homeless encampment […]

06/10/2013
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Time to end the 'March Madness Educational Demolition Derby'

Richmond, the primary-to-nine school I attended in north end Halifax, is long gone. Not quite true. The oldest section, ironically the one re-built after the 1917 Halifax Explosion, now serves as a family court building. The other two wings, hastily tacked on after World War II to accommodate then-exponentially expanding baby boom babies, were unceremoniously […]

How does Emera afford to put its name on our skating oval?

It doesn’t You do. One way or the other… Solidarity Halifax’s quixotic campaign to rename the Commons skating oval isn’t likely to find many takers among cash-starved city councilors, but it should give the rest of us pause. How is it that Emera, the parent company of Nova Scotia Power, the private utility that keeps […]

No success like failure… Rob Bennett and NSP

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 […]