We talk with Justin Brake about the serious criminal charges he faces. Brake was the only journalist to report from the indigenous-led occupation of Nalcor property in protest of the Muskrat Falls development. “This is is more than an attack on my right to be a journalist, this is an attack on all journalists everywhere.”
When the head of a family is cut off from social assistance for punitive reasons the entire family suffers. LEAF, a national organization that promotes equality rights for women and girls hopes to change that through the Nova Scotia judicial system.
We are delighted to present some of the art of printmaker Ericka Walker. Walker is a Nova Scotia artist who is interested in messages contained in the visual propaganda of the last centuries, and how these messages shape the stories we continue to tell ourselves, no questions asked.
This weekend’s featured video is The Skin We’re In, by Desmond Cole and Charles Officer. A documentary about carding and profiling and racism by a Toronto journalist, but with a surprising amount of Nova Scotia content.
We went to last night’s panel on carding at the North End Library. We planned to write about the entire evening, but we ended up with a story focused entirely on the remarkable responses by Halifax Regional Police chief J.M. Blais.
Rebecca Hussman reports on the Harrietsfield homeowners who, after nearly eight years, have won the legal battles involving a contaminated recycling site in Harrietsfield. They are not celebrating yet. The companies responsible for the pollution have stopped court-mandated water monitoring, and residents are still waiting for water treatment systems that the province promised would be in place by February. The story includes a video that shows the devastating effects of the contamination.
“In our own community here, every moment of every day is consumed with the contaminated water, either when you go to have a shower, brush your teeth, whatever… It’s always there in the back of your mind, and it’s very frustrating.”
A former Community Services employee charges that high caseloads are negatively affecting both service to clients and staff morale. The employee worked in the child welfare division as a caseworker and later as a frontline supervisor. She left her job in frustration after well over a decade with the department.
Brenda Thompson was a welfare activist in Halifax in the eighties. Being a single mom who spoke her mind rather than know her place, she became the target of vicious attacks by the then minister of social services Edmund Morris. But Morris went too far, she took him to court, and won. We talk to Thompson about an especially vibrant period in Nova Scotia welfare activism, the strong support of the feminist movement, Alexa, journalism, slut shaming, and lots more.
Kendall Worth on wanting to help people who live in poverty. If only he could make all the pieces of the puzzle fit together.
Delighted to feature this excellent poem by Mi’kmaw storyteller and poet Shalan Joudry of Bear River First Nation. The Nova Scotia Advocate tries to amplify voices that aren’t often heard. Surely we can count poets among those voices.