New contributor Catherine Meyers reflects on the state of mental healthcare in Nova Scotia and the death of her husband at a young age, a death that may well have been preventable. “There are still too many situations like the one I experienced, where people, especially youth, don’t get the right kind of mental health care.”
A survey about matters vitally important to the African Nova Scotian community was sent to all provincial candidates. We talked with Jalana Lewis, spokesperson for the initiative, and posted the survey on line.
Halifax Regional Police is reluctant to say how secure the carding data it collects really is. Since this information is pretty private you’d think they’d be eager to assure the public that there is no reason to worry. But even a FOIPOP request hits a blue wall.
Human rights lawyer Vince Calderhead tackles last month’ budget and the election. The realization that the inequality in our society is actually a political decision raises hard questions, he writes. These are questions not just for our political leaders but also for ourselves as members of a society that repeatedly select politicians who by their choices, maintain poverty and malnutrition. When are we, as a society, going to tell our political candidates and leaders that we will not tolerate poverty in our society?
This weekend’s poem, night cemetery by Robin Metcalfe, was inspired by the ghastly murder of John William Tha Din in 1988 in the Halifax Camp Hill Cemetery, a well known gay cruising area at the time. It’s from Writing the Common, a wonderful collection of poems about the Halifax Commons by a great bunch of local poets, published in 2013, by Gaspereau Press.
Local activist Stacey Rudderham attended last week’s Harrietsfield community meeting. Residents want clean drinking water and leachate from a recycling site addressed. All they got from incumbent Liberal candidate Brendan Maguire was evasion and lies, she writes.
Kendall is pondering a run in the next provincial election. There would be be some serious (Province) house cleaning.
New contributor Alex Kronstein suggests that an election campaign is the perfect time to bug the candidates about the underlying social causes of our healthcare crisis. In part 1 of the series he argues that when it comes to income distribution Nova Scotia could do much better. A living wage, a $15 minimum wage, making it easier for workplaces to unionize, and a guaranteed income are all measures that could make a big difference here.
Politicians often take license with the truth, that’s just the way the world works. But sometimes they go too far. Statements by Brendan Maguire, Liberal MLA for Halifax Atlantic, are of that latter variety.
Former firefighter Liane Tessier finally gets her day in court. Tessier faced gender discrimination, retribution and gossip at the Halifax Regional Fire & Emergency department in 2005, and has been trying to get her case heard ever since. Now the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission (NSHRC) has set aside 10 days starting October 30 for a tribunal to look into Tessier’s allegations. I have written a lot about Tessier’s case over the years, and have nothing but admiration for this courageous woman.