Kendall Worth: Venturing out into the world again
With COVID-19 measures getting a bit more relaxed Kendall Worth checks up on some of his friends to see how they survived the lockdown.
Month: July 2020
Olympia is over it, a poem and a photograph by Cara Jones
“Growing up with various medical conditions, I struggled with how society perceived my (dis) abilities and began documenting my experiences through poetry.”
We’re delighted to present this poem and photograph by Cara Jones, one of the five poems that were selected after we issued a call for poems earlier in the year.
Weekend video: How mercury left behind at old Nova Scotia gold mining sites continues to enter the food chain
In this short 2018 video Molly Leblanc, a species at risk and biodiversity biologist with Coastal Action, talks about the roughly one million ounces of mercury left behind by mining companies in Nova Scotia, typically dumped in nearby wetlands.
“I’m starting with the little critters low on the food chain, wetland insects. What I found is that insects from these goldmine sites have mercury levels 50 times higher than insects from clean healthy wetlands. And in species like dragonflies and mayflies, which shed their skin, hatch in the water and fly away.”
Miners’ houses: Lawren Harris in Glace Bay
Historian David Frank on Miners’ Houses, the painting of a Glace Bay townscape by Group of Seven painter Lawren Harris, now on a stamp. Harris visited Glace Bay in 1925, the same year striking miner William Davis was shot by company police. “Glace Bay is really no town, but a number of huddles of box-like houses around scattered coal mine mouths. . . . It’s drab and dreary and bedraggled even on a sunny day . . . “, Harris wrote at the time.
Press Release: Poster campaign in Halifax calls for status for all, healthcare access for all migrants
Saturday, July 4th marks the cross-Canada Day of Action for Status for All, with events taking place in Quebec, Ontario and British Columbia. As part of these actions, the migrant justice group No One is Illegal – Halifax/K’jipuktuk (NOII-Hfx) has launched a local poster campaign calling for full immigration status, as well as access to public healthcare for all migrants.
A license to kill: Wellness checks and the police
Judy HAiven: The Orwellian reality is that five people did not survive their “wellness check” carried out by police. There is no coincidence here: The police shot the five because of their race and because they could do so.
Overpriced and underserved: St Mary’s University’s response to COVID-19 gets a failing grade
“Personally, I am sick of the platitudes such as “we hear you” when the bureaucracy of executives clearly do not.” SMU student Jeremy Hebb argues that when COVID-19 arrived the university abandoned its students.
Racism continues at HRM workplaces, employees suggest
“Several African Nova Scotian HRM employees I spoke with compare their working conditions to the working conditions in the Southern United States of the 1950’s,” writes Raymond Sheppard. “In my humble opinion HRM has been singing the diversity song without learning the dance that goes along with it.”
Media release: Full Northwood review must be released to public
The Nova Scotia Health Coalition is calling for Randy Delorey, Minister of Health and Wellness, to commit now to releasing the full report of the Northwood Long-Term Care Facility COVID-19 Quality-Improvement Committee to the public.
Why do Mayor and Council hold the Halifax Common in contempt?
Peggy Cameron: The Halifax Common’s 240 acres is ~ 20-25% parking lots. There is an obvious opportunity to re-naturalize, re-wild or landscape them to create new park space and a cheap, efficient way to deal with major impacts from climate change. But Mayor Savage and Council have no plans to change this usage. In fact they recently approved plans for a new 8-storey parking garage by the NS Museum of Natural History. That’s despite ~3,000 citizens petitioning against the garage and for protection of the Halifax Common.