Month: December 2020
Kendall Worth: Some thoughts about the new year
Kendall Worth: In normal years New Year’s is a time of loneliness and social isolation for many of us in the community of people living in poverty. This year we will not be the only ones.
This coming year, a poem by Alexander Bridge
Contributor Alexander Bridge, who usually writes about the state of the province, switches gears and offers some wisdom and hope here as we ring in the new year.
Halifax airport workers and Trudeau’s broken $15 promise
“I took every shift I could get, up to 70-hours per week, to make ends meet. With wages that low, this is what you have to do.” Lisa Cameron reports on Justin Trudeau’s 2019 promise of a federal minimum wage of at least $15 and hour, starting in 2020, and rising with inflation. We are in the final days of 2020, and yet Trudeau has taken no steps to honour this commitment.
2020: Another year of preventable crosswalk fatalities in Halifax
Martyn Williams: 2020 has been yet another year marked and marred by vulnerable road user fatalities, all of them seniors. An urban or suburban community that can’t support people to move around safely without a car cannot function. People with disabilities, children and seniors in particular are placed in the unwilling position of performing dangerous stunts, using crosswalks that do not meet their unique needs and abilities.
Judy Haiven: CFL Stadium Redux – don’t say no one knew
Judy Haiven on the football stadium that just won’t quit. “Can anybody honestly say that in the wake of the world changing due to Covid, thousands of jobs disappearing possibly forever, and poverty nipping at the heels of many in Halifax that no better use of $20 million could be found?”
Raymond Sheppard: My African Nova Scotian wishlist for 2021
Raymond Sheppard nominates Eddie Carvery for African Nova Scotian of the year, and makes some wishes for 2021: Fire Chief Dan Kinsella, reparations, collect race-based data, a CBC that pays attention to the African Nova Scotian community and more.
Ray Bates: The status quo is dead
Ray Bates on COVID-19 lessons learned. “The first is the importance of an adequate health care system for all. The existing inadequacies and inequalities that have been jarringly exposed because of COVID-19 must be corrected and replaced with services that will enable us to defeat this pandemic and also to be ready for the next one when it rears its deadly head.”
Nova Scotia Advocate journalist Kendall Worth receives yet another award
A press release issued by Independent Living Nova Scotia on December 18 announces that Kendall is this year’s recipient of the Lois Miller Tulip Award. The annual award recognizes a person, group or organization that exemplifies the spirit of independent living and enables people living with disabilities to have control over their lives.
Martha Mutale: Learning to show up for myself
Martha Mutale on what feminism has taught her. “Growing up, I used to pray every day that I would wake up white. That shit is messed up. I thought being white would make my life easier, less complicated.”