Laura Slade: “When you live in poverty, one of the most valuable gifts you can receive is the gift of self-determination. We know what we need. We know where it is best for us to shop, what we’re comfortable wearing and what we need to eat. Each human deserves the dignity of making their own choices.”
PSA: A Change.org petition (Change.org/HalifaxTransitMasks) started on behalf of transit workers is calling for enforcement of mandatory face masks on all public transit in Halifax. While masks have been technically mandatory on all transit buses since July, there is currently no enforcement or penalties for not wearing a mask.
How well is Nova Scotia’s health system serving the Black community during the pandemic? Not well at all, says Dr. OmiSoore Dryden, who is the James R. Johnston Chair in Black Canadian Studies in the Faculty of Medicine and an associate professor in the Department of Community Health and Epidemiology. We spoke about the province’s refusal to collect disaggregated race-based data, the impressive mobilization against COVID by members of the North and East Preston communities, and the challenges of vaccination. More than anything we spoke about racism.
PSA: orestry companiy Westfor Seeks Injunction against Forest Protector Blockade. (this morning, in court). We encourage you (NOW!!) to call or email your MLA, Department of Lands and Forestry, and Westfor to express support for those protecting our forests. If the injunction goes through, XRNS will not be able to encourage people to go to the blockade, or even perhaps to encourage them to call Westfor and demand they halt their clearcut. –BUT our issue is not with the company – it is with our own government who is hiding behind this corporation.
Raymond Sheppard with a meditation on family and the need to forgive. “Covid-19 may be keeping us apart but it does not stop us from sealing the cracks in love.”
Press release: Two blockades on crown lands to protect mainland moose in the New France area, Digby County, may end abruptly in the days to come. Extinction Rebellion (XR) occupiers received word today from their lawyer that WestFor Management Inc. has applied for an interim injunction intended to force the forest protectors to pack up and leave. That application is set to be heard in the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia 9:30 a.m, this morning.
We have been reporting on the release of the Report Card on Child and Family Poverty in Nova Scotia for many years now. And year after year the news is grim.
41,370 children, one in four, live in poverty in Nova Scotia. For children under six that number is actually almost one in three!
It’s hard to fathom how politicians can shrug off these horrendous numbers, especially given that we know that solutions exist, and all it takes is political will.
Press release from Wellness Within: That the RCMP would charge a victim of gendered violence- a victim who herself survived the massacre through luck, resilience, and persistence- in one of their first public actions in response to the massacre is glaring evidence of the institution’s inability to consider sex and gender in their work.
Press release: On November 17th, a fire destroyed the family home of a Nova Scotia migrant worker and his family in Jamaica. A GoFundMe campaign is seeking to raise $20,000 in support of the family.
Moving away from a place where you weren’t happy, and to a place that is pleasant, where you live near a friend and where the caseworkers are more helpful makes a big difference to our old friend Daryl. His friend and roommate Darlene is equally doing well, Kendall Worth reports.