More than 30 people gathered in a candle-lit vigil tonight in Halifax’s Victoria Park to demand justice for Barbara Kentner, an Indigenous woman murdered in Thunder Bay, Ont. in January 2017. Judy Haiven was there.
Judy Haiven: “While many in the mainstream media called Lepine a madman (but interesting, never a terrorist, as they might have done today), Canadian feminists saw that something more sinister and more systemic had happened.”
After 50 years of promises there still is no universal child care program in Canada. Meanwhile, the Covid shutdown has brought women to the lowest level of participation in the paid labour force in three decades. Women’s unemployment surpassed men’s for the first time in 30 years. Is there an economic war on women? I ask you to judge for yourself, writes Judy Haiven.
Judy Haiven suggests that we postpone this year’s Christmas holidays. That way we we can meet around a picnic table, outdoors. Dr Strang tells us that during Covid, outdoors is the safest place to socialize. In July, there could be visits, outside activities, trips to the beach or the playground, all relatively safe gatherings. Remember how Covid cases across the country dropped precipitously over the summer of 2020?
A recent human rights case, launched by Gyasi Symonds after being racially profiled by Halifax police, is a showcase for all that is wrong with the way the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission (NSHRC) deals with human rights complaints and complainants.
This Remembrance Day Judy Haiven visits a Local Tim Hortons. It’s a follow up on an earlier visit, a couple of years ago and elsewhere in the province, where she had to set the manager straight about the law and labour standards.
Remembrance Day is a punitive holiday day because many Nova Scotians must forego pay. That week your pay cheque will be 20% lighter than it was for a 5-day week. Judy Haiven explains.
Judy Haiven looks at ways the city could spend the money coming from the feds to provide affordable housing. Which one do you think HRM will go for?
Judy Haiven looks at rising rents, renovictions and the shameless landlords who take advantage of a rental crisis.
Judy Haiven: As women had been all but shut out for the last four years, many people in HRM decided to vote for diversity. And that shift should manifest itself in a council more interested in listening to the people, less prone to making quick decisions on development, and more likely to make a dramatic start to finding a way forward for affordable and accessible housing.