Lawson Roy’s Pinion on Syn-thetic Polymers, a poem by Nova Scotia poet Cory Lavender, is the third of eight poems we will publish during the remainder of the year, selected as a result of the call for poems we issued in May. The poem is in the voice of Lawson Roy, his lobster-fishing grandfather from Port Mouton.  

The YWCA Halifax has issued a statement about the Halifax smoking ban, an they don’t mince words. “The proposed smoking by-law will disproportionately affect Halifax’s Black, Indigenous, homeless, and poor citizens. It is, in effect, a social policy whose outcome is to criminalize the poor and increase scrutiny and risk into their lives.”

“The fact is this is not about risk, it is about ideology. The credit union has chosen to jump on the dump-DB-pension-plan bandwagon. The action by the employer completely fails to recognize the years and years that employees either took concessions or accepted less in order to maintain a decent pension plan and each time they showed their ability to work with the employer.”

News release: For the first time, Equity Watch participated in Saturday’s Pride Parade. Equity Watch Nova Scotia is a nonprofit organization representing hundreds of people who want to end bullying, harassment and discrimination in the workplace.