A group of anti-poverty activists is organizing a rally and march in North Dartmouth, the constituency of Joanne Bernard, the current minister of Community Services. They hope to raise awareness of the many difficulties people on income assistance face under the current welfare system.
We take a look at the provincial parties’ responses to a social justice questionnaire, zooming in on commitments around welfare and people who work for very low wages. And some other observations.
A group of environmental activists in the Annapolis Valley is calling for a radical rethink of the Avon River causeway in Windsor. Endangered salmon cannot enter the Avon River to spawn and the group has launched a letter writing campaign to call on the federal Department of Fisheries to interfere.
In this powerful video Nova Scotians who know about welfare first hand are asked to describe Income Assistance in three words. It takes them all of 49 seconds to tell us that social assistance in Nova Scotia is broken.
A group of people concerned about the quality of care in Nova Scotia’s long term residences rallied at Northwood Manor in Halifax this afternoon. More care beds, more trained staff and healthier food are among their demands. Ultimately they are asking for a halt to the ongoing loss of dignity and respect for our seniors.
New contributor Catherine Meyers reflects on the state of mental healthcare in Nova Scotia and the death of her husband at a young age, a death that may well have been preventable. “There are still too many situations like the one I experienced, where people, especially youth, don’t get the right kind of mental health care.”
A survey about matters vitally important to the African Nova Scotian community was sent to all provincial candidates. We talked with Jalana Lewis, spokesperson for the initiative, and posted the survey on line.
Halifax Regional Police is reluctant to say how secure the carding data it collects really is. Since this information is pretty private you’d think they’d be eager to assure the public that there is no reason to worry. But even a FOIPOP request hits a blue wall.
This weekend’s poem, night cemetery by Robin Metcalfe, was inspired by the ghastly murder of John William Tha Din in 1988 in the Halifax Camp Hill Cemetery, a well known gay cruising area at the time. It’s from Writing the Common, a wonderful collection of poems about the Halifax Commons by a great bunch of local poets, published in 2013, by Gaspereau Press.