A former Community Services employee charges that high caseloads are negatively affecting both service to clients and staff morale. The employee worked in the child welfare division as a caseworker and later as a frontline supervisor. She left her job in frustration after well over a decade with the department.
Brenda Thompson was a welfare activist in Halifax in the eighties. Being a single mom who spoke her mind rather than know her place, she became the target of vicious attacks by the then minister of social services Edmund Morris. But Morris went too far, she took him to court, and won. We talk to Thompson about an especially vibrant period in Nova Scotia welfare activism, the strong support of the feminist movement, Alexa, journalism, slut shaming, and lots more.
This (very) short film by Halifax filmmaker Stephanie Young reminds us that being a trans woman, and especially a trans woman of colour, means you are at high risk of becoming targeted in violent hate crimes. When we talk about women’s issues, we should include trans women.
Justin Brake, the fearless Newfoundland and Labrador journalist for the TheIndependent.ca is facing jail for reporting on an occupation of Nalcor buildings at Muskrat Falls by indigenous people. Everybody should care, and Nova Scotians doubly so, because through the Maritime Link these things are a lot closer than they appear.
For days and weeks the Nova Scotia Teachers Union dominated the headlines. But after the government imposed a new contract all that disappeared. What actually happened? Why did it matter? What’s next? We met with Larry Haiven, an expert in Nova Scotia labour relations and co-founder of the Parents for Teachers Facebook group, to ponder these three questions. “This is not your grandfather’s labour movement anymore.”
The Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission has denied five welfare recipients the opportunity to argue that insufficient funding for special diets amounts to discrimination.
A Facebook post by El Jones about very high long distance rates for calls from provincial jails piqued my curiosity. What I found is a system that enriches a Texas company and the provincial government each time a prisoner dials the number of a loved one.
This weekend we feature a short gritty film by Grassfire Films, Cape Breton-based filmmaker Ashley McKenzie and producer Nelson MacDonald. The film was shot in 2013 in New Waterford.
A new report by FoodARC confirms what people on social assistance or making minimum wage have always known. Being poor means going hungry or being undernourished.
A Community Services presentation suggests that the proposed revamp of social assistance may result in some clients receiving less than they do now. Not to worry, it’s only a scenario for consideration, says the department.