News brief: CCPA NS director Christine Saulnier is is throwing her hat in the ring to become the federal NDP’s candidate for Halifax. And ultimately she hopes to become the next MP for Halifax after the next federal election, later this year. That’s good news for progressives in Halifax.
Scott Neigh’s weekly podcast is a wonderful thing, and Scott is a kind man who always allows us to share an interview whenever the topic has a Nova Scotia relevance. Here he speaks with North Preston and Nort End community activist LaMeia Reddick, and Ted Rutland, author of Displacing Blackness: Planning, Power, and Race in Twentieth-Century Halifax, a must-read for anybody interested in urban planning and / or the history of the struggle against racism in Halifax. It’s a book I simply can’t recommend enough.
Martyn Williams weighs in on Halifax Council’s budget deliberations: “We already know that our roads cannot be made safe simply by asking people to take more care. However incidents can be reduced by introducing proven infrastructure safety countermeasures that ensure the protection of vulnerable road users is our first and foremost priority on our roads.”
The CBC reports that the number of street checks by Halifax Regional Police has decreased over the last two years. However, that decrease has mostly benefited white people. The likelihood a member of a visible minority will be subjected to a street check has increased relative to a white person’s chances.
Paul Vienneau is getting tired off using back doors at City Hall and Province House. “I’m going to go out on a limb here and make a statement I haven’t heard anyone make before: The front entrances of Halifax City Hall and of the Legislature should be modified to include ramps,” he writes.
39% of Early Childhood Educators (ECE) surveyed by the CCPA-NS say they would not be an ECE if they were to choose a career today. A new report, aptly named Unappreciated and Underpaid, explores the workers’ (and employers’) responses and suggests underlying causes and solutions.
Letter by Wendy Watson Smith, president of the Association for the Preservation of the Eastern Shore: “We have just learned that Fisheries and Aquaculture Minister Keith Colwell will lead a delegation of 18 Industry representatives and government officials on a taxpayer funded junket to Tasmania to investigate Marine Protected Areas in that part of Australia, and the feasibility of co-existence between finfish farms and a lobster fishery.”
Howard Epstein’s letter to Halifax Council, written on behalf of the Friends of the Halifax Common, about the mega-development of four towers of 30, 26, 20 and 16 storeys proposed for the block formed by Spring Garden Road and College, Carlton and Robie streets.
Letter by Nan McFadgen, president of CUPE Nova Scotia, on the continuing crisis in long term care in our province. “I am frustrated that government does not hear our voices. Recruitment and retention continue to get worse in long term care. Would you be attracted to a profession where you are underpaid, undervalued, understaffed and underfunded?”
Most articles about poverty focus on the obvious things, lack of money, bills that pile up, dealing with Community Services and landlords, and so on. Kendall for a long time now has covered these issues, but he also writes about about some of the less obvious hurdles in the lives of people living in poverty. Here he writes about his idea on how to deal with loneliness and social isolation that so many people who live in poverty face on a daily basis.