Evelyn C. White reports on the Big Sing event this past Tuesday at Gus’ Pub in honour of Aretha Franklin. Sadly, only a handful of people of colour attended. On the upside, The Big Sing is making efforts to increase the diversity of the pop-up choir.
Feeling the pressure of increased public scrutiny, the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board (CNSOPB) met this afternoon with municipal councillors from western Nova Scotia, hoping to convince them that offshore oil exploration is safe. Don’t be fooled, says Marion Moore, of the Campaign to Protect Offshore Nova Scotia. “I would tell them that they’re being fed a big story from an organization that is completely captured by the oil industry,” Moore tells the Nova Scotia Advocate.
One of the many hard things about having to depend on social assistance is the stigma. People often assume you’re lazy, even though invisible disabilities stop you from working. The other day poverty advocate Kendall Worth talked with one such person, who got verbally attacked by her fellow passengers on the bus.
Lower speed limits, although not a panacea, mean fewer accidents, and fewer pedestrian deaths. Both City and Province agree that lowering speeds is a positive move, yet a standoff about jurisdictional authority is stopping implementation. “Not at all satisfactory for parents who need to head off to work before their children walk to school alone, or for the pedestrians regularly hit on our crosswalks,” writes Martyn Williams
Kate, a fearless mother who we have written about before, fights Community Services and gets the glasses (with warranty) her autistic son requires. It was hard and scary, and it looks like questions the NS Advocate was asking made a bit of a difference. This story has a happy ending, but you can’t help but wonder how many people would just have given up much earlier.
We need new ways of supporting autistic and other neurodivergent children in Nova Scotia, writes autism activist and frequent NS Advocate contributor Alex Kronstein. Approaches that are rooted in ideas of accommodation, articulated by actually autistic people.
When you’re on income assistance EI benefits and CPP Disability are clawed back 100%. “Taking that money is insulting. People should be allowed to keep these payments, since they contributed to both CPP disability and Employment insurance while working,” writes poverty activist Kendall Worth in an open letter to premier Steven McNeil.
The provincial government is engaged in an orchestrated effort to move education jobs out of the union sphere. 1000 school principals, 200 or more school psychologists and speech and language pathologists, social workers and new positions in the expanding Schools Plus program will no longer be unionized. “While this may be a less sensational way of weakening the unions than, say, imposing wage freezes and concessions that force teachers and other education workers out onto the picket line, it poses no less a threat to their very existence,” writes John McCracken.
On Wednesday evening several MLAs from all three parties attended a screening of My Week on Welfare at the auditorium of the Nova Scotia Art Gallery in downtown Halifax. My Week on Welfare is a wonderful documentary, produced by Jackie Torrens, that offers glimpses into the lives of income assistance recipients, families and individuals both, trying to make ends meet on a scandalously low food and shelter budget. The screening was organized by BRAG and CASAR members. What follows is what poverty advocate and Nova Scotia Advocate contributor Tim Blades told the MLAs.
A South Shore man built a prosthetic arm for his grandson Charlie, who was born with a limb difference. How, you ask? He used the 3D-printer at the South Shore Public Library in Bridgewater, and built the arm for less than $25 in materials! Another reason why we love public libraries. Story by Understorey Magazine editor Katherine J. Barrett.