A Halifax mutual aid group has been building and distributing small crisis shelters for people with nowhere warm to sleep. The response of the municipality and some of the city councillors has been disappointing, writes Solidarity Kjipuktuk – Halifax, and the group offers some suggestions of things that could have been said instead.
After declaring a climate emergency Halifax committed to buy upwards of 150 diesel buses from then until 2023. Meanwhile, PEI announced that their entire fleet of 220 school buses would be electrified by 2040 or sooner, and that, without preamble, they’d gone ahead and purchased their first twelve all-electrics. Zack Metcalfe investigates.
The secretive sale of the former Bloomfield Centre shows once again that stopping gentrification and creating affordable housing is not a priority in this city, or indeed, this province.
Friends of the Common wants a proposed 23-story high-rise tower on Robie Street stopped. “This Development Agreement not only denies the earlier council decision and staff recommendations to limit the height to 6 storeys, it makes a mockery of public participation by voiding the historic and more recent input of citizens,” they write.
Jacob Fillmore, the young man camping out on the Grand Parade in support of the threatened mainland moose in Western Nova Scotia has been told by city staff to leave within a day or so. We talked with JAcob about his plans. “I don’t think this is the end of the protest,” Jacob tells us.
Earlier today we reported how Equity Watch calls for major structural changes to the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission to deal with the many complaints about its fairness and timeliness that have been raised over the years. The press conference and report launch was timed to roughly coincide with the third anniversary of the apologies issued to former firefighter Liane Tessier by the NSHRC and the Halifax Fire Service. This is what Liane said at this morning’s press conference.
Equity Watch calls for major structural changes to the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission (NSHRC) to deal with the many complaints about its fairness and timeliness that have been raised over the years. The organization lays out its critique and recommendations in Justice Impeded, a well-researched and detailed 50-page report that was launched through a virtual press conference this morning.
The Nova Scotia government is asking for public feedback by January 8 on 65 pages of regulations which will dictate how roads should be used by the public, and also potentially allow for some safer controls and infrastructure for vulnerable road users. Martyn Williams has some excellent suggestions.
Martyn Williams: 2020 has been yet another year marked and marred by vulnerable road user fatalities, all of them seniors. An urban or suburban community that can’t support people to move around safely without a car cannot function. People with disabilities, children and seniors in particular are placed in the unwilling position of performing dangerous stunts, using crosswalks that do not meet their unique needs and abilities.
Judy Haiven on the football stadium that just won’t quit. “Can anybody honestly say that in the wake of the world changing due to Covid, thousands of jobs disappearing possibly forever, and poverty nipping at the heels of many in Halifax that no better use of $20 million could be found?”