This weekend’s weekend video is an oldie but goodie about the historic African Nova Scotian communities of Lucasville and Upper Hammonds Plains. Lots of interviews with elders, lots of community spirit and mutual support.
A new CCPA report takes a very close look at the sad picture of child poverty in Halifax. It contains information you likely didn’t know about your community or neighborhood. For instance, Spryfield has a child poverty rate of 40%, and in rural Nova Scotia North Preston (40%), East Preston (38.9), and Sheet Harbour (26.1%) lead the pack. Meanwhile, Fall RIver has a child poverty rate of a mere 3.9%.
Crazy as it may sound, the Nova Scotia Mining Association wants to be allowed to mine and quarry inside Nova Scotia’s protected areas. The provincial government has stated it isn’t interested in opening up these areas, but organizations such as the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS) remain on high alert.
The Canada Mortage and Housing Corp. published its annual rent survey, and the news for Nova Scotia and Halifax renters isn’t very good. Rents went up, vacancy rates went down. In Halifax vacancy rates haven’t been as low since 2003.
Just another clearcut in rural Nova Scotia. Nothing new here.
Lots of rented homes and apartments in Nova Scotia need major repairs. That’s what occupants of these homes told Statistics Canada. We have the numbers and we have the maps.
Both shocking and shockingly normal, My name is…, a short six-minute video gives voice to Shelburne residents worried about the state of healthcare in their neck of the woods. ER closures, lack of doctors, it’s scary to live in rural Nova Scotia these days if you need medical support.
Unusual flooding, erosion, something has changed about the Margaree River in Cape Breton, writes Sam Ainsworth. When local residents start pointing it clear cutting of the Margaree watershed by Port Hawkesbury Paper, the company fights back. An expert report, the local salmon fishers association, politicians all get mobilized to argue that things in fact are just fine. Not so fast, writes Ainsworth, ” The Margaree could be a beacon of light in a very dark history for salmon in this province but the clearcutting must be drastically reduced.”
Lot of rent-poor people in Nova Scotia. 24,000 Nova Scotians, or one in five people who rent, spend more than 50 percent of their annual income on rent. New data released by Statistics Canada tells the story. Also, a neat app that lets you put it all on the map.
New contributor Lori Oliver, who grew up in the Digby area, takes a look at the tensions between white and Mi’kmaq lobster fishers in South West Nova Scotia. The issues go deeper than most newspaper reports suggests, she writes, poverty, racism and colonialism are at the root of the current problems.