It’s our June subscription drive and to celebrate we’re sharing various versions of Top 10 lists. For this Morning File, I thought I’d share a list of the top 10 things I’ve learned working with the Examiner and from my Examiner colleagues.
10. I’ve been working on my photography skills lately and my colleagues have been giving me great tips. Iris signed me up for iPhone Photography School, which has a lot of excellent lessons on taking photos with your iPhone, but also helpful rules around composition, lighting, and more. Tim Bousquet and Yvette d’Entremont have provided lots of advice, too. I hope it all shows in my work.
9. Once in a while I like writing an essay about a topic. It’s a nice break from the everyday news we cover. El Jones and Evelyn C. White have written essays for the Examiner that still stick in my brain. There’s this one, ‘Remember, You Are A Lady’, by Jones. And it’s always a good day when we get an essay from White. She wrote this essay from February as a letter to Darnella Frazier, who recorded the murder of George Floyd by white cops.
8. Most of what I know about artificial intelligence (AI) I know because of Philip Moscovitch. Besides the articles he writes about AI, he shares that knowledge with us in our Slack channels. Moscovitch won silver at the Atlantic Journalism Awards in 2023 for this commentary about AI.
7. Joan Baxter has taught me a lot about forestry issues in Nova Scotia and beyond. Baxter was one of 140 journalists who worked on the Deforestation Inc series. Once in a while when she doesn’t have time, Baxter will send along to me a press release about a forestry issue or news. It’s a big deal for me that she trusts me to write about stories in her beat.
6. Yvette d’Entremont is our health reporter and so when I have a health care-related query, there’s a pretty good chance she’ll know the answer. d’Entremont really digs into health care issues, speaking to experts and following the latest in research, including in her award-winning work on COVID.
5. In October, I took over covering City Hall from Zane Woodford, who knew that beat inside and out. I admit I was a little intimidated at first, but I am up for learning and had already learned a lot about municipal politics from Woodford. Tim Bousquet and d’Entremont have covered that beat as well, so they provided guidance too. I also learned that I enjoy covering City Hall. There’s lots of interesting news that affects all of us, every day.
4. Jennifer Henderson covers Province House, so she knows who’s who and what’s going on in provincial politics. Sometimes that provincial news affects what’s happening at City Hall, so we will compare notes. Henderson is also officially retired, but you’d never guess given that’s she’s still all over the provincial beat.
3. We’re not all business here at the Examiner. I like to think I provide some good laughs with my typos. Yvette d’Entremont edits a lot of my work and she will get a chuckle with some errors. In one story, I wrote “Salvation Arm.” That led to some jokes in our team Slack channel about what a Salvation Arm could be. Listen, it’s not that I don’t know how to spell, but it’s that my fingers and brain compete with each other when I’m typing. I apologize now for any typos, but at least we’ll get a laugh out of them.
2. I started at the Examiner in 2018 with my first Morning File. One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned was from Tim Bousquet, who encouraged me to just go with whatever in those Morning Files. So sometimes I’ll write an essay or sometimes I’ll interview someone about their news or story. Bousquet has given me a lot of opportunity to just run with stories and ideas. This is how I like to work, but Bousquet also provides the guidance I need that makes those stories much better. I have projects in the works now and Bousquet has been right there with the advice. I am looking forward to writing a lot more stories for you all.
1. Last week when I was on the tour of Cogswell, I met with one of our subscribers named Denise, who was along for the tour as well. When a lot of your work is done on a computer, it’s refreshing to get outside and meet people in person. Our readers and subscribers often send along tips and story ideas as well. This makes the Examiner a collaborative project in a way. Denise wrote to me the day after the tour to say she shared the story on the Cogswell tour with her friends, saying “reading your writing and seeing your photos were better than the actual tour!” This is why we do the work we do. Thank you, Denise and all of our subscribers for reading and supporting our work. I hope to meet more of you in real life.
If you don’t already subscribe, you can sign up here. You can also purchase a subscription for a friend.
1. School violence
Nova Scotia auditor general Kim Adair speaking with reporters on June 11, 2024 about the report on violence in schools. Credit: Jennifer Henderson
“A report by Nova Scotia’s auditor general released Tuesday says the education department should develop a provincewide strategy to address rising levels of school violence,” reports Jennifer Henderson.
The Department of Education and Early Childhood Development said it has started work on such a policy and expects to fully implement it by September 2025.
According to provincial auditor general Kim Adair’s report, violent incidents against students and educators increased provincewide by 60% over the last seven years, from 17,000 to 27,000 incidents per year. Roughly half the incidents occurred in the Halifax Regional Centre for Education (HRCE).
At the elementary level, physical violence such as pushing, kicking, and fighting is more common because younger children haven’t learned the social skills to deal appropriately with other people. At the junior high and high school level, the majority of reported incidents involve verbal abuse towards other students and teachers, often with racial or discriminatory overtones.
Last year’s incident at Charles P. Allen High School in Bedford where a student stabbed two staff members highlighted an intensifying spectrum of violence.
Click or tap here to read “Auditor general says Nova Scotia must do more to stem rise in school violence.”
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2. Should the casino go boom?
The casino blocks the view of the harbour from the Cogswell redevelopment. Credit: Tim Bousquet
On Tuesday, Tim Bousquet attended a press conference in downtown Halifax overlooking the construction in the new Cogswell District. At the conference, the province announced it was contributing $2.5 million contribution to the project, which costs about $122 million.
But that got Bousquet thinking about the Halifax Casino on the waterfront, which was visible from the boardroom where the press conference was being held. Bousquet writes:
I’ve long advocated that we should blow up the casino, and I put that proposition forward at the press conference, albeit more delicately: “It looks really nice out there,” I said. “But it’s hard to miss that the view of the harbour is blocked by a parking garage and the casino. I can’t imagine that thing is very profitable in the age of online betting — Is there any desire to take the casino down?”
“That would be a decision of Nova Scotia Gaming Commission,” replied Savage. “Whether they consider that to be profitable or if it can be moved somewhere else at scale, I don’t know.”
According to the Nova Scotia Gaming Commission, its two casinos (Halifax and Sydney) brought it $90.3 million in revenue in 2022-23. Let’s guess that Halifax is responsible for three-quarters of that, so $67.7 million. According to the commission, only 28% of its revenue is returned to the province, so about $19 million annually.
But the casino pays nothing in property tax, and that $19 million does not include the social costs of gambling addiction. And if Savage is serious about putting maximum value to the community above financial gain, then surely we can all agree that a waterfront casino makes no sense.
Click or tap here to read “The Cogswell redevelopment is going great, but it would be even better if we blew up the casino.”
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3. Darren Fisher, Bruce Wood, and Dartmouth Cove
Dartmouth Cove. Credit: Suzanne Rent
“The company that wants to infill Dartmouth Cove sent a cease-and-desist letter to Dartmouth-Cole Harbour MP Darren Fisher, who has been encouraging residents and the community to contact all levels of government to stop the proposed infilling project,” I reported on Tuesday.
The owner of the company, Atlantic Road Construction and Paving (ARCP), said the letter was sent because Fisher is not responding to calls or emails.
Fisher addressed the cease-and-desist letter from ARCP in the House of Commons on Tuesday.
The proponent is threatening to sue me if I speak out. I was elected to represent the people of Dartmouth-Cole Harbour to be their voice. It’s my job to bring their concerns to Ottawa to advocate, to stand up, to speak out. Dartmouth Cove is not a dumpsite for someone’s fill. Mr. Speaker, I will not be silenced.
I spoke with Bruce Wood from Atlantic Road Construction and Paving on Tuesday, who said the company tried to contact Fisher many times, but never heard back. Wood also said that Fisher is speaking “very inaccurately” about the infilling proposal:
He’s using kind of very negative terminology. He hasn’t even sat down with us to understand what the project is. We’re a company based in his riding. He’s our MP as well. The fact he won’t meet with us I think reflects badly on the entire system.
The story also includes my interview with Jill Brogan and Katie McIntyre Mills from Save Dartmouth Cove. They’re hosting a public meeting about the cove tonight at 6:30pm at the Alderney Gate Library.
Click or tap here to read “Company looking to infill Dartmouth Cove sends cease-and-desist letter to MP Darren Fisher.”
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4. Andy Fillmore and Canada Post
Halifax MP Andy Fillmore speaks at a housing announcement in Halifax on Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2023. Credit: Zane Woodford
MP Andy Fillmore continues to push Canada Post to sell its plant on Almon Street so housing can be built on prime land in the city. From a story by Lyndsay Armstrong with The Canadian Press:
“There’s a housing crisis and the federal government owns some really valuable land in key strategic locations around our city, around the riding that I represent, and the Almon Street postal sorting facility is clearly one of those,” Fillmore said in an interview Monday.
“Nearby there are schools, a hospital, grocery stores, there’s transit, there are professional services. The pipes and the wires and the sidewalks are all there, so it’s a beautiful site for redevelopment.”
Canada Post said in an emailed statement it has informed Halifax city planners it has no plans to relocate the mail sorting facility.
Canada Post declined an interview with Armstrong, but spokesperson Lisa Liu wrote this in an email: “We have agreed to undertake an assessment of our properties to explore their viability for alternate use.”
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5. Competition Bureau
The Sobeys grocery store on Lower Sackville’s First Lake Drive in July, 2021. Credit: Yvette d’Entremont
“The Competition Bureau has obtained two court orders requiring the parent companies of Loblaws and Sobeys to hand over information related to its investigation into alleged anticompetitive conduct,” writes Rose Saba with The Canadian Press.
The bureau is investigating the use of property controls in the grocery sector, which are clauses in lease agreements that restrict other potential tenants and their activities.
The bureau said these controls are hampering competition in the grocery sector.
The competition commissioner applied in Federal Court in May to order Empire Cos. Ltd. and George Weston Ltd. to hand over records about real estate holdings, lease agreements, customer data and other records.
The Competition Bureau released this press release about the court orders on Tuesday. As that release notes, the bureau’s investigation is focused on the use or property controls in stores in Halifax Regional Municipality.
In September, we published this investigation into how Dollarama doesn’t sell bread at its stores that are close to a Sobeys location. That investigation focused on Dollaramas in Nova Scotia.
Our investigation actually started with a tip from readers Mary and Ian Wilson, who emailed us about a Dollarama location in Dartmouth that doesn’t sell bread because of the Sobeys nearby.
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6. Student suing Université Sainte-Anne
Université Sainte-Anne’s campus in Church Point on Aug. 28, 2023. Credit: Yvette d’Entremont
“A student at Université Sainte-Anne is suing the school for failing to protect her from physical and emotional harm following a series of alleged sexual assaults on campus,” reports Celina Aalders with CBC.
Plaintiff Marissa Williams, whose name was previously protected by a publication ban that she had lifted, has studied arts and education since 2019 at the small francophone university in Church Point, N.S.
In her statement of claim, she outlines that she was raped in separate incidents on campus in 2021 by two fellow students — one who played on the men’s volleyball team and another who was employed by the university as a residential adviser.
The lawsuit, filed in Nova Scotia Supreme Court on May 29, claims Sainte-Anne was negligent in protecting Williams from the harms allegedly committed by the two men, both described in the court documents as ambassadors of the school.
In September, Yvette d’Entremont wrote this story in which she interviewed students whose stories are very similar to Williams’ story. Here’s part of d’Entremont’s story from her interview with a student we call Charlotte:
“When I reported my rape to the school, it became clear to me rather quickly that no one who was involved in the process was trauma-informed or knew how to speak to a victim of sexual assault in a way that wouldn’t leave them feeling even worse,” Charlotte (a pseudonym) said in an interview with the Halifax Examiner earlier this week.
“That’s one of the biggest parts about rape culture on campus and how they deal with cases,” Charlotte said. “My mental health suffered immensely as a result of what happened to me. And because of all the victim shaming I was subjected to after it happened, I didn’t want to live anymore.”
The Examiner published this opinion piece by Sainte-Anne English professor Brian Gibson in which he wrote the university has become a “festering petri dish” of rape culture.
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How technology can help us appreciate and understand nature
A dark-eyed Junco sitting in a maple tree. Credit: Suzanne Rent
I am slightly obsessed with the Merlin bird ID app, which I downloaded on the weekend. Every day since, I’ve been in my backyard recording the birds, and the app identifies what birds are in my yard by their songs or calls.
The app, which was launched by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in 2014, is simple to use. After you download it to your phone, you simply press record and the app will “listen” for the songs and calls of birds near you and then produce a list of what birds you and the app are hearing. So far in my own backyard, I’ve recorded song sparrows, European starlings, a Northern cardinal, American Goldfinch, red-eyed vireo, crows, robins, blue jays, and house sparrows. Each morning, after I feed my cats and make a cup of tea, I record the birds in my yard to see which ones are hanging around.
Now I am taking photos of the birds I hear, including the dark-eyed Janco in the photo above that was in my yard on Tuesday.
An American robin on a lawn off Kent Avenue near Hemlock Ravine Park in Halifax. Credit: Suzanne Rent
On Tuesday, I decided to take Merlin beyond my backyard. So, I headed to Hemlock Ravine Park and recorded these birds.
Birds recorded in Hemlock Ravine Park on Tuesday, June 11, 2024. Credit: Merlin Bird ID
And here are the birds I recorded in Fairview Lawn Cemetery where it was dead quiet, except for the birds.
Birds recorded at Fairview Lawn Cemetery in Halifax. Credit: Merlin Bird ID
After I recorded the birds’ calls and songs, I was then trying to take photos of those birds. So now I’m officially a middle-aged woman who walks through cemeteries recording and taking photos of birds. I plan on recording the birds wherever I go from now on.
Starlings in the grass at Fairview Lawn Cemetery in Halifax. Credit: Suzanne Rent
Anyway, this little obsession got me thinking about how technology can help us appreciate and learn about nature. Thanks to the Merlin Bird ID app, I now know the calls and songs of different birds. Here are some other apps that help people connect with and identify flora and fauna:
iNaturalist: take and upload a photo of a species you’ve found and chat and learn about it with other users
PlantNet: ID plants by uploading a photo. There’s a section specifically for plants in Eastern Canada
LeafSnap: Identify plants by their leaves
SeagrassSpotter: ID seagrass but also used as a way to conserve seagrass
AnimalTracker: document your wild animal observations and share them with the scientific community.
Locations in Nova Scotia that have signed up for the Homegrown National Park project. Credit: Homegrown National Park
In March, I interviewed Bev Wigney about the Homegrown National Park project, which is an online map where people can register their own properties as a way to encourage biodiversity in communities. So, that’s another way to use tech to promote nature and biodiversity.
I’m curious to know what apps and tech readers use to learn about nature.
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NOTICED
Rumour has it… or didn’t
Credit: Kristina Flour/Unsplash
On Sunday I was listening to this episode of Storylines on CBC about how a rumour about an affair has followed one woman and impacted her life for the last 30 years.
This is a frustrating and wild story. Basically, 30 years ago a rumour started circulating that Jane MacDougall, who was married to Canuck goaltender Kirk McLean, had an affair with a defenceman on her husband’s team. According to the big ole gossips, that affair was responsible for the Canucks sucking in the Stanley Cup finals in 1995.
As Acey Rowe, host of Storylines, talks about in the episode, that rumour about the affair didn’t even start with MacDougall, but with McLean’s first wife, Lesley. Somehow over the years, the rumour got tacked onto MacDougall, and even got to the playground of her kids’ school where her son’s classmates were spreading the gossip that came to them from their parents. Oh, the rumour wasn’t true when it was Lesley who was accused of having the affair.
As Rowe tells in Storylines, the rumour isn’t only completely false, but also couldn’t have even happened. But such rumours are apparently common in the sports world, and the one about MacDougall is still alive, “like some weird thing living in the New York sewer system,” she told Rowe.
As I was listening to the show, I was thinking about how some people get stuck in a junior high school mode of gossip and clearly should have something better to do with their lives (I guess they don’t?)
But MacDougall has a better theory, as she told Rowe:
It makes me question what is it in human beings that needs this type of narrative. Because it’s sensational. It involves sex and sports. What a combustible combination that is.
We judge women very harshly for this. Bertrand Russell was the guy who said no one gossips about other people’s secret virtues, but we do love to talk trash. We should, I think, however, be careful when it comes to piling on when the rumour is salacious, when there’s no capacity for proof.
You can choose how to respond to something, and I’ve chosen to be edified by this. I’m not a victim. I’m someone who’s had a front row seat at some of the core dynamics of humanity.
It’s an interesting story about how our trash talk affects the lives of real people.
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Government
City
Today
Harbour East-Marine Drive Community Council (Wednesday, 6pm, 60 Alderney Dr. and online ) — agenda
Tomorrow
Appeals Standing Committee (Thursday, 10 am, City Hall) — agenda
Environment and Sustainability Standing Committee (Thursday, 1:30pm. City Hall and online) — agenda
African Descent Advisory Committee (Thursday, 6pm, 60 Alderney Dr.) — agenda
Portland Street/Cole Harbour Road Functional Planning Project: Phase Two Public Engagement (Thursday, 6pm, 192 Prince Albert Rd.) – project background
Province
No meetings
On campus
Dalhousie
A major retrospective of works by Alan Syliboy (Wednesday, 11 am, 6101 University Avenue, lower level)) — On display at Dalhousie Art Gallery, curated by Pamela Edmonds
In the harbour
Halifax
05:30: One Owl, container ship (146412 tonnes), arrives at Pier 41 from Charleston, South Carolina
10:00: Atlantic Sun, container ship, arrives at Fairview Cove from Liverpool, England
10:30: Oceanex Sanderling, ro-ro container, arrives at Fairview Cove from St. John’s
11:30: Lake Wanaka, car carrier, sails from Autoport for sea
16:30: One Owl sails for Dubai
17:00: Oceanex Sanderling moves to Autoport
19:00: Atlantic Sun sails for New York
Cape Breton
14:00: CSL Spirit, bulker, sails from Aulds Cove quarry for sea
16:00: Baie St.Paul, bulker, transit through causeway to Aulds Cove quarry from Charlottetown
Footnotes
I am not a list person, but I am making a list of parks where I can go to record birds.
