Statistics Canada says that 309,893 Canadians died in 2020, which means annual deaths surpassed 300,000 for the first time in the country’s history. As for the contribution of COVID, Stats Canada says: The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) reported that 15,651 or 5.1% of deaths in 2020 were causedRead More

I can’t resist. I have to start writing about the CBRM municipal election — beginning with the way the CBRM is providing information about said election to voters. If you go to the CBRM website — which looks like it was designed BEFORE they invented the internet — you’ll beRead More

I have just finished reading, with an open mind, Mary Campbell’s article about the COVID update for this past weekend. As a former Cape Bretoner (I now live in the Annapolis Valley), I was dismayed at the very negative tone of the article. It is rife with sarcasm over anyRead More

Complex systems Former Nova Scotia health minister Maureen MacDonald took to Facebook this week to express frustration with some of the recent criticism she’s seen leveled at the province’s healthcare system. She took particular issue with a speech given at a healthcare rally in Halifax by Paula Minnikin, a formerRead More

Richard Uniacke was from a prominent Halifax family which included his brother James, the first Premier of Nova Scotia following the institution of responsible government in 1848. After graduating from law school in 1810, young Richard moved to Cape Breton and in 1814 was appointed Attorney General of the island,Read More

We live in a province that seems to be in a constant struggle to meet its many commitments, not only to healthcare — the one that seems uppermost in the minds of many Nova Scotians — but also to those who must survive on social assistance when Nova Scotia hasRead More

On February 11, the government of Nova Scotia announced it was “pleased to see” that “Nova Scotia’s economic outlook continues to be positive.” The joy, expressed in a press release from Finance and Treasury Board Minister Karen Casey, was sparked by Statistics Canada’s January Labour Force Survey which showed theRead More

First, the good news: The Statistics Canada graph appeared in a Bloomberg story that attributed the reduction in child poverty directly to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s child benefit program, which was worth $25 billion to Canadian families in 2017 up from $19 billion in 2015. Statistics Canada itself says: InRead More

Cecil Clarke is not the only anti-carbon tax politician in the current landscape; in fact, he’s arguably just the homegrown version of a familiar figure on the political scene — the “Canadian conservative” who, as Dalhousie economist Lars Osberg puts it, has “successfully framed” the federal government’s carbon-pricing system as aRead More

Bill Lahey’s prescription was sweeping: “We need a new paradigm to manage our forests.” That’s what the University of King’s College president told journalists after handing the McNeil government the results of a year-long review of forestry practices in Nova Scotia. McNeil appointed Lahey last August after choosing not toRead...