What do Iceland, Finland, Cyprus, Netherlands, Norway, Slovenia, Denmark, Sweden, Austria, Czech Republic, Switzerland, Ireland, Germany, France, Malta, Belgium, Hungary, Australia, Slovakia, New Zealand, Estonia, United Kingdom, and Luxembourg have in common? They all have lower rates of "relative child poverty" than Canada, according to a UNICEF report card a "Measuring child poverty in the world’s rich countries." Some 13.3 percent of Canadian children live in relative poverty, defined as households whose disposable income, adjusted for family size and composition, is less than 50% of the national median income. We're in 24th place. Iceland is first, at 4.7 percent.  The US ranks 34th, at...

22 October, 2012

The award for the stupidest idea to emerge in the hotly contested CBRM mayoralty campaign goes to Rankin MacSween. At a debate sponsored by the Cape Breton University Student Union, candidates were asked how, if elected, they will improve student prospects for living and working in Cape Breton after graduation. Here's the Cape Breton Post's description of candidate MacSween's response: MacSween talked about creating a community investment fund that would allow the municipality to invest in small businesses each year. “We’re talking about a minimum of five to 10 investments in small businesses a year,” he said. CBRM is $96 million in debt* by...

20 October, 2012

In a tacit acknowledgement that Community Services bolloxed the crisis it brought on at Cape Breton's Talbot House Recovery Centre, the province has stripped the department of responsibility for all five addiction recovery centres in Nova Scotia. From now on, provincial funding, service agreements, and oversight will fall under the Department of Health and Wellness. [caption id="attachment_11009" align="alignleft" width="200"] Peterson-Rafuse[/caption] The decision comes just in time for Health to assume responsibility for evaluating a proposal from Talbot House to restore provincial funding it received as Cape Breton's only addiction recovery centre. That avoids the sticky problem of having Community Services officials, with...

19 October, 2012

An astonishing number of Nova Scotians have snapped up the chance to vote electronically in the municipal elections that will wrap up Saturday. In the Halifax Regional Municipality, 22.5 percent of eligible voters cast ballots on line or by phone-—not all that surprising until you realize that only 36.2 percent of eligible voters bothered going to the polls in the 2008 election. You might expect HRM, home to the best educated, most affluent voters in the region, to embrace e-voting. But then what are we to make of working class CBRM, where 32.8 percent of the 82,223 eligible voters cast ballots on...

19 October, 2012

This show is not to be missed. It's rare for a single event in Atlantic Canada to bring together so many outstanding blues musicians from here and away. Organizers Katey Day and Bearly's mainstay Richard Stephenson hope to make it an annual event, and I hope they succeed....

13 October, 2012

A headline in Saturday's Chronicle-Herald called Premier Darrell Dexter's churlish attack on a member of the Electoral Boundaries Commission "out-of-character." It was certainly at odds with the avuncular tone we came to expect from Dexter in opposition -- as premier-in-waiting, he took pains to maintain an aura of moderation and reasonableness -- but it is of a piece with the increasingly partisan tone in statements from the premier's office this summer. The previous Friday, when it appeared the deal to reopen the Point Tupper paper mill had come a cropper, the premier's official announement included this incongruous paragraph: There are some who...

30 September, 2012

Like many Cape Bretoners, I cringe when fellow islanders, egged on by CBRM's outgoing mayor, blame all our problems on Halifax. It's unbecoming, it's untrue, and it's a lazy excuse for avoiding the hard work of re-imagining Cape Breton's economy. Just for the moment, however, I'm more annoyed by the volley of stones hurled these last 24 hours from the glass mansions of our capital city at the Dexter Government's on-again, off-again, on-again rescue of the paper mill in Point Tupper, Richmond County. There's no question Dexter made a huge gamble on this bailout.* It's natural for taxpayers to be nervous. No...

23 September, 2012

David Carr was on CBC Radio's Sunday Edition this morning, talking to Michael Enright about his work as a journalism critic for the New York Times, and his past life as a crack addict. The contrast did not flatter the host. At one point, Carr explained why, despite all the turmoil and job losses, he thinks we are entering a Golden Age of Journalism: DC: The column I'm working on this week about packaging quotes, I Twittered out what I was working on, I set up a separate Gmail called quoteapproval, I sent emails to 40 of the best reporters I know, and...

16 September, 2012
Show more
Loading...