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HALIFAX
COMMONER
FREE
Published by the University of King’s College School of Journalism
FRIDAY, JANUARY 20, 2006
Tsunami
survivors
tell story
Photo
essay:
fighting back
PAGE 7
Small scale
wind farms
face hurdles
Treating
anxiety
disorders
PAGE 8-9
PAGE 13
PAGE 10
‘Not in anyone’s backyard’
MARA BROTMAN
By MARA BROTMAN
S
trip club protesters and patrons
cheer as the screaming prostitute is hustled into a police van and
taken away.
Kim, a hooker since she was 15,
had been singing for hours in front
of Sensations, as Dartmouth’s
newest strip club opened, to fanfare
and fury.
“I’m a prostitute,” Kim, who
works on Wyse Road most nights,
said before she was taken away. “I
hope Sensations stays here, ’cause I
already got two clients since that
place opened.”
And that’s exactly why Sensations owner, Javis Roberts doesn’t
want prostitutes trolling the street
outside his place. He says he tries to
stay “classy” and as inoffensive to
the community as possible.
Kim is upset that even strip
clubs demonize her. “See, I’ve
worked on this street the past six
years and now the bouncers are trying to kick me away. They don’t
want me on the premises.This is my
work. This is what I do.”
Kim makes $40 for blowjobs and
$80 for sex. She’s not worried about
the local residents who are protesting the strip club. “I’m gonna be
here forever. I’m a prostitute for
life,” she screams.
People like Kim and her clients
are the problem, according to parents demonstrating on this foggy
Friday night.
“She devalues the neighbourhood” says Denise, a mother of
three.
Three hours before Kim is taken
away, neighbours and community
members meet behind the club to
start their protest. Dr. Todd Hill
helped organize it. He lays down
the rules.
“Our game plan is to have a
strong visual presence,” says Hill.
“But stay quiet. No obscenities.
Let’s maintain the moral high
ground.”
Hill plots strategy for the
MARA BROTMAN
Above: Protesters fear that Sensations strip club will make their
community unsafe.
Right: The long wait to get in. The
lineup to get into the club
stretched for more than a block.
approximately 80 protesters, mostly
people who live within a few blocks
of the club. As more protesters
arrive, Hill sends two dozen people
to each corner on the block.
They plan to protest every Friday
and Saturday night until Apr. 1,
when the club’s liquor licence goes
under review.
“I’ve lived in this area my whole
life,” says Jane Hawkin as she walks
back and forth on the sidewalk. “I’m
freezing, but I’ve got to be here. The
neighbourhood’s been cleaned up
recently. Enough sleazy guys, already!”
“Strip clubs don’t belong in a
neighbourhood!” shouts Nick Park,
who lives five doors down from Sensations.“Not in anyone’s backyard.”
It’s hard for the mostly middle-
Focus: Urban & Rural
aged protesters to stand silently
while cars drive by, honking and
shouting comments like, “They can
take their clothes off if they want to.
I wanna see naked chicks!”
See pages 10-16
PAGE EDITOR: BRODIE THOMAS
The largest crowd of protesters
swarms around the club entrance.
They hold up coloured signs saying
“Babies, not Boobies” and “Literature Not Lapdances.”
By 10:30 p.m., protesters are getting cold. The line of stripper aficionados waiting to get inside
stretches past the next block.
A group of young guys lighten
the mood by taking off their own
jackets, displaying their homemade T-shirts that read “God loves
strippers too.” They wear fake
glasses with Groucho noses
because they’ve heard the protesters would be filming everyone
entering Sensations.
Sensations security guard Sean
MacInnes is unfazed. “We kind of
expected worse. We’re feeling pretty secure. I don’t think the protest
will last.” To be honest, there are
more important things to deal with.
They should be picketing the crack
house down the street.”
Those going in to the club are in
their twenties and thirties, and
arrive in groups. A surprising number of women wait in line to see the
exotic dancers. Some couples hold
hands as they go inside.
Sharon Page, a protester, laughs,
“If my boyfriend suggested ‘Hey
let’s go on a date to a strip club,’ I’d
skin him alive.”
Inside, the coloured lights blink
as the announcer tells the crowd to
“Get ready… for Miss….Nude….
Canada!!!”
A tall woman with blonde hair
comes out holding a rug. She grabs
the silver pole, hoists herself upside
down, and slides slowly to the floor.
Kelly Kane, Miss Nude Canada, is
skilled in “advanced pole work,”
according to one Sensations waitress. Kane dances athletically, at
one point balancing her entire body
in the air on one hand. The crowd
claps and whistles.
Please see Stripped page 2
PAGE 2
THE COMMONER
NEWS
Inquiry probes McEvoy crash
MIN HUN FONG
By MIN HUN FONG
T
he counsel for the Nunn commission inquiring into the death
of Theresa McEvoy says that the
commission has a mandate to look
at all aspects of the youth criminal
justice system.
Michael Messenger said the
commission wants to determine if
there was a systematic failure in the
justice system leading up to
McEvoy’s death.
McEvoy was killed when a youth
fleeing police in a stolen car struck
her vehicle at the intersection of
Connaught Avenue and Almon
Street on Oct. 14, 2004. Police were
pursuing Archie Billard, then 16, in
a high-speed chase when his stolen
Chrysler broadsided McEvoy’s Toyota at the intersection.
Billard was sentenced as an
adult last week to 54 months in custody after pleading guilty to criminal negligence causing death. The
publication ban on his identity has
been lifted because of his sentence.
“(The inquiry) is a synopsis of
those events,” said Messenger. “We
then take a step backwards and follow this particular young person’s
involvement in the criminal justice
system so even though we’re starting with Mrs. McEvoy’s death,
which is really the catalyst for the
inquiry, it’s more important for us
to go back to determine how this
young person got to that intersection at that time in a stolen car.”
The lawyer for the McEvoy family, Hugh Wright, agrees with the
inquiry’s mandate.
“The (McEvoy) family identified
three key priorities for the inquiry,”
said Wright. “The first is the individual and systemic failure that led
to the young person’s release on
Oct. 12, the second is the role of
youth criminal justice in permitting
that release to occur, and the third
is the role of social service
providers in assisting at risk youth
such as Billard before something of
the nature of Oct. 14 occurs.”
The long-awaited public inquiry
into the death of Theresa McEvoy
began Monday in Halifax after
more than a year of waiting. The
inquiry, headed by a former justice
of the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia, Merlin Nunn, was commissioned by an order-in-council after
THE HALIFAX COMMONER
Vol. #8
No. #7
The Halifax Commoner is published
10 times a year -- five weeks in October/November and five weeks in JanuaryFebruary. It is written and edited by students in the Newspaper Workshop at:
School of Journalism,
University of King’s College,
Halifax, Nova Scotia
B3H 2A1
Phone: (902) 422-1271 (ext. 143)
Fax: (902) 423-3357
McEvoy’s family called for it in
November 2004.
Her death sparked a public outcry after it was made known that
Billard had pleaded guilty two days
before to charges stemming from
another high-speed chase. He had
been released pending sentencing
when he stole the car that would
eventually kill McEvoy.
Messenger added that the
inquiry has received a lot of interest
both provincially and nationally
because of the present interest in
young offenders and crime. He said
the inquiry may make recommendations to the federal government
about changes to its youth criminal
justice policy.
The commission kicked off at a
rather sedate pace Monday, examining painstaking details of the
accident on Oct. 14. Nunn heard
testimony from Const. Jonathan Jefferies of the Halifax Regional Police,
who was involved in the pursuit of
Billard’s car.
The constable said he was trying
to stop Billard for running a stop
sign when the teenager decided to
make a run for it. Billard would race
through another stop sign and a red
traffic light cutting off other drivers
before crashing into McEvoy’s car.
Jefferies said McEvoy’s car was “airborne” because of the force of the
impact.
Const. Ron Falkenham, a traffic
accident expert, took the stand next.
He testified that McEvoy never saw
Billard coming, and didn’t have a
chance to take evasive action.
Falkenham pointed to the lack of
skid marks on her side of the road
as evidence. He agreed with Jefferies that McEvoy’s car had at
some point lifted off the ground
before crashing into a traffic pole.
Wright, who cross-examined
Jefferies, was asked by reporters if
the McEvoy family had any issues
with police policy on high-speed
chases. He said he questioned the
constable because the family wanted a clear picture of what happened
on Oct. 14, and not because of any
concern with police policy.
Forty witnesses are scheduled to
appear including representatives of
the RCMP, Nova Scotia’s Public
Prosecution Service, legal experts
and representatives from the
Department of Community SerWe invite your feedback. Please drop us
an e-mail at [email protected]
Halifax Regional Police Constable Ron Falkenham describes the accident scene on Oct. 14 at the Nunn Commission.
vices.
One particular concern arising
out of Monday’s hearing has to do
with the use of Billard’s name in the
hearing and in the media. Although
Billard’s identity has been publicized since his sentencing last
week, Nunn said the documents at
the hearing will only refer to him by
his initials because of a concern
that the continued publication of
his identity may hurt his rehabilitation efforts.
Faculty advisors and instructors:
Dean Jobb — Instructor
Michael Creagen — Photography
Blair Purdy — Production
Joan Westen — Layout
Issue Editor:
Mara Brotman
Assignment Editor:
Terra Duncan
.
Photo and StreetLevel editors:
Shannon Long
Brendan Dunbar
Printed by Acadie Presse, Caraquet,
N.B
PAGE EDITOR: LYDIA BOGERT
Billard’s lawyer, Warren Zimmer, welcomed Nunn’s position on
partial disclosure and echoed
Nunn’s concerns with respect to the
continued publication of his client’s
identity.
“If you were at the sentencing
hearing, you would have heard how
he was being treated by other residents at the institution,” said Zimmer.“He was being shunned.”
“So to the extent that you, the
media, provide further information
to the public and the other residents, it may only provide them
with additional information to treat
them more harshly than they have,
and simply increase the level of isolation that he has there.”
The inquiry is expected to take
at least two months to complete.
Stripped
The protest ends around 11 p.m.
David Atkinson feels great about
what he accomplished. “We got to
meet our neighbours and talk to
them. We got our message out. I’ll
be back tomorrow night.”
The line to get in Sensations
snakes down the block. But two
men toward the front are leaving.
They shake their heads. “How can I
watch naked women with all these
people here?”
Protests will continue today and
Saturday at 9 p.m.
continued from page 1
“This is like a movie. I’m so
happy. I love ladies!”, says Mike
Johns, 22.This is his first time inside
a strip club.“But I feel bad for those
guys outside in the cold.”
Outside, Jane Hawkin says she
has no problem with strippers. “I
just don’t feel safe with drunk guys
and whoever goes in there. Women
walking home at night won’t be
safe.”
[email protected]
[email protected]
PAGE 3
THE COMMONER
FOCUS: NEWS
Meet the
candidates
By ELLING LIEN
These 10 questions, the Pivot Questionnaire, originally came from a French series, “Bouillon de Culture” hosted by
Bernard Pivot. It is probably more familiar as the list of questions James Lipton asks each of his guests at the end of
“Inside the Actor’s Studio.”
1. What is your favourite word?
2. What is your least favourite word?
3. What turns you on creatively, spiritually or emotionally?
4. What turns you off?
5. What is your favourite curse word?
6. What sound or noise do you love?
7. What sound or noise do you hate?
8. What profession other than your own would you like to
attempt?
9. What profession would you not like to do?
10. If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say
when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?
MARTIN MacKINNON
LIBERAL PARTY
Occupation: Vice-president
of Eastern Rehab Inc.
TONY SEED
MARXIST-LENINIST PARTY
Occupation: Publisher and editor of Shunpiking Magazine
NICK WRIGHT
GREEN PARTY
Occupation: MBA/Law student
at Dalhousie University
ALEXA McDONOUGH
NEW DEMOCRATIC PARTY
Occupation: Member of
Parliament for Halifax
ANDREW HOUSE
CONSERVATIVE PARTY
Occupation: Lawyer with Arnold
Pizzo McKiggan
1.“‘We’, as in
‘we can’,
‘together,
we’.”
2.“No”
3.“People.
Talking to
people. Hearing what they
have to say.”
4.“People
who are dogmatic.“
5.“It all has to be in context but
...’Shit’. (Laughs) Yes. ‘Shit’. I probably say that word far too much.”
6.“People talking. The sound of
people talking. I love it.”
7.“Car horns”
8.“I could be silly and say politics.
I’m not there yet, but I’m trying.
Otherwise maybe a physician. I
have a lot of respect for the physician community. They make difficult decisions every day.”
9.“Lawyer.”
10.“Welcome. (Laugh) That one
should be a no-brainer.”
1.“Serendipity.”
2.“Capitalism.”
3.“The participation of my
peers in a
collective,
creative
process. To
pursue a line
of investigation and finding out the truth about important
questions.”
4.“The debasement of culture,
including political culture in our
society.”
5.“Honestly, I try to discipline
myself not to curse. It represents a
lowering of standards. … Maybe
‘Oh my God’.”
6.“Children.”
7.“Bombs.”
8.“Either a teacher - although I am
a teacher in a way - or a serious
writer. A writer of realist fiction.”
9.“Real estate”
10.“All Canadians are welcome
here, but American imperialists
can freeze in hell.”
1.“Sustainability.”
2.“Irresponsibility.”
3.“Ideas.”
4.“Closedmindedness.”
5.“I’d have to
say
‘backward social
p o l i c y ’
(laughs).”
6.“Music. Dance music.”
7.“The squealing sounds of truck
tires that often drive by here on
Hollis Street.”
8.“Politics”
9.“Accountant.”
10.“Come on in.”
1.“Justice.”
2.“Hypocrisy
is my least
favorite phenomenon. I’m
not sure if it’s
my least
favorite word.”
3.“The arts.”
4.“Commercialization of
everything in
life.”
5.“I’ve discovered there’s no curse
word you can get away with (as a
politician) in public. Sometimes I
say I’m “damn frustrated,” and
some people are offended, but it’s
hard not to say it because there are
so many things to be frustrated
about.”
6.“Music. Just about every kind of
music.”
7.“A dentist’s drill.”
8.“International development.”
9.“Right-wing politics.”
10.“Justice exists in this place.”
1.”There’s
nothing political behind it:
Embargo. I’ve
always loved
the word.”
2.“‘Exacerbate.’
3.“Being outside. I really
enjoy
nature.”
4.“Turning
on the TV and seeing politicians
hammering away at each other.
5.“I heard a word when I was in
Kosovo... ‘Gezuar’ is an Albanian
word.
6.“Diesel engines.
7.“I cannot deal with high, shrill
voices in the House of Commons. I
think people tune out the minute
they hear a shouting match.”
8.“Medicine.”
9.“Campaign manager.”
10.“I think I’d like to hear ‘Well
done. Not a bad job.You did what
you could.’”
COMMENTARY: ELECTION 2006
Layton in hot seat during ‘Your Turn’
MIN HUN FONG
viewPOINT
R
igorous questioning, direct
answers, candid back-andforths – the town-hall meeting conjures these images of an open
forum where discussions can take
place away from the hyperbole of
inflated campaign promises and
strategic rhetoric.
Or at least so the CBC envisioned as they put on what’s turning out to be their annual informal
meet-and-greet between regular
Canadians and party leaders in the
run-up to the federal elections next
week.
Entitled “Your Turn,” the segment, moderated by the highly
credible Peter Mansbridge, promised frank answers from party leaders to specific questions from regular Canadians. A three part series,
the CBC invited the usual trio of
party leaders – Paul Martin, Jack
Layton, and Stephen Harper – to
field specific questions from Canadians all over on national television.
It was New Democratic Party
leader Jack Layton’s turn on Tuesday night as he took the spotlight at
the Maritime Museum of the
Atlantic in downtown Halifax.
Not unlike Liberal leader Paul
Martin who appeared on the segment last week, Layton decided to
take advantage of the wide national
audience, twisting questions into
opportunities to get out his party’s
platform message. As a result, at
least one participant in the show
walked away not entirely satisfied
with the response she received.
Sally Ravindra, a potter from
Purcell’s Cove, was one of the few
in the audience who was selected to
ask a question. A self-described
“NDP-ish” supporter, she asked
about national unity and what steps
the NDP would take to stop Quebec
from separating.
Layton had in previous national
debates said the NDP supported
establishing a set of “winning conditions” in Quebec to prevent the
country from fracturing. But what,
asked Ravindra, are these winning
conditions?
Basically, said Layton, these conditions would establish a relationship of trust and respect with Quebecers with the goal of getting them
to ratify the 1982 constitution. How?
Well, he responded, it’ll take a lot of
hard work. But we already knew
that, Jack.
“I thought he was a little dodgy
on the question,” said Ravindra
after the taping. “Personally, I
thought getting back to this constitution thing a bit ominous.”
PAGE EDITOR: HEATHER MacLEAN
This is not to say that Layton is
particularly bad with this type of
question-and-answer forum, because Paul Martin adopted the
same strategy last week at a similar
event in Guelph, Ont.
Now don’t get me wrong – I know
what Layton, not unlike Martin, and
probably not unlike Stephen Harper
on Thursday, is trying to do: I agree
with them. So what if you don’t win
over any of the 100 people in attendance at the event, when you could
possibly win over twice as many
across the country?
By getting the platform message
out rather than directly answering
the specific question, the party
leaders play the percentages: get
the message that rates highest with
focus groups to as many people as
possible.
The town-hall forum, if we go
back to its roots, was a meeting of
closely-knitted people, with similar
concerns and similar desires. Peo-
ple who worked alongside one
another, who came from similar
economic backgrounds – people
who shared common histories and
values. The party leaders want us to
believe that Canadians have those
close ties as well, but more often
than not, we are identified by our
differences in our day-to-day lives
rather than by our national similarities.
In light of this, how can our specific concerns be addressed by a representative, who has to tread lightly
on the eggshells of national opinion
with every step they take? Did the
“regular Canadians” get their questions answered, or were they simply
the backdrop to yet another opportunity for the party leaders to get their
platforms out? For all its faults, the
CBC did at least give the segment an
appropriate name. But what’s up in
the air is to whom exactly the adjective in “Your Turn”refers.
[email protected]
PAGE 4
THE COMMONER
NEWS
Tour Tech throws a party with a purpose
GREG DICKIE
By HEATHER MacLEAN
A
ll year long, Lori Laderoute and
her brother Peter Hendrickson
plan and organize the Tour Tech
East Post-Christmas Party.
They do it in memory of their
younger brother, Jamie, who died
from AIDS six years ago. Jamie was
an intravenous drug abuser and,
when he was diagnosed, the AIDS
Coalition of Nova Scotia was a
tremendous resource for the family.
“We met several people who
were dying from the disease who
didn’t have any family support or
financial means,” says Laderoute.
“Jamie had us, but so many others
didn’t have anyone or any help.”
Tour Tech East is a privately
owned audio rental, installation
and distribution company based in
Dartmouth. Laderoute works in
human resources and studio
rentals, and Hendrickson is the
president of the company. Jamie
worked as a lighting technician and
was able to attend one of the parties
organized by his siblings before he
passed away.
The eighth annual Post-Christmas Party bash was held last Saturday. The event, hosted at the Tour
Tech East warehouse in Burnside,
attracted 3,000 party-goers. The
party is held on the same weekend
every year, with all proceeds from
the mandatory $30 coat-check going
to the AIDS Coalition of Nova Scotia. The Tour Tech East Post-Christmas Party raises approximately
$30,000 each year after expenses.
The party serves not only to
raise money for the AIDS Coalition
of Nova Scotia, but to heighten
awareness that AIDS can happen to
anyone.
“During the time when Jamie
was sick, a lot of people were not
aware of the connection between
drugs and contracting AIDS. Or
even that AIDS is not just a gay disease, anyone can get it in different
ways, from drug use to unprotected
sex,” explains Laderoute.
“Since then, several people have
said to us that it could have been
them if they hadn’t known.”
The money raised helps the
AIDS Coalition of Nova Scotia carry
out its mandate to provide services
and support to people living with
HIV/AIDS, says Maria MacIntosh,
program coordinator at the AIDS
Coalition of Nova Scotia.
“The Tour Tech East Post-Christmas Party is our biggest fundraising
contribution each year,” says MacIntosh. “One of our largest pro-
More than 3,000 partygoers raise money for the AIDS Coalition of Nova
Scotia at a party in the Tour Tech East Burnside warehouse on Jan. 14
grams, our health fund, which provides a bi-monthly stipend of $75
for people living in poverty with
AIDS, costs us more than $45,000
each year. Funds from this event
help offset some of these costs.”
The party is invite-only and
tickets are given to clients and
friends of Tour Tech East. Greg
Dickie received invitations to the
party through his work at a bank.
He and his friend Matt Alexa were
two of the attendees crowded into
the Burnside warehouse.
“This time of year can be boring
compared to the parties and events
that happen around the holidays,”
says Dickie. “The Tour Tech party is
something different to do and it’s
for a good cause.”
This year’s Emcees were Q-104
radio host Bobby Mac, Liz Rigney
from CTV, comedian Shawn
Majumder and stars of the hit television series Trailer Park Boys. The
musical line-up included Honeymoon Suite, Kim Mitchell, Lace,
Drum and The Chucky Danger
Band. All of the artists perform for
free and accept payment only to
cover the cost of their expenses.
“I can’t count the ways this event
supports the coalition and how
integral it is to our own success,”
says MacIntosh.“We are very much
dependent on the great work of
Tour Tech East, Lori and her family.”
According to the Nova Scotia
office of Health Promotion,
between 1983 and 2002 about 273
people in Nova Scotia had been
diagnosed with the AIDS syndrome
and another 583 tested positive for
Human Immunodeficiency Virus.
The actual number of AIDS and
HIV cases in the province is difficult to estimate because some people are diagnosed outside of Nova
Scotia, or are unaware of their
infection, or choose not to be tested.
[email protected]
Politicians fail to make the grade in election report card
By SEAN McCARROLL
T
he NDP has outperformed both
the Liberals and Conservatives
when it comes to post-secondary
education platforms, according to a
grading system issued by the Canadian Federation of Students.
The federation released report
cards late last week providing an
overview and analysis of the three
major national parties’ post-secondary education platforms. It evaluates parties’ proposals on federal
funding, tuition fees, student financial assistance, research and development, and overall vision for the
federal government’s role in supporting Canada’s post-secondary
education system.
The New Democratic Party
earned top spot with a grade of A-.
The Liberal Party got a B-, and the
Conservative Party received an F.
“By focusing on tax cuts and
backward student loan schemes,
the Conservatives failed to offer any
concrete solutions for students who
are struggling to pay skyrocketing
tuition fees,” said George Soule, the
federation’s national chairperson.
“Furthermore, Stephen Harper
demonstrated a lack of commitment to public education by making his only post-secondary education announcement at a for-profit
college.”
The federation wants political
parties to commit to increasing core
education funding for provinces on
the condition that universities keep
tuition costs down. They also want
parties to offer an alternative to the
The parties’ education platforms
THE CONSERVATIVES
• $1,000 grant for apprentice
tools and a tax credit for employers who take on apprentices
• $500 tax credit for textbook
purchases
• An increase in the tax exemption on scholarships from $3,000 to
$10,000
• In the calculation of student
loan eligibility, a reduction of the
amount that parents are expected
to contribute towards their child’s
post-secondary education.
• A dedicated transfer of money
millennium scholarship fund.
The report card cites two reasons for the Conservatives’ failing
grade: They continue to call for
income-contingent student loan
repayment schemes, and they are
unwilling to commit to substantial
financial investment in post-secondary education.
“Our approach is, I believe, balanced, reasonable and achievable,”
said Andrew House, the Conservative party candidate for Halifax. He
says most of the Liberals’ and the
NDP’s promises are empty.
“When I hear these large magnanimous promises on the eve of
an election I’m very skeptical that
we’ll ever see that money.”
House, a young lawyer from
to the provinces for post-secondary education
• $100 million for university
research to be split between three
granting councils
THE LIBERALS
• A grant for 50 per cent of the
value of tuition fees (up to $3,000)
for first- and graduating-year fulltime students in their first program of study
(Most of the Liberal Party’s
election platform refers to initiatives for their previous budget,
with the exception of the so-called
Halifax, says he is still paying off his
student loans and is sympathetic to
the need for education reform. “I
recognize that there is no funding
formula change in our current electoral platform, but it is something
that we will address. If I’m elected
as an MP that will be one of the first
things that I will fight for.”
The Conservatives are committed to a program that will have federal funds transferred to the
provinces for post-secondary education, but changes need to be
made to the existing formula before
committing to any figures, he says.
Martin MacKinnon, the Liberal
candidate for Halifax, says the Conservatives’ plan does not properly
address the problem of rising
PAGE EDITOR: SEAN MCCARROLL
“50/50” plan)
THE NDP
• A $2.5-billion increase to transfer payments to the provinces to
reduce tuition fees in return for
increased core funding for postsecondary education
• The establishment of a binding
agreement with the provinces for
post-secondary education.
• A national system of needsbased grants
• Increased federal support for
university-based research
Source: www.voteeducation.ca
tuition costs. “The Conservatives’
plan is to restore universities
through tax credits. Students don’t
need tax credits, they need help.”
He says the Liberals’ plan to give
full-time students in their first and
graduating year of their first program of study a grant for 50 per
cent of their tuition, up to $3,000,
will significantly help students
shoulder the cost of tuition. The
CFS, however, says that the Liberal
plan shows no commitment for
increased core funding and the proposed grants would be undermined
by tuition increases.
“It comes down to two choices, it
looks to me like a choice between Band F,”said MacKinnon.“We can’t do
it through credit-card economics, we
have to spend what we have.”
The NDP’s platform, which calls
for a $2.5-billion increase in transfer payments to the provinces, the
establishment of a binding agreement with the provinces to reduce
tuition fees in return for increased
core funding, and a national system
of needs-based grants, has earned
it top marks with the CFS.
“I can’t stress enough how hard
we’ve worked to ensure that every
promise we’ve made, we can deliver,” said Anthony Salloum, communications assistant for the NDP’s
Alexa McDonough, the MP for Halifax.
“Last session we negotiated a
$1.5-billion budget allotment for
post-secondary education, this
platform will top it up with a further $2.5 billion,” said Salloum.
“These are dedicated transfers
to the province. We don’t just want
to hand it to the provinces without
a detailed plan to lower tuitions.”
He said that another major part
of the NDP’s education plan is a
proposed national system of needsbased grants. “We guarantee that
this can all be done without a single
cent more being added onto the
federal budget,” said Salloum.
The federation’s only criticism of
the NDP platform is a lack of detail
regarding costs and possible solutions to infrastructure challenges
facing universities. They are issues
that Salloum says will be addressed
by the money made available
through the financial transfer plan.
[email protected]
PAGE 5
THE COMMONER
NEWS
Information watchdog leaves post
By JENNIFER PELLEY
JENNIFER PELLEY
D
uring his 11-year career as
Nova Scotia’s review officer for
the freedom of information act,
Darce Fardy has heard politicians
say there is very little pressure put
on them to be open and accountable through the act.
With only 470 applications for
information made by the general
public in 2004, Fardy does not feel
Nova Scotians are taking advantage
of the rights they have through this
act. He attributes this to a lack of
awareness about the province’s
access laws and has set out to make
Nova Scotians more aware of their
right to information.
The 73-year-old will do this
through his newly formed Right to
Know coalition, which will keep
him connected to access issues once
he retires from his review officer
post on Monday.
Fardy wants to bring his knowledge and experience with the act to
any group that invites him to speak,
including service organizations,
church groups and high schools,
among others.
He will explain the process of
submitting an application for information and says Nova Scotians
need to be more active in holding
their government accountable,
something they can do through this
act.
“It’s the essence of democracy to
get people engaged in this,”he says.
“I want to get out, tell (people) what
their rights are, and energize them
to start asking questions about why
things are happening. (The act) is
not a dead-end road and it’s not a
waste of time to put together these
applications.”
“Some people think legislation
cations and review requests.
“But there haven’t been that
many frivolous applications,” he
adds. “I don’t understand why they
(raised the cost). It’s not like it’s
going to pay anything significant.
Freedom of information is worth
taxpayers paying for it, but it should
be through the taxes they’re already
paying. I’m really disappointed in
all parties of the legislature for not
seeing to it that it can be reduced.”
It is for this reason that he will
be encouraging people through his
coalition to “get after” their MLA if
they find the fees too restrictive.
Positive changes
Darce Fardy, access review officer
is difficult and complicated and it’s
not. I think the fact that I understood it will encourage them to
realize that they could too.”
Problems with the act
But while Fardy is encouraging
people to use the act, he also says
that there are problems with it.
Nova Scotia’s act is the most expensive to use in the country, with each
application costing $25 to submit.
There is another $25 fee if the applicant requests a review. Fardy says
the government claimed it was raising the price to stop frivolous appli-
Fardy says he has also witnessed
some positive changes to the act. He
feels one of the most significant is
that government employees hired
to receive and process applications
have become more access-orientated over the years, making it easier
for people to use the act.
“When (the act) started in 1977,
the government did it on the cheap
and they didn’t think much about
it,” he says.
“The government employees
who were picked to receive applications were all doing other jobs and
they didn’t want to be at it. Everybody saw it as a nuisance and they
got very little support from the
bureaucracy because in fact no one
in government was interested in
freedom of information. But that’s
changed. There are real professionals doing the job now. ”
Fardy says another encouraging
change is that there are now a lot of
precedents interpreting and clarifying the act.
Before taking the review officer’s
position in 1995, Fardy worked as a
Selecting a new
review officer
Darce Fardy’s decision to leave his
post means a new review officer must
be chosen.While this process is being
carried out, Ombudsman Dwight
Bishop will assume Fardy’s duties on
an interim basis until a full-time successor is chosen.
Richard Perry, communications
officer with the Department of Justice,
says the process of selecting a new
review officer has yet to be hammered
out. However, he did say that they are
considering an all-party committee.
Fardy was appointed to the position in
1995 by an order of council, which
means the decision was made by cabinet without returning to the legislature.
Graham Steele, the NDP MLA
for Halifax-Fairview, feels that an
all-party committee is the only
way to go when selecting a position of importance like that of the
review officer. He bases his belief
on the fact that he recently finished serving on an all-party
committee directing the selection
of a new auditor general and says
it was effective because it held the
government accountable for its
final decision.
“If it’s all done behind closed
doors, no one knows for sure if
the best candidate has been chosen and for a position this important, it is essential for the confidence of users of the system that
they have complete confidence in
the person appointed,” he said.
“You can’t have that if any part of
the appointment process is done
in secret.”
journalist with CBC Radio and Television, finishing his career in Toronto as the head of network television
current affairs with responsibility
for The Fifth Estate,Venture, Market
Place and documentaries.
During his tenure as review officer, Fardy accepted more than 600
requests for review from freedom
of information act applicants who
were not satisfied with the response
they received from a public body
following their initial request for
information.
Many of these requests, both initial applications and requests for
review, come from opposition parties, interest groups and the media,
although Fardy expresses disappointment over how infrequently
journalists use the act (only 33 initial applications of the 1,070 submitted were from the media in
2004).
If a request for information is
denied and the file comes to his
desk, Fardy conducts a review and
makes recommendations to the
public body in question. He does
not have the power to make final
decisions.
Through the freedom of information act, Nova Scotians can
access information about governagencies,
ment
departments,
boards and commissions; universities and school boards; district
health authorities; municipalities
and municipal police.
[email protected]
HEATHER MACLEAN
Leaving the pack behind at Dalhousie
By HEATHER MacLEAN
Q
uit for Good. Keep the Count.
Party without the Pack. Don’t
Start and Win.
These are categories in the “Let’s
Make a Deal” contest aimed at university students during National
Non-Smoking Week. It’s part of the
Leave The Pack Behind program, a
non-smoking initiative for students
attending college or university.
“With the new non-smoking
policy on campus we wanted to run
another program that was concurrent with the non-smoking message,” explains Derrick Enslow, a
health educator with Dalhousie
Health Services who coordinates
the program. They initiated contact
with Brock University in St.
Catharines, Ont., where the program started, and brought it to
Nova Scotia.
“We’re hoping it will be not only
province-wide, but across the
whole country soon,” says Enslow.
Dalhousie University is the only
post-secondary institution in Nova
Scotia to provide the Leave The
Pack Behind program.
The program is targeted at 18 to
24 year olds, the age group with the
highest concentration of smokers. It
is aimed at everyone – non-smokers
who never smoke, non-smokers
who smoke sometimes (at parties
and social outings), light smokers,
regular smokers and ex-smokers.
The program was started by Dr.
Kelli-an Lawrance and modelled
after a similar program in the United States. The funding to bring
Leave The Pack Behind to Nova
Scotia is from the federal government and Capital District Health
Authority in Halifax. Dalhousie
provides space for displays and
hires students to promote the program.
Let’s Make a Deal
The Leave The Pack Behind display booth offers carbon monoxide
testing (a breathalyzer that tests the
levels of carbon monoxide in your
system), information about the
tobacco industry, pamphlets, access
to a smoker’s helpline, stress management tips, facts about misleading claims of light and mild cigarettes, weekly draws and prizes,
and the annual “Let’s Make A Deal”
contest to help motivate people to
quit smoking.
“The contest is a commitment
for six weeks to either quit smoking
entirely or reduce the amount of
cigarettes contestants smoke,” says
Enslow. Prizes include gift certificates, a $500 tuition waiver and a
trip.
Contestants agree to report
their smoking behaviour honestly and sign up with a buddy
who agrees to monitor their
friend’s commitment. For regular smokers who sign up to quit
smoking all together, a urine
test with a physician is required
periodically for six weeks.
Smoking rates have gone down
in this age group by roughly 10 per
cent since the 1990s, but there is
still a need to promote awareness of
the dangers of smoking, says
PAGE EDITOR: ELLING LIEN
Derrick Enslow holds brochures available for National Non-Smoking Week.
Enslow. Smoking-related illness
costs the Canadian health care system billions of dollars every year.
The Leave The Pack Behind program display will be at various locations around the Dalhousie campus
for the next month and aims to
attract at least 100 contestants to
“Let’s Make a Deal.”
“Interest has been really high,
especially for the carbon monoxide
breathalyzer,” says Enslow. “At the
(campus) our display was packed
with people and there was a line for
the breathalyzer.”
[email protected]
PAGE 6
THE COMMONER FRIDAY, JANUARY 20, 2006
NEWS
Take five: Halifax candidates get candid
ELECTIONS CANADA
statement, but excluded from participating in the debate.
“It’s like anything else – it’s a
fight,” he says about his campaign.
“Canadians are disgusted with this
façade of a fair and democratic electoral process.”
Seed is concerned about the
government reaction to the shooting of Jane Creba, the teenaged girl
killed by gunfire in Toronto in late
December.
“No discussion is organized
around this investigation so that
people themselves can work out
appropriate remedies in terms of
their communities and their neighbourhoods,“ he says. “But instead
you wake up in the morning and all
of a sudden the police forces have
been tremendously expanded.”
By ELLING LIEN
A
lexa McDonough appears
relaxed as she settles down
with a cup of black coffee.
“I’m really pleased with how the
campaign is going,”she says.“I really enjoy the kind of direct contact
with constituents in a political campaign.”
The member of parliament for
Halifax since 1997, McDonough has
been involved in eight federal and
provincial political campaigns. But
the 61-year–old grandmother says
she feels just as passionate about
politics as she did when she began
in 1979.
“I’m looking at the world
through the eyes of my grandchildren,” she says. “And I don’t like
what I see. … The New Democrats
are working to change that.”
The NDP have held the riding
since 1997, but winning those three
elections wasn’t always easy. In the
last election, they won by a relatively small margin of 1,074 votes over
Sheila Fougere, the popular Liberal
candidate.
History shows that since 1984
the riding has swung from Conservative to Liberal to NDP. With this
in mind and only a few days to go
before the polls close on Monday,
all of the candidates in the riding of
Halifax are putting their campaigns
into high gear.
McDonough is upset with the
common perception in Canada that
a vote for the NDP is a wasted vote.
As to why the idea is prevalent, she
points her finger at the Liberal and
Conservative campaigns, but she
also blames the media, which she
says supports the illusion that there
are only two ways to vote.
“A democratic election is not a
horse race,” she says.“It’s not a race
where you try to figure out who’s
going to win and you bet so you can
try to be on the winning side.
“You should take your vote and
use it to make something happen.
And the only vote that matters is a
vote that you use to bring about the
change in the direction you want.”
Youngest candidate
Green party candidate Nick
Wright’s home is a one-room,
sparsely furnished bachelor apartment on Hollis Street. Everything
seems clean and in its place. Above
his computer is a sticker that reads
“Go Vegan.”
At 23, Wright is the youngest
person running in the Halifax riding. The Dalhousie law student considers it more of an advantage than
a problem.
“I have a certain perspective or a
certain outlook that people from a
different generation wouldn’t
have,” he says.“Things such as postsecondary education are very
important to me because I’ve spent
so long in school. I can certainly
relate to issues that other students
can.”
Tough subjects
Statistics Canada puts the population of this riding, which includes
the peninsula of Halifax and its
nearby communities north to
Bicentennial Drive and west to Pennant River, at 89,015 people, including more than 15,000 university students.
Wright refers to the Liberals, the
Conservatives and the NDP as “the
old parties,” because, he says, they
don’t think long-term,
“They look at immediate economic progress, they look at immediate social issues, but they don’t
look at the long-term issues,” he
says. The Green Party “believes in
mechanisms to promote economic
growth in the short term, but we
can’t do it at the expense of longterm sustainability.”
Power of the student vote
Martin MacKinnon, candidate
for the Liberal party in the riding,
also realizes the power of the student vote.
Under a proposed Liberal postsecondary education plan, MacKinnon says the government will pay
for half of an undergraduate student’s first year tuition, and half of a
student’s tuition in their graduating
year. He hopes this plan will appeal
to university students in the riding,
whom he says are a important part
of the community.
“I hope a lot of them vote here,
because they live here, they work
here, they study here, they play
here,” he says. “The universities in
this city are significant because of
the culture they provide, as well as
the economics they provide, so we
have to reinvest in post-secondary
education.”
He has been a Liberal party
member for many years, and says
he is proud of his party’s outlook
for Canada, and fearful of a Canada
under Conservative rule.
“Many people are saying they
are worried about what would happen under a Conservative government,” he says. “So people need to
PAGE EDITOR: AINSLIE MACLELLAN
decide which vision they share,
Paul Martin’s vision of Canada or
Stephen Harper’s.”
Overlooked issues
Tony Seed, the Marxist-Leninist
party candidate in the riding, says
neither vision is appropriate.
He is running his campaign out
of the Shunpiking magazine office
on North Street, where stacks of
books and papers cover almost
every surface.
Seed says he is running to bring
often overlooked issues to the table,
such as war and human rights. But
it hasn’t been easy to gain the public’s attention.
“Unlike the other candidates, I
haven’t yet mastered the art of the
30-second sound bite,” he says.
At a recent all-candidates debate
hosted by the Dalhousie Student
Union, Seed’s candidacy was almost
overlooked. With podiums provided
for only four candidates, Seed was
given four minutes for an opening
Andrew House, the Conservative candidate, agrees that crime is
a big concern, even in Halifax.
Speaking with people during the
campaign he says the issue has
come up frequently, particularly in
areas of the city where the crime
rate is higher.
“People are eager to hear about
things like mandatory minimum
sentences, they’re eager to hear
how we might reform the Youth
Criminal Justice Act, and that’s
something that we can talk about,”
he says.
“It’s unfortunate because I think
Halifax is a very happy and hopeful
city, so to have to talk about crime is
difficult, but if you don’t talk about
the tough subjects why bother
being out there?”
The pace is feverish at the Conservative party headquarters on
Quinpool Road. At five o’clock
there’s a fresh pot of coffee brewing, and people are flowing in and
out of the office.
The 29 year-old Conservative
candidate is more familiar with Parliament than his youthful appearance shows.
A lawyer by trade, House got his
first real taste of politics as a co-op
student with the Privy Council office,
Foreign Affairs, and Industry Canada. The experience left him with a
feeling that change has to happen.
He feels the Conservative party is
the one to bring that change about.
“I really love the idea of
Ottawa,” he says. “It works much
better in theory than in practice.”
Despite this impression, he
retains what he calls a healthy
naïveté about the process.
“Once people stop thinking that
they can make a difference,” he
says, “then we really are in trouble
in this country.”
Polls for Canada’s 39th general
election are open from 8:30 a.m. to
8:30 p.m. Monday. For more information about how and where to
vote, check out the Elections Canada website at elections.ca, or call 1866-204-8445.
[email protected]
PAGE 7
FRIDAY, JANUARY 20, 2006 THE COMMONER
NEWS
TERRA DUNCAN
Dealing with
disaster
Tsunami survivor sisters tell their story
By TERRA DUNCAN
T
he day was sunny and warm
and Romi and Sari Lightman
had to run to catch their boat. They
were going snorkeling on Dec. 26,
2004 in southern Thailand where
they were vacationing, and they
were five minutes late as usual.
Their parents, the boat crew and
the other passengers were all waiting for the sisters to arrive. Little
did they know that those five minutes would end up saving their
lives.
The 21-year-old twins from
Toronto, were on a tiny boat bound
for the Thai island of Ko Phi Phi
with their parents, Roila and
Jonathan, when a gigantic wave
took hold of their vessel. It hoisted
them upwards as it engulfed the
other boats in their fleet. Gently,
their boat was set back down at sea
level and the passengers watched
as a gigantic tidal wave battered the
shores of Krabi Island, where they
were staying.
The other snorkeling boats didn’t wait for the twins to arrive that
morning. They had gone on ahead,
leaving the twins’ boat lagging
behind.
When the wave hit their boat
they were on open sea, allowing
them to be carried safely over it.
The other boats had been passing
by a cliff at the time and were
smashed into it.
“The boats ahead of us were
destroyed and people were in the
water calling for help,” remembers
Romi. “There were bodies and a lot
of debris too. The water was so
rocky that I thought we were going
to die. I didn’t think we were going
to make it back to shore.”
The captain decided that it
would be too dangerous to try to
rescue the people in the water.
Instead, he decided that they would
head back to Krabi Island to find
help.
“By the time we had gotten back
to shore we were told that there had
been an earthquake and that the
neighbouring islands were completely wiped out, including the
island of Ko Phi Phi,”says Sari. “We
were also told that another wave
was heading for us and that they
didn’t know when it would hit.”
The whole of Krabi Island was
evacuated. Everyone was sent up to
the highest point in hopes that the
waves would not reach them. The
girls spent the night with more than
1,000 refugees from different counCONTRIBUTED
Tsunami survivors trek along the debris-strewn roads of Krabi Island.
Romi and Sari Lightman look through a photo album of their trip to Thaliand. The twins were vacationing with their
parents in southern Thailand when the Tsunami hit on Boxing Day 2004.
CONTRIBUTED
tries. Among them were 11 classmates from the city of Chiang Mai,
where the girls were studying.
Romi and Sari had been in Thailand for a couple of months prior to
the tsunami on exchange.Their parents had flown down to meet them
and the family headed south to
Krabi Island with some of Romi and
Sari’s friends for the holidays.
The girls were pleased to find
that everyone they knew had survived. All around them, other
tourists were crying and searching
for loved ones.
More than 289,000 people were
killed in the tsunami. Of those,
5,384 died in Thailand while more
than 100 people were killed on
Krabi Island.
“We were really lucky that way,”
say Romi, “Nobody we knew was
hurt or lost.”
The rest of the night was tense.
Everyone was trying to do the best
that they could to keep a high
morale. Some were philosophizing
about the probability of another
wave hitting based on what they’d
learned about tsunamis in school,
some were sleeping and others
were partying as if nothing was
going on.
“It was really interesting to see
how people coped with the situation,” says Sari. “You don’t know
how you’re going to react until
you’re in a situation like that when
you think that nature is going to
take its course and there is nothing
you can do.”
The next morning all of the
tourists on Krabi Island were rescued by fishermen and brought to
the main shore. They headed to the
airport where they found thousands of other tourists waiting to
get out of Thailand. Most of them
were still in their bathing suits. Disorder and chaos surrounded them
as people frantically searched for
PAGE EDITOR:AINSLIE MACLELLAN
A warning sign instructs tsunami refugees to stay on the high ground.
loved ones and medical assistance.
“These people had nothing. No
tickets, no passports. Nothing,” says
Romi. “Everyone was missing
somebody.”
Romi remembers seeing a lot of
people covered in bandages. For
her, it drove home how lucky she,
her family and her friends had been
to have gotten out without a
scratch. The airport was giving out
free tickets to help get people off of
the island faster. The rumor in the
airport was that these tickets
belonged to tourists who had
already been found dead.
The Lightmans decided to abandon their exchange and return to
Canada. But after a few weeks, Sari
says that she and her sister knew
that they had to go back to Thailand
in order to come to terms with what
they had experienced.
They went to live in a Buddhist
monastery where they learned to
cope with the guilt of being a survivor. They learned that what happened was out of their control and
healed their own emotional
wounds by talking to others and
helping them cope with their grief.
“Sometimes I feel guilty, thinking about the people we left in the
water,” says Sari. “But I know that
our boat was too small to help.
Sometimes I can’t help but think
‘Why us? Why did we survive over
so many other people?’”
The Lightman twins are back in
Halifax. Sari is studying English at
Dalhousie University while Romi is
studying art at NSCAD University.
In their spare time they write music
together and sing along to their guitars. They have just been offered a
contract on a brand new record
label, an offer they plan to pursue in
the months to come.
“I used to be scared of a lot of
things but now I know that you just
have to go for it,” says Sari. “You
need to realize that life is really
temporary and that you have to
experience all that you can while
you’re here.”
[email protected]
PAGE 8
THE COMMONER
PHOTO
Above: Margaret Lawton, Paul
Woodford and their five-monthold son Garrison can see the
strip bar from their home.
Left: The Johnson family, (left to
right), Simeon, 8; Lacy, 10;
Kristina, 12; Melina, 13; Sarah
6; and mother Annemarie attend
SonLife Community Church with
many of the residents who live
close to the strip club.
Below: Despite renovations to
Sensations, the sign for the former tenant, Little Nashville,
remains prominent on the building’s façade.
Li
the
n
By CHLOË ERNST
E
mma Halpern and Andrew
Trider bought their first house
— a small cream two-storey home
— two years ago. Since then, Trider
has been renovating the interior
while Halpern is finishing her law
degree at Dalhousie University.
“The neighbourhood is wonderful,” says Halpern. “I love the row
houses, the water. I loved the fact
that it is families, kids outside playing until nine at night in the summer.”
When the young couple bought
the property, Halpern never expected she would worry about going to
the store for milk because a strip
bar had opened on the corner. The
couple was among about 80 protesters who picketed the opening of
Sensations at 169 Wyse Rd. last Friday.
“My issue (with the club) is not
moral, it’s about my own personal
PAGE EDITOR: CHLOË ERNST
safety,”Halpern explains. She walks
past the club daily from her Pelzant
Street home to the Macdonald
bridge bus terminal.
“That first night, all my concerns
came true.”
During the protest, a man wearing a white cowboy hat told
Halpern she should be working at
the club, not protesting. Other
young men yelled sexual comments
at Halpern and a group of mostly
female protesters before parking
their double-cab truck near the
couple’s home.
Trider, a law-school graduate, is
mainly concerned that some opponents to the protest are giving the
community little respect. He grew
up in Dartmouth.
“There’s this idea that ‘It’s north
end Dartmouth. What do you
expect?’” he explains. The couple
says local residents are trying to
make progress in their community
and the strip club works against
this.
Lindsay Varbeff, one of their
neighbours, shares this sense of
community pride. She has lived
close to Wyse Road for 27 years —
all her life — and has seen the area
evolve. Despite the commercialism
of the strip malls that line the busy
road and some rundown houses,
Varbeff says the area is improving.
“Did you see the little park?”she
asks, pointing down Pelzant Street
towards the playground that is just
two blocks from the strip club. She
is concerned that having a strip
club in the midst of a residential
area will take over the community,
creating extra traffic and more
noise while leaving fewer parking
spaces for residents.
“This bar is supposed to seat
900, there are not even 20 spaces in
the (parking) lot,” says Varbeff.
“Usually I’d be okay with stuff like
PAGE 9
THE COMMONER
ESSAY
iving with
e strip club
next door
this, but not where it is.”
There are other negative spinoffs to having a bar as a neighbour.
Annemarie
Johnson,
who
attended the protest with her five
children, is concerned about how
patrons may act after leaving the
strip club.
“Men are going in and being
aroused sexually. When they come
out, how are they going to be fulfilled?” says Johnson.“It’s not a safe
environment.”
There is a day care across the
street and a high school within one
kilometre of the club. Johnson is
concerned about children and
young women becoming targets.
New parents Margaret Lawton
and Paul Woodford moved to the
area less than a year ago.
“We were hoping to raise a family,” says Lawton, carrying fivemonth-old Garrison. Woodford
hopes to encourage more residents
to get behind the movement aimed
at closing the doors to the strip club.
“It should never have been
allowed to open in the first place,”
says Lawton.
Craig Thompson has lived in his
George Street home for 20 years
and raised both of his teenage
daughters there. The carpenter says
he was never as concerned about
Little Nashville, the country music
bar that used to occupy the building, as he is about Sensations.
“This is the end…you can see
what kind of patrons this place will
bring to the neighbourhood,”
Thompson says, referring to the
cars filled with young, boisterous
men parking in the streets around
his home.
Thompson has a 15-year-old
daughter who attends Dartmouth
High School. Their neat, blue clapboard home overlooks the parking
lot behind the club.
Above: Emma Halpern and Andrew Trider feel strip club patrons will change the neighbourhood where
they have their first home. Trider has spent time carefully renovating and designing the interior.
Left: Lindsay Varbeff stands in the strip club parking lot that backs on homes on Pelzant and George
streets.
“There’s this idea
that ‘It’s north end
Dartmouth. What do
you expect?’”
ANDREW TRIDER,
LOCAL HOME-OWNER
While the area isn’t perfect,
Thompson admits, he feels strongly
that the area is improving — but it
needs a chance.
“We’ve had people in their cars
getting blowjobs in the street,” he
says.“Enough is enough.”
Many residents plan to continue
their protests each weekend until
the bar’s liquor licence is reviewed
by the Nova Scotia Utility and
Review Board in April and hope to
air their concerns at a public meeting. As well, the residents are making complaints to the police about
loud or obnoxious behavior from
club patrons.
Halpern, for one, filed a police
report detailing the harassing comments she heard from a few club
patrons on the night of the protest
and says she is happy she did.
“I am relieved about how seriously the police took this.”
[email protected]
PAGE EDITOR: CHLOË ERNST
All photos by Chloë Ernst
Law student Lisa Asbreuk lives in Halifax but attended the protest
because she is concerned for the safety of her friend, Emma Halpern,
who lives near the club. Halpern’s cat, Snowbank, looks on.
PAGE 10
FOCUS: URBAN & RURAL
Rural anxiety sufferers lack treatment options
JENNIFER PELLEY
By JENNIFER PELLEY
P
eople worry, whether they live
in an urban or rural setting. But
if worry starts to affect their day-today functioning, they may be suffering from an anxiety disorder.
That is when where they live may
become a factor.
Dr. Margo C. Watt, associate professor of psychology at St. Francis
Xavier University in Antigonish and
adjunct professor of psychology at
Dalhousie University, says rural
areas are more limited in their
resources than urban areas, which
is one of the biggest problems anxiety sufferers in rural areas face.
“Often, people who live in rural
areas can’t get physicians as readily
and oftentimes psychological services require a physician’s referral,”she
said.“They may not even have a regular physician. In a place like Halifax, you have the luxury of accessing
someone across the street.”
Watt cites examples from her
own private practice in northeastern
Nova Scotia, where she has patients
who drive from Cape Breton to keep
their appointments. Patients travelling long distances to receive treatment is not unusual, she says.
The term anxiety disorder covers
a wide range of disorders, including
generalized anxiety disorder, which
is characterized by constant worry
and social phobia, which is related
to a fear of negative evaluation in a
social setting.
Specific phobias like the fear of
heights or snakes and obsessivecompulsive disorder are also anxiety disorders, as are panic disorder,
and post-traumatic stress disorder.
Anxiety disorders affect about 13 per cent of Canadians.
Roy Muise, who has been diagnosed with major depression and
anxiety, agrees that there are more
services in urban areas, but argues
there are also more people to treat
in these places. As a result, people
are still waiting for long periods of
time before they can see a mental
health professional.
Muise, who is a certified peer
specialist with the Self-Help Connection, advocates self-help groups
as a way for anxiety sufferers to
begin managing their anxiety if
they have to wait for an appoint-
street LEVEL
ment. He suggests contacting the
Canadian Mental Health Association or the Self-Help Connection
for names of these groups in areas
throughout Nova Scotia.
Jean Hughes, national board
member for the Canadian Mental
Health Association and professor at
the School of Nursing at Dalhousie
University, believes that while people have the same general needs no
matter where they are living – like
the need for companionship or the
need to feel safe – some of these
needs are met in different ways
depending on whether a person is
in an urban, rural or remote community. This could then be the
cause of anxiety.
“If you’re living in a really
crowded neighbourhood in a metropolitan area, you could be worried about the stress of overcrowded areas and crime that you perhaps wouldn’t feel in a rural setting,” she said.
On the other hand, if you’re living in a very remote or rural community, you could be worried about
being lonely, having little support
or having no one to hang out with.”
Hughes also points out that
research has shown people with
mental disorders in general will
seek professional help less often in
rural and remote areas than in
urban areas. It is still not known
whether this is because of a distinction between whether a person
would look for help if it were available versus whether help is actually
available.
“There are many different components, including whether the
person is comfortable seeking
help,” she said.
“With mental health, there is
always a stigma and you will always
have people second-guessing. In
rural settings in particular, it also
depends on what the community’s
values are around mental health. If
you feel connected in your rural community where people value mental
health, you might access more.”
Anxiety sufferers living in both
urban and rural environments face
other challenges as well, such as the
cost of receiving treatment. Under
the Canada Health Act, Canadians
are entitled to coverage through a
physician, hospital, or hospital services. Psychiatrists fall under the
coverage umbrella. But if people
seek treatment from mental health
professionals who work at a private
clinic, it has to come out of their
own pocket.
Often, psychiatrists’ dockets are
filled with those who are most sick,
leaving very little room for anxiety
patients. In order to get treatment,
these people often have to opt for
private clinics or go without treatment.
“Our mental health system is
actually quite two-tiered,” says
Hughes. “Often, the only people
who will go (to get treated) are the
people who have money and that’s
not fair.”
Funding for mental health problems like anxiety is very low, with
Nova Scotia only allotting $2 million of the government’s $2.56 billion operating budget for health to
mental health in 2005.
Hughes is hopeful that more
research will be done on the differences in mental health between
rural and urban areas. She says that
because Canada is so geographically large, with much of its population
living in urban areas, research has
not paid much attention to people
who live outside of cities. She feels
people are beginning to recognize
that where a person lives could
affect their mental health.
[email protected]
Urban vs. Rural: Why do you live where you live?
Alan Romans
Retired military - Mt. Uniacke
Barbara Zwicker
Activist - Lunenburg
Lucas Thorne
Student - Halifax
Mary MacIntosh
Retired teacher - Halifax
Omer Boudreau
Retired electrician - Halifax
“Wide-open space; I can do
what I want; cheaper taxes.
Don’t have to shovel my
sidewalk because I don’t have
one.”
“If you lived in Lunenburg, you
would know why I live in
Lunenburg!”
“Educational reasons.”
“Economy. I would be in the
country if it was affordable.”
“It is easier to get around, but I
would prefer to be further out if
not for the inconvenience.”
PAGE EDITOR: BRENDAN DUNBAR
PAGE 11
THE COMMONER
BRENDAN DUNBAR
Biodiesel: clean fuel,
but is it sustainable?
By BRENDAN DUNBAR
I
t sounds too good to be true: pour
French fry oil out of the deep fat
fryer and into a diesel car’s tank.
Turn the key, start the engine and
drive away.
As gasoline prices rise, attention
shifts to alternative fuels. In the
past two months articles in three
Halifax newspapers have lauded
biodiesel’s capabilities as a diesel
replacement or supplement. But is
biodiesel a sustainable resource?
Al Joseph, secretary of the Maritime Biodiesel Coalition, says all
biodiesel manufactured in Nova
Scotia is a byproduct of other manufacturing processes. “As a recycled
product, if it’s made from used oil,
it’s reasonably sustainable,”he says.
Fish oil discarded from processing plants and vegetable oil from
restaurants can be heated and filtered to remove debris. Once the oil
is clear, methanol (wood alcohol)
and lye are added to it, creating
methyl esters, or biodiesel, which
can go directly into the fuel tank.
Using pure vegetable oil is
another option, but requires modifications to the car. A second fuel
tank to hold the oil is installed in
the trunk, along with new fuel lines
from the tank to the engine. The car
starts on regular diesel, and after
the engine has warmed up to its
normal operating temperature, a
flip of the switch cuts off the diesel
supply and pumps in the vegetable
oil.
Although Joseph says that the
demand for biodiesel in Nova Scotia is “marginal,” the waste supply
just manages to keep up with the
demand as leftover oils are also
used in cosmetics and animal feed.
None of the major oil companies
produce commercial biodiesel,
although Wilson Fuels of Truro has
a contract to supply Metro Transit
with a blend of regular diesel and
biodiesel. Halifax buses began
using this product in October 2004.
Last summer, Joseph’s group
planted oilseed crops as an experiment in becoming self-sustaining.
They ran into a roadblock at harvest
time.
“There’s no oil-processing facility in Nova Scotia,” Joseph says.
“Once we grew the crops, we had to
stop because we would need to
process the oil by hand.”
Volkswagen is Canada’s largest
supplier of diesel cars. On its web
site the company estimates that
four out of ten passenger vehicles it
sells in Canada are diesel-powered.
“VW supports its (biodiesel’s)
use,” says Mike Velimirovich, general manager of Hillcrest Volkswagen
in Halifax.
Velimirovich explained that
biodiesel can be mixed with petroleum-based diesel, with no effect on
street LEVEL
a car’s performance. Volkswagen
officially sanctions B5 biodiesel, he
says, a blend of five per cent
biodiesel and 95 per cent regular
diesel.
Oilseed crops should not be
grown for the sake of meeting our
transportation needs. Joseph cites
cases in Asia where people are cutting down forests in order to clear
space for oilseed crops to grow, in
hopes of growing biofuels.
“I’m definitely an advocate of
biodiesel, but we can’t look at
cleaner fuel as a substitute for our
society’s overuse of energy,” says
Joseph.
“Biofuels are a good alternative
as long as we use them responsibly.”
[email protected]
Metro Transit buses run on a blend of 20 per cent biodiesel made of waste
fish oil obtained from a vitamin plant in Mulgrave.
Raw grease hazardous to car’s health
B
efore diesel car owners go to a
McDonald’s restaurant for fryer
grease, Volkswagen dealer Mike
Velimirovich wants them to be
informed of the hazards of putting
vegetable oil through their car’s
fuel system.
“It sounds like a great idea to
use French fry oil, but in its pure
form, it’s not good for the car. It can
damage the car.”
Velimirovich says that over time,
pure vegetable oil can hurt the fuel
pump and clog the injectors, much
as it would the human heart.
“The oil needs processing,” he
says.
Even biodiesel made with the
addition of methanol and lye can
cause problems in the wrong car.
“Biodiesel is a little corrosive. It
acts as a cleanser. It can eat away at
the gaskets and cause an engine to
fail.”
Velimirovich advises anyone
with a Volkswagen made earlier
than 1997 to check with a mechanic
before fueling up with biodiesel.
- Brendan Dunbar
Urban vs. Rural: Why do you live where you live?
Erin Hardy
Student - Halifax
Janet McNaughton
Writer - St. John’s
Renaldo Wis
Student - Halifax
Mary Ellen Gurnham
Chief Nursing Officer - Halifax
Shirley Neily
Nurse - Fall River
“My boyfriend pays a big chunk
of the rent. I like being
downtown.”
“I love St. John’s because for the
size of the city, it has an
incredible arts community.”
“I’m from the Bahamas. I live
in Halifax because I go to school
here.”
“I’ve always lived in the city.
Work is in the city.”
“Because I don’t want to live in
the city. I wanted to raise my
kids in the country.”
PAGE EDITOR: AMANDA FRASER
PAGE 12
Urban, rural playgrounds pose
distinct challenges for parkourists
LYDIA BOGERT
By LYDIA BOGERT
Rules of
the game
G
len Knockwood always seems
to be running away from something.
He runs swiftly and with precision. He runs down Halifax’s Gottingen Street, jumps a fence, vaults
over a picnic table by the harbour
and rolls along the wet and slippery
boardwalk. Despite the cold January rain, he keeps running.
But Knockwood isn’t running
away from anything or anyone. He
is practicing his craft and passion –
parkour.
Knockwood and his brother,
Bert, started practicing parkour two
years ago in Halifax. It’s considered
an urban sport. Parkourists use
railings, poles, parking garages and
buildings to do tricks. But Glen
says it’s about more than the tricks.
“The idea is to look like you are
always moving forward with ease.
It’s about the fluidity of your bodily
motions.”
He says that parkour is all about
individuality and enriching your
spirit, mind and body. It’s about
finding your centre and going with
the flow.
Parkour was founded by a
Frenchman, David Belle. Glen says
that, to him, parkour is not just a
sport, it’s a lifestyle.
“Parkour helps you in life
because you start to see obstacles
differently. The question becomes
‘how can I overcome this obstacle’,
not ‘how can I avoid it.’”
Most parkourists take advantage
of urban settings. But Glen, originally from Indian Brook – a native
reserve area near Shubanacadie knows what it’s like to do parkour
where trees are the only obstacles.
“When my brother and I are
back there, we use things around us
in nature,”Glen explains. “We don’t
have the same urban architecture,
so we’ll vault over logs. But it’s not
the same.”
Glen says that when he’s in Indian Brook he has to think more creatively. “I’ll create routes in the
backwoods near my dad’s place,
using fallen trees for things like
pseudo-rails,” he says. He says that
although it’s possible to do parkour
anywhere you go, when you’re out
• Parkour is the art of moving in
an
uninterrupted
forward
motion over, under, around and
through obstacles (both manmade and natural) in one’s
environment.
• David Belle, born in France in
1973, founded parkour when he
was 15, under the influence of
his father and martial arts
movies.
• According to Belle, parkour is
guided by the notions of escape
and reach. By one’s physical
agility and quick thinking, one
should be able to go anywhere
desired.
• A traceur, another name for a
parkourist, will perform stunts
like the speed vault, two-handed vault and jumping to cat
while practicing parkour.
• The number of parkourists is
unknown today, but there are
groups in most Canadian cities.
Bert Knockwood (left) demonstrates “cat-walking” as new Halifax parkourist, Erin Bosenberg (centre), looks on.
in the country there is more adventure, a sense of unpredictability.
When Glen is in Halifax, he sees
the city as his forest. “We use our
urban environment, but we don’t
abuse it,” says Glen. Bert Knockwood refers to Halifax as an urban
playground.
Police used to stop the Knockwood brothers all the time when
they first started doing parkour in
Halifax.
“Security and police don’t really
give us much trouble anymore.
They’re used to us. And most people who see us doing parkour are
interested in what we’re doing,”
says Glen.
But Liam Collins, a high school
student from Greenwood, shares a
much different parkour experience.
“There are a lot of angry people
around here,” he says. There are
less than 5,000 people living in
Greenwood, in the Annapolis Val-
ley, and Collins says that people
around his area are much less
accepting of parkour.
“One time we were doing a run
and there was a big fence we were
climbing over and some old guy
drove by and flipped out. He told
us to get the off the damn fence. We
didn’t stick around.”
Collins started parkour last
March after seeing a documentary
about the sport, Jump London.
Only once has he had an opportunity to do parkour in a larger urban
centre.
“I’ve been to Halifax before and
done a bit of parkour there. It really helps to get into an urban area,
because there are so many more
opportunities,” says Collins. Like
Glen when he is in Indian Brook,
Collins makes his own parkour
obstacles.
“In rural areas, like where I’m
from, you are constantly trying to
PAGE EDITOR: JENNIFER PELLEY
think of things to do. In the city,
they’re just there. Trees are a big
part of parkour around here actually. You can find just about anything
to do with them if you put your
mind to it.”
Collins and a few of his friends
in Greenwood practice parkour frequently, and are planning a trip to
Halifax to join the group of now
more than 25 parkourists in the city.
“The word just spread,” says
Glen. “When my brother and I
started doing parkour, we were just
two guys running around the city.
Now people know about our sport
and they want to join in.”
The Halifax parkour group
meets three times a week, by the
steps in front of the town clock on
Citadel Hill. “Everyone is welcome.
The more people, the more ideas
that flow into the parkour pot,” says
Glen.
“I’d really love to meet up with
Liam and run with him. The fact
that’s he’s from a more rural area
means he’s probably a very creative
parkourist.”
As the group of about 10, led by
Glen, runs around Halifax on this
Sunday afternoon through the rain,
Glen says this is the largest turnout
for parkour on a rainy day. The
group spends almost two hours
doing tricks and jumps in the
underground parking garage at
Staples on Gottingen Street. No
one tries to stop them.
“The cops stop me and friends
all the time in Greenwood,” says
Collins. “Even though doing parkour in the backwoods and making
your own obstacles can be fun and
challenging, I really want to go to
the city, where people don’t give
you attitude and you can just be
yourself.”
[email protected]
PAGE 13
THE COMMONER
Skateboarders win community support
By AMANDA FRASER
AMANDA FRASER
N
ext to an abandoned and
boarded up high school in the
middle of the town of Shelburne
sits a lonely half pipe and two
skateboard ramps covered in snow.
On clear days, the new skate
park is home to as many as 30 kids
with dreams of executing stunts
like famed skateboarder Tony
Hawk.
“It’s a free act,” Peter Haegaert, a
Grade 12 student at Shelburne
Regional High School, says of
skateboarding. “You can look at a
spot and see a set of stairs. To a normal person it’s an obstacle. To us,
it’s a ramp or a piece of playground
equipment.”
The dreadlocked 18-year-old has
been the leader behind the Shelburne skate park’s formation, an
idea that originated in 2003. In
addition to his school work and
tutoring math, Haegaert created the
plans for the park’s design and
completed the budget for the
ramps. That was his summer job in
2005.
While the assembly of the park is
running smoothly now, a lack of
community support brought the
Shelburne Skate Park's first half pipe. The park, scheduled for completion in
September 2006, will also include two quarter pipes and a series of ramps.
project to a standstill in its early days.
Townspeople complained of
spray-painted graffiti and curbs
blackened with wax, a technique
the boarders used to create a slippery surface. The skateboarders
complained of police constantly
moving them to other locations,
threatening to confiscate their
boards.
The tension was a catalyst to create a skate park.
Skateboarders and their parents
formed a skate park association,
which enlisted the help of Growing
Up in Cities. Growing Up is a county-wide program designed to
include youth in the municipal
governing process through the
construction of skate parks.
Through a meeting that included the association, members of
Shelburne’s municipal council,
police, and Ed Cayer, a local entrepreneur and volunteer at Our
House Youth Wellness Centre, a
youth drop-in centre in Shelburne,
it was determined that in order to
make the skate park a reality, the
perception of skateboarders had to
change.
“Skateboarders are marginalized in their communities,” says
Kirstan Moore, the coordinator of
Growing Up. Heartwood, a charitable organization dedicated to youth
development in Nova Scotia, runs
the program.“Creating a skate park
creates a door to inclusion in the
community.”
To change public opinion, the
newly formed group scheduled
positive community events with a
skateboarding connection.
“We wanted people to see that
we were determined and not a
bunch of hoodlums,”
says Haegaert.
The skateboarders organized a
Skate for Food Drive to gather
donations for the food bank, and a
skateboarding demonstration was
held during Shelburne’s Founder’s
Days in July 2005.
At the event, people could sign a
petition of support for the future
skate park and make a donation
that would only be honoured if the
municipal leaders approved the
park’s new plan.
Donations ranged from 25 cents
to $300, says Cayer, who took a leadership role in the skate park project
after the Growing Up in Cities meeting in 2005. He also took over the
position of executive director of Our
House for a dollar a year.
Cayer believes the project’s success can be attributed to communi-
SEAN MCCARROLL
New policies sought
to harness wind power
By SEAN McCARROLL
N
ova Scotia has the potential to
produce massive amounts of
wind power but when it comes to
harnessing this renewable source of
energy, we may be left in the dust.
Small energy companies in the
province say the government needs
to do more to encourage independent wind turbines, but policies to
assist development are lacking.
“We currently think of energy
production in terms of large-scale
production,” said Brendan Haley,
energy coordinator for the Ecology
Action Centre. “We need to change
that way of thinking and recognize
the potential of small-scale energy
production.”
In 2004, the government of
Prince Edward Island passed the
Renewable Energy Act. It is a law
guaranteeing a price of 7.75 cents
per kilowatt-hour for electricity
generated by wind and net metering that allows customers to sell
renewable energy back to the grid.
It makes investments in wind a lot
more attractive for both large- and
small- scale developments.
The second section of the bill,
which has yet to be passed, will
have P.E.I. commit to obtain 100 per
cent of its energy from renewable
sources by 2015.
Nova Scotia has a comparable
amount of wind potential. Although
more turbines continue to sprout
up across the province, many people would like to see the government take a more active role
encouraging the development of
wind energy.
Last year in Nova Scotia the sum
of all sources of renewable energy
was about 50 megawatts. N o v a
Scotia needs to change the way it
thinks about renewable energy,
says Haley.
In 2003, a government committee wrote a report on the potential
market for wind energy and recommended producers of renewable
energy sources be allowed to sell
directly to customers. But so far
Nova Scotia Power is still the only
buyer of wind power in the
province.
“Economic development through
renewable energy is empowering for
people not normally economically
empowered,” said Haley. “We need
to pass legislation that will allow
renewable energy to become a
secure investment.”
Allowing independent producers to sell directly to consumers
would allow new innovation and
encourage small-scale wind-farm
operations, he says. Since the report
was tabled, however, the legislation
has not been passed and Nova Scotia Power remains the only buyer.
“I believe we are pretty consistent with the rest of our region,”said
Margaret Murphy, spokesperson for
Nova Scotia Power Inc. “Twelve per
cent of the energy we use everyday
comes from renewable sources,
mostly hydro, but there is a big push
for wind now.”
Nova Scotia Power applied for
an open access transmission tariff
with the province in 2004, she says.
If passed, it will allow independent
producers access to the grid.
“We’ve set up the rules and put
everything in place that will give
the wholesale market power to purchase for any supplier.”
Today’s market remains difficult
for independent producers to
access. In order to sell wind energy
to Nova Scotia Power, they need a
power purchase agreement with
the utility. They favour large-scale
operations like the 17-turbine wind
farm at Pubnico.
“One of the reasons why we’re
behind the times here is that there
is a perception that it’s difficult to
do business in Nova Scotia,” said
Timothy Gillespie, communications
officer for Scotian WindFields and
board member of Sou’Wester Wind
Fields Inc.
“We have a publicly owned
monopoly of a public resource; it’s
not in Nova Scotia Power’s best
interest to encourage wind energy
development.”
The proposed legislation would
allow customers to purchase a set
PAGE EDITOR: SHANNON LONG
ty-based strategy of using available
resources.
Kids from the community lifted
the sod to prepare the site, and local
contractors donated the slab of concrete, about the size of a basketball
court, on which the skate park sits.
To build the skateboard ramps,
Cayer sought out unemployed carpenters and paid them a wage from
money
raised
through
the
Founder’s Days demonstration,
events at Our House, and in-kind
donations. Still, he credits Haegaert
with being the voice of persistence
behind the project.
“He has natural leadership
skills,” says Cayer.
Haegaert is now faced with looking for a replacement to oversee the
planned park development before
he heads off to university this fall.
While he’s not sure which university he’ll attend, he wants to
study politics, a subject he says he’s
learned a lot about while developing the skate park. He’s also learned
the value of persistence and community support.
“Money’s not always the issue,”
he says. “People in the town can
help you.”
[email protected]
The 65-metre tall turbine at Goodwood, outside Halifax, produces about 1.5
megawatts of power a year. It is one of 23 test turbines across the province.
amount of renewable energy from
any producer they choose. Nova
Scotia Power would then have to
make the grid accessible to that
company. Any gaps in energy supply would be filled by other energy
sources on the grid.
Scotian WindFields represents
eight wind farm companies across
Nova Scotia. They are run by board
members from individual communities and eligible for money from
the Community Economic Development Investment Fund, a pool of
money raised by the sale of shares
to people within a certain community for investing or operating a
local business. As such, the organi-
zation is eligible for tax breaks.
“The structure of these community-run wind fields seems to me to
be an ideal way of raising local capital,” said Gillespie.
In Nova Scotia wind costs about
six or seven cents per kilowatt, but a
minimum purchase price might
attract more investors. “We have a
tremendous wind regime here,”
says Gillespie, “We want to make a
profit for our investors.”
If these small, community-based
wind fields could sell energy directly to consumers, Gillespie says, the
demand for green, renewable energy sources would soar.
[email protected]
PAGE 14
NINA CORFU
Planning for
the future
alifax is in the midst of a
H
development boom. The
regional municipality – a huge
chunk of central Nova Scotia,
stretching 400 kilometres along
the Atlantic coast, from Hubbards
to Ecum Secum – is home to one
in three Nova Scotians. The population has swelled to 360,000 in
the 2001 census from 138,000 in
1951. Dr. Hugh Millward, who
teaches geography at Saint
Mary’s University in Halifax, is
chair of HRM’s regional planning
committee. He sat down with The
Commoner’s Nina Corfu to talk
about how our city has developed
and what lies ahead.
Q: What is the history of development in this area before 1960?
A: Before 1960, it was a very
unplanned situation. It was still, to a
large extent, a pedestrian- and busoriented city and there had been
very little development beyond the
Halifax peninsula. The negative
impacts of sprawl were yet to be
felt.
Q: Why was there so little development outside of the city centre at
that time?
A: Well, I guess for two reasons.
One, that it had always been
regarded as better to be in the town
rather than out of it. Because if you
lived in town you had services such
as sewer and water pipes.... the
edge of town was considered the
sticks. That notion carried on well
into the 1960s and ’70s.
But the other thing was that up
until the mid ’50s most families did
not have a car so you were restricted to walking or taking the bus.You
had to be where the services were.
Q: How did development change
after 1960?
A: There was a mushrooming.
Development spread right across
the landscape because (Halifax)
County had very little planning.
Basically there was a general zoning right across private land, which
meant you could do pretty well
what you wanted with your land.
There was an attempt to plan the
region in 1945 but it didn’t go anywhere. Then, in the 1960s the
provincial government and the local
municipality realized that something had to be done because there
was a tremendous rate of growth
and sprawl was happening all over
the place. They realized there would
need to be a regional plan.
Q: What did the 1996 amalgamation
mean for development in HRM?
A: Well, initially not much because
HRM was nearly broke and the staff
and councillors were so busy trying
to absorb the bureaucratic impact of
amalgamation. It wasn’t until about
2000 that staff and councillors were
ready to look at trying to harmonize
the many different planning regula-
tions that existed and to look at the
big picture and say,“Well, okay, now
we’ve got a single municipality, let’s
have a single plan at least as a sort of
over-arching or umbrella document
to guide local planning.”
Q: I understand that the second
draft of a regional plan for HRM is
now in place. What does that plan
look like?
A: It’s a big document and it’s been
five years in the making. It’s 150
pages of text, about 10 detailed
maps, and about 200 separate policies. To go along with this there is a
draft of a regional land-use bylaw
and a regional subdivision bylaw.
The focus is on a broad concept
plan for the region as a whole.
Q: Just to clarify, what is your role
on the planning committee?
A: I’m one of five citizens on a ninemember
planning
committee
alongside three councillors and the
chief administrative officer of the
municipality. For the last year I’ve
been chairing the committee.
Q: What are your criticisms of this
draft?
A: Well, I have few criticisms
because I was involved in drafting
it. Or at least, in vetting it and
approving it for forwarding to
council. I think it’s probably the
best plan we’re going to get which
will receive widespread endorsement from councillors and citizens.
With over 200 policies in the
plan, everyone will find at least one
that they really hate and you can
bet that I’ve got one or two that I
don’t like. But if councillors assess
the plan on that basis it wouldn’t
pass. Obviously, you’ve got to look
at the document on that basis and
say, “On the whole, is this going to
give us a better tool for management and control of development
than if we did nothing?”
Q: What are its strong points?
A: I think it’s strong on environmental protection, which is something that individual citizens and
the property market don’t do very
well. It will set aside extensive areas
to remain as natural areas, and it
will set aside six or seven large
regional parks, mostly close to
metro Halifax. It will also protect the
environment in that it will minimize
indiscriminate sprawl and a lot of
the issues that go along with that,
particularly unnecessary travel.
I think another strong point is
that it will focus development on
centres which are transit-friendly. If
you can get a lot of people and a lot
of activity clustered in certain areas,
you can supply those areas with
good, efficient, rapid transit. There’s
a demonstration bus rapid transit
route now… basically this plan sees
three or four more of those with
clusters of centres along the route.
Even in rural areas, the idea is to
create centres where there is a
St. Mary’s University geographer Hugh Millward says it’s important to have a development vision for the entire region.
grouping of municipal and commercial services, so that wherever
you are in Halifax (Regional Municipality), which is an area larger
than Prince Edward Island, you’ll
be within fairly easy reach of the
necessities of modern life.
“Developers have the
upper hand because
they can always say,
‘if you don’t give me
what I want, I’ll go
next door to the next
municipality.’”
— HUGH MILLWARD
Q: What is the time-line for the execution of this plan?
A: Well it’s a 25-year plan. In terms
of putting it into effect immediately,
we hope that council will approve
this, take it to second reading and
then it will go to a public hearing at
the end of March, where the public
will get their final kick at the can.
We’ve already had four rounds of
public consultation, but there will
PAGE EDITOR: TERRA DUNCAN
be that one last chance to let people’s views be known. Then, councillors will vote on it.
I certainly hope and pray that it
will pass, if it doesn’t pass, the sky
will fall. But once it’s passed then we
move into a whole new phase and
basically what will happen is a few
policies will immediately come into
effect. The plan will then play out at
the community level through a
process of community visioning
whereby the existing zoning codes
and plans will be thoroughly revised
in light of this new regional plan ...
Q: What mistakes have been made
in the past that you and the planning team are hoping to avoid in
the future?
A: Oh, several. One of the issues
was always that we had a group of
competing municipalities. Up until
1996, we had four municipalities
with different levels of rigour in
terms of planning and different levels of expectation in terms of what
planners should do. Basically, in a
situation like that, developers have
the upper hand because they can
always say, “if you don’t give me
what I want, I’ll go next door to the
next municipality.” Well, we’re such
a large municipality that they really
cannot effectively do that in this
context.
The other mistake tended to be
short-sighted thinking because
municipal plans have a five- to 10year time frame. They were not
looking at the big picture. This
regional plan looks at over 25 years.
Q: Where do politics come in?
A: Planning is politics. But it is politics applied specifically to “what
goes where.” When you put things
in certain locations it has an impact
on neighbours; possibly negative.
So, there’s always conflict, competition and control.
We will never please everyone.
All we can do is get the best consensus we can and it’s not just about
consensus either, I have to stress
this, because we have to think about
the environment. The environment
doesn’t have a voice, it doesn’t have
a vote ....
Q: Why should the public be interested?
A: Because unless you have a vision
for the entire region we will continue
to get piecemeal development here
and there with no coherence, with no
relationship to capital improvements
such as where you put new sewer
lines… very important things by the
way. Where pipes go determines
where the region goes.
No one wants development in
their backyard. But we have more
and more people coming in and
more and more demand for development… it’s got to go somewhere.
[email protected]
PAGE 15
THE COMMONER
Urban-rural not easy to define - expert
By BRODIE THOMAS
I
t takes more than some farmland
and dirt roads to make a place
rural.
Michael Poulton, professor of
urban and rural planning at Dalhousie University, says it wouldn’t
be entirely accurate to divide Nova
Scotia on the basis of population
density.
“I would divide Nova Scotia
between the growth corridor and
the areas in economic difficulty.
The central areas such as the Halifax
Regional
Municipality,
Kentville, and Wolfville are generally very prosperous.”
He contrasts these areas with
Sydney. Despite being a city, Sydney is losing its population to outmigration of young people to the
western provinces. People are also
moving outside Sydney to “attractive rural surroundings.”
Poulton says the notion that
Nova Scotians are migrating into
the HRM isn’t entirely true.
“That’s the common presumption,” he says, “but HRM’s growing
population is not so much inmigration. It’s more about births
exceeding deaths in Halifax.”
Canada’s Ocean Playground is
often portrayed in tourism commercials as a quaint rural backwater, or as an endless collection of
picturesque seaside towns. Statistically speaking, the split between
urban and rural population is nearly even, with 56 per cent of our population living in cities.
Compare that to the national
average, where 80 per cent of Canadians live in cities. Rural is defined
as areas outside centres with a population of 1,000, and areas with a
population density less than 400
persons per square kilometre.
With this change in population
density comes a change in income.
According to Statistics Canada, percapita income is greater in places
with higher population density. The
per capita income of rural Nova
Scotians in 2001 was $6,543. In
urban centres, it was $14,262.
Statistics Canada has also noted
certain patterns in rural unemployment. For instance, rural unemployment is higher in the Atlantic
provinces than the Canadian average.
Across Canada, women who live
in rural areas are less likely to work
than women in cities.
Cause and effect is unclear in all
of this. Sydney shows that popula-
tion doesn’t always equal sustained
growth. And people who commute
into Halifax every day could have
the best of both worlds.
And urban and rural can some-
times be a state of mind, Poulton says.
“There are those who see themselves as urbanites but live in small
towns.”
[email protected]
Commuter Cage Match
By AMANDA FRASER
T
he Commoner talked with commuters headed in opposite
directions and discovered that
there really wasn’t much of a difference in travel time.
What we did discover, however,
is that there are more important
things when it comes to deciding to
live where you live, even if it means
hour-long drives to work everyday.
David Algee commutes from
Halifax to Lunenburg daily. A
native Haligonian and selfdescribed city person, he’s been
branded a “Come from Away”in the
ocean-side town where he teaches
English at Lunenburg Junior and
Senior High School. He moved back
to Halifax in Sept. 2005 after unsuccessfully trying small town life in
Lunenburg for two years.
Steven Slipp, a graphic designer
at Semaphor Design in Halifax, has
been making the trek from
Wolfville for the past 26 years. A
father of three university aged children who have also grown up in the
area, Slipp chooses to live in
Wolfville because he enjoys having
access to the country side, farmers
markets and outdoor activities.
Here are some of the questions
we asked them.
Steven Slipp, top left, and David Algee may be travelling in opposite directions but both make the most of an
inevitable part of their lives — the daily commute.
What time do you leave your house
in the morning?
Algee: 7.20 a.m.
Slipp: 7.45 a.m.
How long does it take you to get to
work?
A: One hour.
S: One hour.
How many hours do you usually
spend behind the wheel a week?
A: Between 10 and 12 hours.
S: Fifteen hours.
What does the place you live have
that your place of work doesn’t?
A: More choices in terms of basic
amenities and nightlife.
S: A more obvious, tangible sense of
community.
Why do you live where you do?
A: All of my family and friends are
here, and I didn’t want to be away
from them any longer.
S: I’m from Wolfville. It’s where I
studied, where I met my wife. We
PAGE EDITOR: MIN HUN FONG
decided it was the best place to
raise a family.
Have you ever considered moving?
A: I moved back to Halifax after living in Lunenburg for two years.
S: Yes, but not seriously.
Ever see anything weird on the
roadside?
A: A lot of bad drivers. I look at a lot
of people and say, “So that’s how
accidents happen.”
S: Last year, we saw 18 deer in one
day.
What’s your biggest pet peeve
about the drive?
A: No divided highway.
S: Drivers who try to save time by
passing unsafely.
Anything positive about the
drive?
A: My job is there and my life is
here and I can leave my job there. It
gives me a chance to think, reflect
on the day.
S: It’s a separation from home and
work. I use the (drive) time to wind
up or wind down for the day.
Do you car pool?
A: It’s not an option.
S: Once or twice a week.
How do you feel at the end of the
work day when you have to get in
the car?
A: It’s mind over matter. You get
accustomed to it and I know it’s a
part of my day.
S: It does take a physical and a
mental toll but it’s what I have to do
so I factor it into my life.
Do you drive much on the weekends?
A: My girlfriend knows if we’re
going anywhere, she’s driving.
S: Not usually, but sometimes I
come into the city.
If you could change anything about
your job, what would it be?
A: That it’d be closer to home.
S: If I could do what I do in
Wolfville, that’d be nice.
[email protected]
PAGE 16
How she goan der bye?
There’s so much Cape Breton lingo, you can hardly swing a cat in here
By AINSLIE MacLELLAN
Lor’ tunderin’!
E
ver have a dinner of erring and
badadoes? Or had the staggers
and jags so bad you fell arse over
tea kettle? If so, you may already be
fluent in Da Mudder Tung. The selfpublished book by Cape Bretoner
Glen Gray has sold more than 4,000
copies in Cape Breton and across
Canada.
Da Mudder Tung is a 64-page,
pocket-sized volume, full of more
than 500 examples of Cape Breton
slang. Gray, who has worked in layout and design, collected the sayings while compiling another publication, the Cape Breton Joke Book.
Gray travelled around Cape Breton
asking at shops and restaurants for
people’s favourite local jokes.
“When they would tell me these
jokes, they’d use these phrases,
which I thought were as funny as
the jokes themselves,” says Gray, a
native of Sydney. “I kept saving
them in a database and I said when
I had 500 I would print a book.”
Gray wanted to make a pocketsized book that could sell for less
than five dollars. But print companies told him it couldn’t be done.
Gray – who says you should
never tell a Cape Bretoner that
something can’t be done – gets the
pages printed at Kwik Copy, and he
and his wife, Joan, collate, staple
and trim every copy on their
kitchen table. The book sells for
$4.95 and is available from damuddertung.com and in some Sydney area stores.
Most of the entries seem to be
badly misspelled or mispronounced versions of plain English:
badadoes for potatoes, sammich for
sandwich. But this is where Gray
says he picks up the character of
Here are a few Cape Breton
expressions you may or may not
know. (Asterisks denote other
terms with entries in Da Mudder Tung.)
• Come hell or high wadder – A
very emphatic expression
meaning at all costs. “I godda*
find a job come hell or high
wadder.”
• Crazy as a bag of hammers –
…A friend of mine was telling
us of a new neighbour who had
moved it into the neighbourhood. Apparently, The Wife is
okay, but “he’s crazy as a bag of
hammers.”
•Clicker – TV channel changer.
“Where’s da clicker at bye?”
- excerpted from Da Mudder Tung
how his fellow islanders really talk.
“If I’d listen closely, I’d hear
these things and just smile,” says
Gray. “We say these things, and we
know particularly that’s not how
they’re spelled, but we still say
them.”
According to Bill Davey, an English professor at Cape Breton University, this is called an “eye
dialect.”It’s where the printed word
appears to look like the pronunciation.
Davey, a member of the Atlantic
Provinces Linguistic Association,
has been working on his own Cape
Breton dictionary project for 13
years. He and colleague Richard
MacKinnon have looked to the oldest written, tape and archive
Intrepid Crossword
ACROSS
1. Hand over, or
Johnny Apple____
5. Mule
9. Cleopatra’s killers
13.Cricket term, or
finished
14.Clash’s Calling
16. ___ creepy!
17. Sold again
19. Jewish Wisemen
20. Adobe’s format
21. Gravity, for short
23. Oiler’s Defenceman
Steve
26. Of concrete, for example
30. Dressed in haute couture
31. Finally
35. Energy emanation
36. The ___, the Witch, and
the Wardrobe
37. V
38. Trademark in print
39. Unavailable
41. And feathers would make
it medieval
43. Driving quickly
•Me Hole Out - To the maximum degree. “I went to the
Summertime Revue and I
laughed me hole out.”
•Dicker – To strike a bar gin* or
negotiate a better price. “We
had to dicker a liddle*, but we
fine leigh agreed on the price.”
•The Game – Whenever you
encounter this phrase, it will be
for only one sport and that’s
hockey. You always capitalize
“the” and “game” as they hold
special reverence in our culture.
•Staggers and Jags – A colourful description of the “morning
after” shakes from a night of
partying. See also Indajigs,
Heebie Jeebies.
By Min Hun Fong
44. Clay pot
45. Japanese fan
46. Land of the ___
Sun.
49. Ever, poetically
51. Lord of the Rings was
this
55. Tedious
56. Land down under bird
58. Horror author
59. The Red, for one
60. HIV suffering tennis great
62. Init. of an environmental
law reporter?
63. …9…10, you’re out!
64. Digital camera storage
cards
65. Circus act
sources they can find, and have
talked to Cape Bretoners from
around the province, to find the
regional terms that make the
island’s language unique. Their
work follows in the footsteps of
similar projects in Newfoundland
and Prince Edward Island.
He notes the difference between
looking for regional terminology
that illustrates daily life – like the
compartments of lobster traps
called the kitchen and parlour– and
collecting slang.
Davey does say that studying
slang can be valid though, as it
often reveals a cohesive group that
has isolated itself somewhat from
the dominant culture. The fact that
Cape Breton is an island helps it
If you can solve this,
you are an absolute genius
DOWN
1. English exclamation
2. Rib-stealer
3. Misery
4. Annihilates
5. Bottom-fermented beer
6. __ what?
7. As a bug in a rug
8. Children’s favourite
explorer
10. Cry
11. Hawaiian dish
12. Distress call
15. Ship Cpt’s plotter?
18. Pioneers of Sheffield’s
‘bleep techno.’
22. Cruise and Hoffman: the man
23. Sings jazzy?
24. Bambi’s gray friend
25. Pouting
26. Ships backs?
27. Marvin of Westerns
28. And Betty you can call
me this
29. See ya!
1
retain its colloquialisms more easily.
Gray agrees that it may be this
cohesiveness that gives Cape Breton language its colour.The oral tradition and social gatherings remain
a big part of life in Cape Breton
communities.
“It’s changing gradually, people
are moving away and it’s hard to
keep up the lifestyle,” says Gray.
“But those who are still here appreciate it.”
Gray says he has no illusions of
his book becoming a great literary
work or a money-making enterprise. The project takes hours of
Gray’s and his wife’s time every
week, on top of their jobs at a call
2
3
4
5
13
32. Mortgages, for example
33. In cheek, or shoes
34. Greed in the extreme
40. Fruit drink
41. Location of next winter
Olympics
42. Father and Holy Ghost?
Who’s missing?
47. U2 sold out for these
products
48. Petrol
49. Runaway brides with
50. Acids + Alcohols
52. Modeling
53. Chooses, or plays the
strings one at a time
54. Her he
57. Auction-ending cry
60. It’s mostly nitrogen
61. Canadians, Tragically
17
18
21
24
35
36
38
39
11
12
28
29
16
26
32
33
27
34
37
40
41
43
42
44
45
49
46
50
51
53
62
10
22
25
31
56
9
19
30
64
PAGE EDITOR: MARA BROTMAN
8
15
20
23
7
14
54
47
48
52
55
57
58
* answers available Jan. 27
6
centre.
But the book has sold out of four
printings already and Gray says he
wants every Cape Bretoner to be
able to get a copy. He says the point
is not to make fun of the way that
Cape Bretoners talk, but to celebrate the differences that make his
home dialect unique and to make
people laugh.
In fact, Gray says he’s had just
one complaint – an email from an
elderly woman from New Waterford.
“She says, ‘I love your book and
I laugh so much at it. But there sure
are an awful lot of spelling mistakes.’”
59
63
65
60
61

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