🗞️ HFX Votes 2024: Know your boundaries

Oh, hello Halifax, didn’t see you there…

Although we don’t celebrate Pride until July in our great city, June is officially Pride month—in commemoration of the 1969 Stonewall Uprising in Manhattan.

And in that spirit, I wanted to share a little story with you.

I was at a big event last week and one of the main speakers on a panel was a prominent Halifax business woman who—when addressing the crowd—said something along the lines of: “It’s amazing being here with all these women…and…people..that…I’m sorry…don’t…I don’t know the proper terminology for the other people.”

Now. I hear some variation of this way too often, especially from people of a certain, ah-hem, vintage. And I get it, times are changing, things are hard, people are different, yadda yadda. But “I don’t know the terminology” is just NOT it.

Here is a  great resource from the Human Rights Commission to have in your back pocket: https://www.hrc.org/resources/glossary-of-terms—recommended by MSVU’s department of queer studies. Feel free to use it, share it, bookmark it, whatever you need to do.

Thank you for attending my Ted Talk.

– Julie

🌡️ Traffic & Weather

Today: 🌤️ 31°

Tomorrow: 🌤️ 32°

Next Day: 🌤️ 29°

7-day forecast

🚗 Driving, biking or busing today? Check out the current traffic conditions and ongoing road closures.

💨 Here is Halifax’s Air Quality Index and the smoke report.

HALIFAX VOTES 2024

 The municipal election is coming up—do you know your boundaries?

Municipal elections are coming up fast.

All one has to do is look at the number of politicians announcing their run for mayor to see just how quickly the city is gearing up for election season. However, some residents may be voting for different councillors in different districts than before.

In January, electoral boundaries in HRM shifted around after the Nova Scotia Utility and Review Board (UARB) signed off on the changes regarding the municipality’s 16 districts and their voting populations.

A municipality is required to apply to change electoral boundaries to the UARB every eight years as per the Municipal Government Act. This is to keep parity between voters and the electoral population in each district relatively even and ensure each community's needs will be represented.

If you’ve ever looked at the electoral boundaries map for HRM, you may notice some districts, such as 7 and 8, are much smaller than the outermost districts, such as 1 and 2. It may be obvious to some, but this is a result of the city having a higher population density than other parts of HRM. 

To keep the relative voting power of each district fair and equal, the UARB typically requires each municipality in the province to keep its electoral districts—and therefore its voting populations—within a variance of plus or minus 10%, though exceptions can be made depending on the circumstance up to a 25% variance.

The municipality may also apply to have its number of districts increased, and while HRM had previously put forward a motion to do so in their 2016 application, their request for 20 districts was shot down by the UARB.

This is all dictated through the Municipal Government Act, which requires the UARB to “consider the number of electors, relative parity of voting power, population density, community of interest and geographic size” when deciding whether to change electoral boundaries.

The actual change residents will see is this—if you happen to live in a district that had its boundaries rearranged during this process, you very well may be in a different district than you were during the last election, depending on where you live. This affects which district’s candidates you’ll be voting for in the fall.

With the municipal election coming up on Oct. 19, The Coast’s Brendyn Creamer has what you need to know about the new electoral boundaries.

🤔 Need To Know

🗳 After serving as MP for Halifax for 9 years, Andy Fillmore is quitting federal politics amid speculation of a potential mayoral bid.

🎭 Support4Culture is a proud supporter of arts, culture, and heritage in Nova Scotia. From the Highland Village Museum to Neptune Theatre, see the impact Support4Culture makes here.*

🍁 Celebrate Canada Day at the Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21. Features live music, dance and activities for all ages. (Also- parking!)*

🦖 Dinosaur Exploration goes extinct on June 23. Don't miss one last opportunity to see your favorite dinosaurs including T. rex.*

*Sponsored Post

NEWS + OPINION

HRM cuts independent experts from policy making

Halifax’s city council is trying to modernize governance in the HRM. For those who have never really thought about how your government actually functions to shape your life, one main way legislative change happens is through the work of committees. 

In very general terms the role of a committee or board is to read a piece of proposed legislation, think about it, and then recommend changes to the proposed legislation. Sometimes, like in the Regional Watershed Advisory Board, the people who are thinking about legislation are experts who volunteered their expertise to the city and to try and make their city a better place.

One of the members of the Watershed Advisory Board, Céo Gaudet (who’s a bit of a legislative all-star), spoke at Monday’s Executive Standing Committee meeting and told councillors he was disappointed to read the report, which suggested that the RWAB board was not a valuable source of input for staff since 2019. He said that it’s a bit rude of the city to put people on boards for their expertise with no plan to ever actually listen to their expertise.

The Coast’s Matt Stickland has more on what happened at HRM's executive committee meeting on Monday.

🗞️ In Other News

🚨 Halifax Police have charged a man and a woman in relation to an incident that occurred yesterday in Bedford when a weapon was recovered during a traffic stop and the driver fled on foot.

🚲 Several active transportation groups are voicing frustrations regarding a new redevelopment design for the Windsor Street exchange, saying “failure is guaranteed” if council adopts the new design.

📹 Body worn cameras are coming to Halifax with the RCMP and thanks to the direction given to police from the Board of Police Commissioners, the Halifax Regional Police are also planning to get some.

🚨 RCMP arrested four youths in connection to a flurry of vandalism in Cole Harbour. Police said between April 20 and May 26, Mounties received more than 20 reports of mischief to 18 vehicles and three homes.

☑️ Correction: Monday's city hall newsletter said that former Dartmouth alderman Colin May said bike riding was legislatively not allowed in the Dartmouth Commons. This is incorrect. What he actually said was that the legislation says that pedestrians need to be prioritized in the Dartmouth Commons, and that HRM signage does not reflect the fact that pedestrians have priority in the Dartmouth Commons.

🗓️ Things To Do

Looking for something to do this week? Check out these Coast picks:

🗓 Classified - Live At the Shore Club: With an inherent and candid ability to break down the barrier between performer and audience while “leading the vanguard of East Coast hip hop”, Classified is one of Canada’s most respected and successful rap artists, producers and songwriters. | June 21 | 9:30pm | $45

🗓 Wines on the Waterfront: In partnership with Build Nova Scotia, Wines of Nova Scotia will be taking over Halifax’s Foundation Wharf with live music and a variety of Nova Scotians wines to taste and purchase. | June 22 | 11am | Free

🗓 Dartmouth Festival Series - A Matinee with Joel Plaskett, Family & Friends: As part of Dartmouth Open Street Sunday, Portland Street from Alderney Drive to Prince Albert Road will be car free and open for folks to enjoy. The streets will be activated with live entertainment, music and lots more excitement! | June 23 | Noon | Free

Have an event to share? Let us know at [email protected].

⚓️ What’s In The Harbour

➡️ The Acadian oil tanker leaves Halifax for Charlottetown at 3am.

🛳️➡️ The Atlantic Sail container ship arrives in Halifax from Liverpool at 5:20am and leaves for New York at 5pm.

🛳️➡️ The NYK Demeter container ship arrives in Halifax from Saint John at 5:20am and leaves for Southampton at 6pm.

🛳️ The Algoma Verity bulk carrier arrives in Halifax from Morrisville at 6:21am.

🍴 Where To Eat & Drink

🍓 Get swept away with the sweetness of it all with Salt + Ash Beach House’s Strawberry Cream Cake: vanilla sponge base with strawberry mousse and sumac crumble.

🕶️ Sip Bar in Dartmouth is kicking off summer in style with a patio party on June 21 with drinks, snack and a DJ spinning tunes.

👀 In Case You Missed It

🎤 Neon Dreams is no stranger to songs that touch on personal aspects of the Halifax duo’s lives. Some of their biggest hits have been introspective on the part of their creators. However, vocalist Frank Kadillac says their upcoming record The Good, The True And The Beautiful touches on his experiences like never before, inspired in part by Joseph Campbell’s notion of the hero’s journey. The Coast’s Brendyn Creamer spoke to the duo about their upcoming album hitting streaming services on June 21.

🎓 It all started at the tail end of Mi’kmaw History Month in 2016. Jarvis Googoo shared a story on X, then known as Twitter, about his experience attending his cousin’s high school graduation in his home community of We'koqma'q in Unama’ki/Cape Breton. It became a 14-part thread and launched Googoo on a path as a Mi’kmaw educator. Googoo tells The Coast what motivates him to do this, where he gets his source material from and where people in Nova Scotia Mi’kmak’i territory can learn more.

That’s it!

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