🗞️ HRM's tax problem rears its head

Good morning!

Halifax’s Budget Adjustment List debates wrapped up yesterday with both good and bad news for Haligonians. Let’s start with the latter: Councillors’ continued insistence on keeping Halifax’s property tax rate low is coming back to bite them. (Well, all of us.) Thanks to less tax revenue in the HRM’s coffers—paired with council choosing to make up for costly suburban development with debt—we’re now facing a sizeable infrastructure deficit. Starting next year, property taxes will likely need to go up a minimum of 2% a year.

Now, for the good news: Halifax’s new CAO, Cathie O’Toole, told councillors that the city is going to need to start “rationalizing” its spending on roads. Meaning that in the very near future, the CAO will start asking Public Works’ Brad Anguish if he can justify building and maintaining new roads—in new subdivisions—when we already have so many.

Keep posted on TheCoast.ca for the full budget debate breakdown later today.

– Matt

🌡️ Traffic & Weather

Today: 🌦️ 5°

Tomorrow: 🌨️ 3°

Next Day: 🌨️ 2°

7-day forecast

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

EDUCATION

“We don’t want any more money slicked with oil,” Dal students say

A group of Dalhousie University students say they’re still waiting on Dal’s president to meet with them and discuss their concerns about the university’s fossil fuel investments. Last week, around 45 students marched through Dalhousie’s campus, raising signs reading, “Fossil Free Degree” and “Net Zero by 2040.” The demonstrators—led by student advocacy group DalZero—walked from the Student Union Building to president Kim Brooks’s office, where they tell The Coast they “extended a formal invitation” to Brooks to chat about Dal’s divestment plans.

“She did not attend or show up,” student organizer Caitlin Lawrence tells The Coast.

Dalhousie has around $30.2 million in endowment funds currently invested in the coal, oil and natural gas sectors. DalZero’s members are demanding the university divest fully from those holdings by 2040.

A Dal spokesperson tells The Coast that the school was “aware” of a peaceful student protest “to show their support for being carbon neutral,” and that in the coming weeks, students will meet with university representatives “to chat about the university’s carbon reduction efforts.” It isn’t clear, however, which representatives will take part in those conversations—nor whether Dal will entertain demands to sell off its holdings. (Back in 2014, the university released a statement, saying administrators didn’t “feel that pursuing divestment is the right approach for the university.”)

Coast reporter Lauren Phillips has the latest on the students’ demands and Dal’s response.

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MUSIC

Cali to Hali: Snoop Dogg announces Halifax concert in June

No, that isn’t the weed kicking in: Snoop Dogg is coming to Halifax. The “Gin and Juice” rapper, actor and cannabis entrepreneur is opening his “Cali to Canada” tour with a show at Halifax’s Scotiabank Centre on Monday, June 3. He’ll be joined by “Regulate” emcee Warren G, along with DJ Quik and DJ Green Lantern. Tickets go on sale this Friday.

It isn’t Snoop’s first time in Nova Scotia: He made a cameo on Trailer Park Boys in 2015, sparking controversy when he called a CBC camera operator’s body “thick.” He played in Sydney in 2010—thanks in part to $36K in federal grant money—and back in 2009 he played at the Scotiabank Centre (then the Metro Centre) following the release of his Ego Trippin’ album.

Snoop’s concert tour will also make stops in Quebec City, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Winnipeg, Saskatoon, Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver.

Check out The Coast’s round-up of all the big shows coming to Halifax in 2024.

🗞️ In Other News

🍂 Tick researchers warn that Nova Scotia’s mild winter means a longer season for the bug and higher chance of tick-borne diseases.

❄️ Environment Canada has issued a special weather statement, saying “significant early spring snowfall” between 10-20 cms is possible from tonight through Friday morning.

🦠 The family of a South Shore man who died of strep A is warning Nova Scotians about the virus as provincial health authorities say they’re grappling with an uptick in cases.

🚔 The Nova Scotia-New Brunswick border is back open after police shut down the highway due to carbon-price protestors on Monday.

🪴 Mi’kmaw entrepreneurs are asserting their right to sell cannabis amid police crackdowns and provincial laws that restrict the sale to Crown corporations.

🎉 Mark your calendars! Open City, the annual celebration of the small businesses that make our communities vibrant and welcoming, is taking place on Saturday, May 11.*

🍲 One local non-profit says an affordability crisis prompted a higher-than-usual turnout for its free, annual Easter dinner.

🛍️ A Halifax craft vendor group wants to give underrepresented artisans a chance to grow their business.

*Sponsored Post

2024 SEX + DATING SURVEY

Coast readers share their most awkward run-ins with exes

April in Halifax is a time marked by three resurgences: Cruise ships, potholes and Haligonians venturing out of their homes for the first glimpse of sun in weeks. It’s a cold, wet and windy place to live from December through March, which makes Halifax a good place to hunker down if you’re looking for a partner to keep you warm through the winter. (Small and isolated outposts can be cozy, or so they say.)

But—like the potholes that litter Halifax’s streets—that same smallness can feel awfully bumpy when you run into an old flame. And there’s a whole lot more potential for those run-ins when you can’t hide behind a toque and three layers of Gore-Tex.

In our annual Halifax Sex + Dating Survey, we asked Coast readers to share their most awkward run-ins with exes. Read on for all the best replies.

🗓️ Things To Do

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

🗓 Red Like Fruit: Governor General Award-winning playwright Hannah Moscovitch’s newest work makes its world premiere at the Bus Stop Theatre tonight. The play “interrogates the many contradictions and complexities of complicity, consent, patriarchy and traumatic memory in the post-#MeToo era.” | Apr. 3-21 | Showtimes vary | From $20

🗓 David Jalbert and Charles Richard-Hamelin: See two celebrated Canadian pianists perform Mozart, Rachmaninov and Schubert, among other classics, at The Stage at St. Andrew’s this Saturday. | Apr. 6 | 7:30pm | From $12.50

Find more Halifax events in The Coast listings.

⚓️ What’s In The Harbour

➡️ The CMA CGM A. Lincoln container ship leaves Halifax for New York City around 5am.

🚢 The 63,069-tonne MSC Cornelia container ship is expected to arrive in Halifax from Montreal around 6:15am. It departs for Sines, Portugal, at 5pm.

🚢 The 296-metre-long Atlantic Sea container ship is due to arrive at Halifax’s Fairview Cove Terminal from Norfolk, VA, around 3:20pm. It leaves for Liverpool, UK, at 11pm.

🚢 The ONE Blue Jay container ship is slated to arrive in Halifax—a day behind schedule—from Colombo, Sri Lanka, around 3:45pm.

🚢 The MSC Shristi container ship is expected to arrive in Halifax from Montreal around 4:15pm.

➡️ The 37,515-tonne East Coast oil tanker leaves Halifax for Saint John, NB, around 6pm.

➡️ The MSC Sao Paulo V departs Halifax for Sines, Portugal, around 6pm.

🚢 The 55,547-tonne Atlantic Sun container ship is due at Fairview Cove from Liverpool, UK, around 9:50pm.

🛍️ Shop Talk

🍺 Dartmouth’s Brightwood Brewery has closed its taproom after a “tough” year to “focus on restructuring the business,” its owners announced on social media.

That’s it!

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