🗞️ Vacay nay-say

Good morning Halifax,

We had barely rung in 2025 when another Nova Scotia woman was killed by her male partner. Within days of that, yet another woman was dead and so was her husband. They are the latest in an unprecedented string of femicides in the province since October: six women killed, their male partners implicated.

The community is taking action with a march today and rising up in solidarity to demand an urgent, epidemic-level response. If you care about the safety of women and are as distressed as we all are by the recent femicides, I encourage you to join.

Here’s how the event will go down:

• 11:30 am – Beginning at Halifax Regional Police headquarters on Gottingen Street

• 12:15-12:30 pm – Arriving at Grand Parade

• 12:50 pm – Proceed to NS Legislature

• 1:00 pm – Final remarks

The goal of the community response is to come together to honour victims, demand change, support and empower survivors, raise awareness, promote solidarity and inspire a whole-society response.

Let’s do this! 💜

– Julie

📷 @editorjulesl

🌡️ Traffic & Weather

Today: 🌨️ -1°

Tomorrow: 🌤️ 0°

Next Day: 🌨️ -4°

7-day forecast

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

CITY HALL

Halifax mayor vacations in the Caribbean as council debates homelessness

Last week, most of Halifax's city council tried to debate the future of public safety services in the HRM. Only they were missing one key voice from those discussions: The mayor’s. While council waded through a bevy of issues over the course of two days, ranging from emergency response times to Halifax’s approach to homelessness, Andy Fillmore was, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the mayor’s schedule, likely wading into the Caribbean Sea. Or staring out at it, anyway.

Fillmore has been absent from council for two weeks now, including a Feb 7 budget meeting and council’s regular meeting on Feb 11. At first, the mayor’s travel was for work-related reasons: Fillmore attended the Big City Mayors’ caucus in Ottawa on Feb 5. But The Coast has learned that on Valentine’s Day—the same day that council met to resume debating its approach to helping unhoused residents—he was soaking up the Caribbean sunshine. Which is weird for our mayor, because as recently as December, getting rid of homeless people seemed to be our mayor’s top priority.

As Coast city hall reporter Matt Stickland writes, Fillmore’s absence—though not a breach of council rules—caught his colleagues’ attention. And they had plenty to discuss.

🤔 Need To Know

💰 The Nova Scotia government has introduced a $17.6B budget that includes major tax cuts and a reserve fund to be used if the US president makes good on his threat to impose tariffs. Meanwhile, finance minister John Lohr is forecasting a deficit of $697.5M for the 2025-26 fiscal year.

❄️ Just because it’s winter doesn’t mean you have to hibernate — Downtown Halifax is full of year-round adventures! Embrace the magic of winter in the heart of the city.*

🍜 Explore a World of Noodles during Oodles of Noodles on Quinpool Road… the only celebration of noodles in the city! March 5 – 11.*

*Sponsored Post

SPONSORED BY NEPTUNE THEATRE

Hurry Hard!

Canada has a long history of welcoming immigrants and refugees, but we don't always welcome new Canadians as warmly as we should.

Inspired by the local refugee resettlement program, a small town organizes a Learn-to-Curl class to welcome newcomers. But when its organizer slips on the ice and breaks her hip, the rink’s ice maker and former champion curler Stuart MacPhail is forced to step in as head coach. The trouble is, Stuart has some strong opinions about immigrants...

What follows is an inspiring and hilarious story of a group of unlikely athletes who face off against local prejudice and claim their identity as “new Canadians”.  

Hurry hard! Don’t miss the hit comedy about burning rocks, bonspiel beers, and becoming a team.

February 25 - March 23. Tickets start at $33. Book online. 

NEWS

Road salt lowers the risk of deadly collisions—but it’s also killing Halifax’s lakes. What’s the answer?

With more wind and flurries in the forecast, it seems we aren’t quite finished with Halifax’s deep freeze yet—and if you needed any more evidence of just how frozen things have been these past few weeks (beyond, that is, Haligonians using their cul-de-sacs as skating rinks), try looking for sidewalk salt at your nearest hardware store. The shelves are empty. 

Salt has become such a scarce commodity on our piercingly cold peninsula that some Facebook resellers are hoarding bags and charging a premium for it. Which is sad on its own level, but also brings to mind Coast reporter Martin Bauman’s story from last spring on the catch-22 that road and sidewalk salt pose for Halifax’s future.

A growing body of research suggests that HRM’s most-used de-icing tool is harming life in our watershed. And the degree to which road salt is affecting our lakes’ health is reaching levels we haven’t seen before.

🗞️ In Other News

🛬 Flights have resumed at Toronto’s Pearson airport, but two runways are closed as investigators from Canada’s Transportation Safety Board begin their work on what may have caused a plane crash Monday.

🚨 A 29-year-old man from Brookfield is facing an attempted murder charge following a stabbing in Millbrook over the weekend.

🏢 Halifax-based landlord Killam Apartment REIT reported its largest increase in net operating income in Halifax in the last five years—Killam took in $67.3M after subtracting the expenses of operating its buildings.

🇳🇱 Another direct flight to Europe is beginning this summer at Halifax Stanfield International Airport—WestJet has announced that starting May 29, it will be offering non-stop trips to Amsterdam.

🐴 Virtual visitors can now explore Sable Island thanks to two new digital exhibits on Google Arts and Culture—a platform that’s partnered with over 2,000 cultural institutions to share their collections online.

SPONSORED BY AFTERWORDS LITERARY FESTIVAL

The Winter Writing Weekend Returns February 27 to March 2

Find your community at The Winter Writing Weekend. Zoe Whittall gives the keynote address at this cozy virtual writing retreat, and Joshua Whitehead explores intertextuality in creative writing. Plus, workshops with Souvankham Thammavongsa, Danny Ramadan, Francesca Ekwuyasi, and Zoe Whittall. And join the editors of Bad Artist to talk about creativity in a productivity-obsessed world. 

SPONSORED BY HALIFAX RECYCLES

Remember, Food Isn't Garbage!

Did you know that each year, the average household throws away up to 140 kilograms of food that could have been eaten? That’s a lot of food and money wasted.

Do your part by reducing food waste in your home and ensuring anything that can’t be used is disposed of in the green cart! 

Learn more about reducing food waste and proper disposal here.

🗓️ Things To Do

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

🗓 The Comedy Stand Presents - Clare Belford: A fixture in Canadian comedy, Clare has performed at Just For Laughs, the New York Comedy Festival and the Halifax Comedy Festival. She’s been featured on CBC’s New Wave of Stand Up and writes for This Hour Has 22 Minutes. Her razor-sharp wit and deeply personal comedy have made her a favorite across the country, and now she’s bringing the laughs to Bedford! | Feb 20 | 8:00pm | $20 |

🗓 Exhibition - Dinosaur Explorer at Discovery Centre: Don’t miss this jaw-some opportunity to uncover the secrets of the past and explore the connections between dinosaurs and our world today. | Jan 18 - April 27 | 

🗓 South End Vintage Market: Featuring over 25 of the Maritimes’ best vintage sellers, there’s truly something for everyone at this market. Whether you’re looking for vintage clothing and accessories, games, collectibles, home goods or jewellery you’re bound to leave with something new to you and unique! | Feb 22 | 10:00am | Free |

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

⚓️ What’s In The Harbour

➡️ The Frida Bulker bulk carrier leaves Halifax for the Netherlands at 12:30am.

🚢➡️ The Atlantic Sea container ship arrives in Halifax from Norfolk at 3:20pm and leaves for Liverpool at 11pm.

🚢 The Atlantic Sun container ship arrives in Halifax from Norfolk at 6:20pm.

🍴 Where To Eat & Drink

🤌 You’ll be happy to see The Italian Job back on the menu at The Canteen: Genoa salami, fresh mozzarella, roasted tomatoes, arugula and basil pesto on house-made focaccia.

🐉 Make lunch medieval with Notorious Dragon’s Breath Salad at Brooklyn Warehouse: romaine heart, dressing of the dutchman’s dragon’s breath blue cheese, grana padano, caper berries, bacon, grilled lemon and crostini.

👀 In Case You Missed It

🏫 For CUPE school support staff in Nova Scotia, wearing black shirts and hats on Wednesdays was a campaign that started during their last time negotiating a new contract with the province in 2022. Wearing black on Wednesdays became a tangible way for school staff to show support for their union members at the bargaining table–and to connect bargaining for improved contracts to the work they do every day in schools. The Coast’s Lauren Phillips has more on how this round of bargaining has gone for the 5,000 CUPE school support workers in Nova Scotia ahead of another Wednesday campaign.

⚽ Halifax Wanderers head coach Patrice Gheisar has had a busy winter. Two years and three months into his tenure with the Canadian Premier League soccer club, the 49-year-old is approaching the final year of his coaching contract with a familiar challenge: Winning games. As he returns to BMO Soccer Centre for the second week of the Wanderers’ pre-season, he is tasked with bringing together a roster that has undergone several high-profile departures. With Halifax’s first match set for April 5 on the road against Atlético Ottawa, Coast reporter Martin Bauman has you covered with seven things to watch as the CPL team returns to action.

That’s it!

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