🗞️ Platitude posturing

Good morning my friends,

A new Canadian beverage company is making waves and I have thoughts.

Two women from Toronto have started Barbet—a sparkling beverage company that “redefines connection”—by designing a can that looks like a booze can, but is filled with sparkling water in such classic flavour combinations as cucumber-pineapple-lavender. Their MO is to help address the “social stigma” that comes from the “deeply personal” decision to quit drinking.

“Sober January,” “Dry January,” “Living in a dark hole of post-holiday shame January”—whatever you want to call it—the new year makes a lot of people take a look at their alcohol consumption. And that’s awesome; if you don’t like who you are when you drink, by all means, take a break and re-evaluate.

As a participant in the less catchy “stay sober or I’ll die month” (aka all months), I can say with absolute certainty that the last thing you need to worry about when you’re newly sober is spending a bunch of money on a pricey can of lavender-infused seltzer so that people don’t ask you why you’re not drinking.

First of all, literally nobody cares. Not once in my 5.5 years of sobriety has anyone earnestly asked me why I’m not drinking (mostly they’re just deeply grateful). Second, this assumes that not drinking is somehow a negative, when it is absolutely a huge positive.

Social stigmas are not dispelled by hiding your water in a boozy-looking can, they’re dispelled by standing in your power and showing that you aren’t ashamed that you have made the decision to stop dumping poison in your system and then acting like an asshole.

You’re doing great out there!

– Julie

🌡️ Traffic & Weather

Today: 🌨️ -9°

Tomorrow: ☀️ -4°

Next Day: 🌨️ -5°

7-day forecast

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

NEWS + OPINION

BOPC needs to be more pro-police

Halifax’s Board of Police Commissioners met last week, ostensibly to debate the city’s two police budgets, although they did more rubber stamping than critical thinking. The RCMP are asking for 14 new officers, which will bring the total cost of RCMP policing to about $40 million in the HRM. Meanwhile, the Halifax Regional Police are asking for a slew of new civilian hires and bodycams. The HRP’s budget would be a good progressive budget in line with council’s efforts at police reform, if it weren’t for the pesky purchase of an armoured personnel carrier. 

The chair of Halifax’s independent police oversight body, Gavin Giles, tends to go to great lengths to reassure police officers that public concerns about police harms are overblown. In previous meetings he has said that the public’s criticisms are canned and banal, designed to titillate and annoy rather than to inform or teach. Which is a bit rich coming from the guy who used appeals to emotion rather than facts to justify his ardent support of police in last week’s meeting.

The police as an institution are in a bit of a crisis. The cost of policing is going up with no added benefit to municipalities for that increased spending. On top of that, as police are asked to do more, it is increasing costs and hurting police officers. The board could be spending their time changing policing policy to prevent injuries to police. Instead, the board is content sending scorn to the public while offering supportive platitudes—and bigger budgets—to the police. 

But if the board says it supports the police but doesn’t back it up with policies to protect them, then who’s the one making canned and banal statements? The Coast’s Matt Stickland digs into the board’s platitude posturing.

🤔 Need To Know

🫖 A Boil Water Advisory announced Monday remains in effect for several communities in HRM, including the whole peninsula, Beaver Bank, Middle and Lower Sackville, Bedford, Fall River, Spryfield and surrounding areas—Halifax Water says the Boil Water Advisory is due to a power outage at the Pockwock Lake Treatment Facility.

🚨 Halifax Regional Police say a suspicious death that took place in Dartmouth over the weekend has been ruled a homicide.

🍸 Halifax bartender Keegan McGregor has won the World Class Global Bartender of the Year award—a global competition described as “the Olympics of bartending.”

🪧 Halifax could soon see its first-ever large-scale private sector janitorial strike as early as next week—300 unionized workers are poised to walk off the job on Monday should talks set for the end of this week fail to produce a new contract. 

*Sponsored Post

LISTEN

The Grand Parade podcast: Did HRM staff try to pull a fast one on council?

Ever tried to hide a bad report card from your parents as a kid? Then maybe you’ll recognize this move.

Last week, when Halifax Regional Municipality staff gave councillors an update on how the city’s key priorities are progressing (short answer: poorly), they did so rather subtly. Not with a presentation, where councillors could ask, say, questions about the city’s lack of progress toward its goals, but instead in the form of an information item attached to the Jan 14 meeting’s agenda. 

It isn’t hard to see why staff might’ve wanted to brush over the report’s findings: Of the 85 council priorities staff tracked over three years, the report concluded that nearly half (45%) showed little to no progress or that “results are worsening.” That includes, notably, council’s goal of creating affordable communities.

This week on The Grand Parade podcast, The Coast’s Matt Stickland and Martin Bauman host an emergency episode to talk through the staff update and why the HRM is falling short of its goals. Plus, the two dig into Halifax Regional Police’s request for an armoured police carrier and the Board of Police Commissioners’ decision to approve it.

🗞️ In Other News

🏠 “This is my home”—one Halifax renter is stuck in a waiting game for a demolition timeline on her apartment at the corner of Willow and Robie Streets, which she has lived in for almost 26 years.

🛣️ The province is planning to spend half a million dollars on highway projects, bridge replacements and infrastructure work as part of a multi-year plan—according to the minister of public works.

✏️ A growing number of university students across the country are reporting disabilities—and receiving academic accommodations like extra time for exams and assignments, note-taking assistance, a quiet space to write tests and reduced course loads—with Maritime institutions leading the way.

🛬 An advocacy group for airport safety is calling for an investigation into a recent rough landing at the Halifax airport that resulted in an engine fire and evacuation—73 passengers and four crew members were on board the Air Canada Express flight when it landed on Dec 28.

🚔 Three 18-year-olds and two youths are facing charges after another youth was stabbed in Wileville earlier this month. Lunenburg District RCMP received a report on Jan 12 that a family member was taking a youth to hospital after an assault.

🇺🇸 On his first day in office, American president Donald Trump pardoned, commuted the prison sentences or vowed to dismiss the cases of all of the 1,500-plus people charged with crimes in the Jan 6 US Capitol riot—including people convicted of assaulting police officers.

SPONSORED BY NEPTUNE THEATRE

Controlled Damage: The story of Civil Rights icon Viola Desmond

Controlled Damage highlights Viola Desmond's legacy as a trailblazing Black businesswoman and community leader, and how her courage to fight racial segregation came at a deeply personal cost. Controlled Damage is a portrait of a tenacious and fearless woman.

On November 8, 1946, Halifax business owner Viola Desmond went to a movie at the Roseland Theatre in New Glasgow. Unaware that she was sold a lower-priced ticket for the balcony, where Black patrons were expected to sit, Viola took a seat on the main floor: the whites-only section. Although she offered to pay the one-cent tax difference, Viola was dragged from the theatre, jailed and charged.

Viola Desmond—a woman who took a stand against racial discrimination, by taking a seat at a theatre.

On stage until February 2. Tickets start at $33. Book Today.

SPONSORED BY BLUENOSE HEALTH PRIMARY CARE CLINIC

New Open Access Clinic

"Walk in by appointment" available to the public every Tuesday evening for acute infections such as sore throat, urinary tract infections, productive cough, ear ache, diarrhoea and vomiting, cuts and grazes, acute musculoskeletal issues and acute gout. Please call 902-707-5404 or email [email protected] for more information and booking.

🗓️ Things To Do

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

🗓 Divert NS Presents Ocean Action Day: ​Dive into a day full of excitement, discovery and action in the newly refreshed Divert NS Ocean Action Zone. Have you ever wondered about the impact of microplastics on our oceans or how everyday waste influences the environment? Discover how you can make a powerful difference for our blue planet and learn innovative ways to protect it! | Jan 25 | 9am | $17.50

🗓 South End Vintage Market: ​Whether you’re a student looking for some new-to-you room decor, or a Haligonian looking to kick off your year of buying local, the South End Vintage Market has something for everyone! | Jan 25 | 11am | $2

🗓 While We Wait: The award-winning, local theatre company Gale Force Theatre's most recent offering for children and their adult follows the year in the life of a young girl named Leo as she discovers a magical garden shed. How do we face unwanted change? What can the natural world tell us about presence, control and connection if we watch and listen? This delightful piece features live scoring by percussionist Erin Donovan, tabletop and shadow puppets, and is an enchanting introduction to live theatre. | Jan 25-26 | From $10

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

⚓️ What’s In The Harbour

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

➡️ The One Falcon container ship leaves Halifax for New York at 6am.

🚢 The Acadian oil tanker leaves Halifax for Charlottetown at 6am.

🚢 The Oceanex Sanderling container ship arrives in Halifax from St. John’s at 12:20pm.

🍴 Where To Eat & Drink

🥪 The “beet” goes on with this week’s special at Tart and Soul: pastrami spice roasted beets, apple fennel slaw, horseradish aioli, green, swiss, caraway and onion crusted bun. 

🥐 Drop by Two If By Sea for the Lemon Pie croissant: zesty lemon curd, sweet vanilla glaze, graham cracker crumble.

👀 In Case You Missed It

🎓 “We need to have these conversations more,” Michelle Mahoney, the first accessibility officer at the University of King’s College, tells The Coast. Mahoney is talking about a new lecture series called “Representations of Disability in Historical, Scientific and Artistic Perspectives.” For more about the series, which started this week, Lauren Phillips has the full story at The Coast.

💜 In the nine months since former Nova Scotia justice minister Brad Johns told a pool of reporters that he didn’t consider domestic violence to be an epidemic, 10 women have been killed in the province. In nine of those deaths, the accused killers are the women’s husbands, boyfriends or sons. The Coast’s Martin Bauman looks back at Johns’ comments from last April and what we know about every woman killed in the province since then.

That’s it!

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