🗞️ Progress prevention

Good morning!

Stick em up 🙌 This is a non-hostile newsletter intro takeover by everyone’s favourite City Hall reporter Matt Stickland ⬇️

I’ve been covering City Hall for about five years now, and for the longest time, I have not been able to figure out why the city of Halifax can’t seem to do anything. 

In 2019, I knew next to nothing about city planning. So when I came across the suburban Ponzi scheme, I thought that was it: The city has no money, so obviously that’s why things aren’t getting better. 

But it turned out that can’t be right, because even without enough money the city has managed to take action with the Centre Plan and on more recent things, like police reform.

Maybe we’re spending our limited resources on the wrong things? Investigating the Department of Public Works budgets led me to write the Otago Drive trilogy and learn that we are hemorrhaging money on automotive infrastructure. However, the city has multiple strategic plans going back to at least 2018, which all identify automotive infrastructure as a fiscal (and health, environmental and physics) problem that needs to be solved. But with the priorities clear and council able to act without enough money, why haven’t those plans been happening? 

I got thinking it was a lack of political will. The council we elected in October seems strong. They have been asking hard questions and getting answers. But it feels unlikely they are so much different than previous councils, especially when most of the new-look councillors were previously on council. 

Then Friday’s meeting happened, and finally I have an answer to the question: Why don’t things get better in Halifax? 

But the answer is a lot longer than I have space for here. To start digging into it, let’s pick this up below, under the heading “Why things don’t get better in Halifax.”

– Matt

🌡️ Traffic & Weather

Today: 🌨️ -4°

Tomorrow: 🌨️ -8°

Next Day: 🌨️ 0°

7-day forecast

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

MUSIC

How Aysanabee’s late grandfather sparked the singer-songwriter’s latest tour

Aysanabee isn’t superstitious, but these days he’s having a hard time chalking some things up to mere coincidence. Fresh off an Australian tour, the two-time JUNO Award-winner from Sandy Lake First Nation is embarking on his first headlining trip across eastern Canada. It’s a big moment for the Oji-Cree singer-songwriter: His breakout EP, Here and Now, nabbed the barrel-voiced baritone a pair of awards for “Songwriter of the Year” and “Alternative Album of the Year” at last year’s JUNOs in Halifax.

Now, the multi-instrumentalist finds himself coming back to Halifax as part of a seven-show Nova Scotia leg on his two-month, 23-city tour. 

And as he tells The Coast’s Martin Bauman, it’s got his late grandfather’s fingerprints all over it.

🤔 Need To Know

👀 Halifax police are asking for help finding a missing teenager: 13-year-old Emma Jackson was last seen on Friday, February 7 at about 3pm in Dartmouth.

🇺🇸 US president Don Trump said he is serious about wanting Canada to become the 51st state in an interview that aired Sunday during the Super Bowl preshow.

👋 Premier Tim Houston is getting rid of Communications Nova Scotia—the agency that has provided communications advice and marketing services to successive Nova Scotia governments for almost 30 years.

SPONSORED BY CANADIAN MUSEUM OF IMMIGRATION AT PIER 21

Award-winning documentary—Free screening

Celebrate African Heritage Month with an award-winning NFB documentary screening at the Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21.

Join us for a FREE screening of A Mother Apart, a powerful documentary that explores the strength of family and heritage featuring powerhouse Jamaican-American poet and LGBTQ+ activist Staceyann Chin as she re-images the essential art of mothering—having been abandoned by her own mother. The film was screened at the 2024 Inside Out Film and Video Festival, where it won the juried awards for Best Canadian Film and Best First Feature Film, and the audience award for Best Documentary Film.

In partnership with National Film Board of Canada. Supported by TD Bank Ready Commitment.

CITY HALL

Why things don’t get better in Halifax

On Jan 14, city staff told council that the progress on council’s Strategic Priorities were tracked by Key Performance Indicators, but that those KPIs weren’t related to tangible outcomes—they were chosen based on how well they could be used in writing reports. 

On Jan 28, when council was debating the plans for the Windsor Street Exchange redesign, councillor Sam Austin asked Department of Public Works staff what they would do with fewer restrictions: Would the plan look different if they designed it in line with council’s priorities around non-car transportation? DPW staff said no, because they haven’t started doing the planning to make Halifax Transit a priority across the city, even though they were instructed to do this planning 2018. 

Then, last Friday, Feb 7, during a special meeting of the Budget Committee, rookie councillor Laura White stepped to the mic. She asked if DPW ever considers removing car lanes from Halifax Transit priority corridors. HRM’s manager of transportation planning, Mike Connors, told her that they’d consider it, and they’d love to prioritize buses like that, but it’s that cars are so important. Except cars are not important, and council, through a half dozen strategic plans, has instructed the Department of Public Works to specifically de-prioritize cars in planning. 

That’s when the penny dropped.

Nothing's getting better in Halifax because transportation plays such a huge role in our lives, and Halifax’s DPW is choosing to ignore council’s instructions while planning and building a city that’s making things worse.

🗞️ In Other News

🇨🇦  Premier Houston will be joining his counterparts across the country for a trip to Washington, DC this week—the delegation plans to meet with US political and business leaders to remind them of the benefits of free trade to both countries. They’ll probably also talk about the 25% tariff on all steel and aluminum imports that Trump announced late Monday.

⚠️ A 35-year-old Halifax man has been identified as the victim killed in a violent New Brunswick home invasion that resulted in an emergency alert being sent out last week.

💰 A woman from Lower Sackville has been awarded $49K under the Nova Scotia Intimate Images and Cyber Protection Act, after her partner shared an intimate image of her on a website for advertising sex work.

🖋️ A petition launched by the Heritage Trust of Nova Scotia to save the Halifax Alehouse is gaining momentum after the city received an application from a local developer to demolish the building.

📱 The purchase of part of local internet provider City Wide by a subsidiary of Vancouver-headquartered Telus is part of a larger trend that's seen smaller independent companies snapped up by big telecoms.

SPONSORED BY NEPTUNE THEATRE

The New Canadian Curling Club

A small town organizes a Learn-to-Curl class for newcomers. When the organizer breaks her hip, a former champion curler (with his own opinions about immigrants) steps in as coach. A hilarious and uplifting story about a group of unlikely athletes confronting prejudice and embracing their new identity.

On stage February 25-March 23. Tickets starting at $33. Book Today!

🗓️ Things To Do

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

🗓 Dine Around Halifax: Dine Around is back for the month of February. Savour special menus from your favourite Halifax restaurants, priced at $10, $20, $30, $40, $50 or $60. | Feb 1-28  

🗓 Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony: Experience a nature-inspired musical story, with each of the five movements depicting a different aspect of nature, such as a babbling brook, a thunderstorm and a shepherd’s song. With a joyful and optimistic tone, the Pastoral Symphony is a celebration of nature’s beauty and power. | Feb 13 | 7:30pm | From $31

🗓 Key Frames Presents KIKI: This African Heritage Month, Key Frames presents KIKI, a 2016 documentary film that explores the lives of LGBTQ+ youth-of-colour in New York City’s underground Ballroom scene. Following seven youths over four years, the film explores how challenges can be overcome through artistic exploration, producing a community scene that validates lived experiences and gender expressions. | Feb 13 | 7pm

🗓 Afishionado Oyster Shucking Workshop & Tasting: Your tickets gets you 12 oysters, snacks and sparkling wine. You will learn about how oysters are cultivated and how to shuck your own oysters while sampling some different oysters from around the Maritimes. | Feb 13 | 6:30pm | $40

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

SPONSORED BY VAUGHNCO ENTERTAINMENT

The Highwaymen Show Tribute this weekend!

The Highwaymen Show is the Great American Outlaw musical tribute celebrating the world’s most recognized classic country artists. This show features a cast portraying the parts of Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings and Kris Kristofferson, as they looked in their prime. They feature songs like “Always on My Mind,” “Ring of Fire,” “Me and Bobby McGee” and “Luckenbach Texas.”

⚓️ What’s In The Harbour

➡️ The CB Pacific merchant chemical ship leaves Halifax for Montreal at 6am.

🚢 The CSL Tacoma arrives in Halifax from Port Canaveral at 6:21am.

🚢➡️ The Bakkafoss container ship arrives in Halifax from Portland, ME at 4:45pm and  leaves for Argentia at 11pm.

🍴 Where To Eat & Drink

🍔 This week’s burger feature at The Armview is the Hurts So Good: smashed beef patties, waffle fries, onion rings, cheese curds, bacon, gravy and ketchup.

🥥 Dreaming of a hot and sunny vacation? Get a little of that tropical indulgence in every bite with the Torta al Cocco at The Bicycle Thief: coconut sponge cake, pineapple curd, dark rum caramelized pineapple.

👀 In Case You Missed It

📱 What started out as just a realm of entertainment, information and chat rooms, the internet has evolved into a gateway for accessing basic public services, and educational and economic opportunities. It is a lifeline that connects people to society; and society to them. The Coast’s Julie Lawrence explores the importance of digital inclusion for Halifax’s sex workers, and how one Nova Scotia organization is helping them get connected.

🖼️ This February, African Heritage Month, let the Dalhousie Art Gallery be a beacon for community power, intergenerational knowledge sharing and creative resistance. From Feb 4 through Apr 27, the DAG is hosting three synchronous art shows to celebrate the communities of African Nova Scotians—their histories, artists, poets, teachers, families, heroes and bonds of faith. The Coast’s Lauren Phillips talks to DAG curators Pamela Edmonds and Fabiyino Germain-Bajowa about the themes that bond these shows together—and why now is the time to reflect.

That’s it!

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