🗞️ The bodycam plan

Happy Monday Halifax,

Stop me if you’ve heard this one:

What do Justin Trudeau and my former drinking self have in common?

Neither can take a hint that it’s time to leave the party! 💀

The prime minister has returned to Ottawa, where the calls for his resignation have only intensified. Liberal MPs will gather on Wednesday for a special national caucus meeting—a meeting that is certain to be both lengthy and awkward—for the first time since the PM told them he would “take the holidays to reflect on calls for him to step down as party leader.”

Multiple Liberal MPs hope it will bring to an end the months of private and public efforts to try to force Trudeau to step down. Regional caucuses in Ontario, Quebec and here in the Atlantic provinces have either written letters calling for Trudeau to step down or delivered that message verbally to the party leadership. 

Wait, do rich white men just not know about going with grace? That actually would explain so much.

I’m here all week 🎤 

– Julie

🌡️ Traffic & Weather

Today: 🌤️ -3°

Tomorrow: ☁️ -3°

Next Day: ☁️ -3°

7-day forecast

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

CITY HALL

 About those bodycams the police want

Halifax’s municipal budget pre-season picks up in 2025 where it left off at the end of 2024, when the Halifax Regional Police presented their budget to the police oversight board. HRP proposed a budget that could mark the real start of defunding the police in the HRM. It was the same budget presentation where Haligonians learned that a tank-like armoured personnel carrier was back on the list of the police’s funding requests. 

The HRP are also likely to get bodycams this year, as the Board of Police Commissioners has been working on implementing the cameras since 2021. The hold-up was a policy framework, which has now been created to the board’s satisfaction. It would take an unexpected turn of events for the cams not to get funding this year. 

Body-worn cameras are a controversial piece of police gear for many reasons: there’s not much conclusive evidence they improve public safety, and there are privacy concerns. Even so, implementing the surveillance tech is likely a good move for Halifax for an unexpected reason. 

For more on bodycams, The Coast’s Matt Stickland puts them under a lens to bring the debate into focus.   

🤔 Need To Know

💜 Experts on domestic violence say a series of deaths in Nova Scotia over the past three months highlight the need to improve funding for the programs that battle the root causes of intimate partner violence.

🚨 Halifax police say the 39-year-old man who allegedly killed a woman and her father on New Year’s Eve was a fugitive wanted in a 2019 Toronto nightclub shooting that injured four people.

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⚖️ Two Nova Scotia teens have been convicted of manslaughter in the stabbing death of a third teen last April in Halifax—Ahmad Al Marrach was stabbed in a parking garage at the Halifax Shopping Centre. 

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EDUCATION

Nominations open for future Black and Indigenous Speaker Series scholars

Ahead of African Heritage Month this February, Mount Saint Vincent University is accepting nominations for the next presenter in its biannual Black and Indigenous Speaker Series. Until Jan 31, people are encouraged to submit their request using this form to invite a Black and/or Indigenous scholar to MSVU to share their work through an online presentation and conversation, which will be open to the public. 

Speakers nominated for the series, per MSVU’s website, “should identify as Black, Indigenous (First Nations, Métis, and Inuit) or Aboriginal; be an active contributor to an academic discipline or professional field; and be affiliated with an academic institution, research institution, or college.” 

The Coast’s Lauren Phillips has more on the nomination process.

🗞️ In Other News

🛬 Emergency responders were dispatched to the Halifax Stanfield International Airport in response to an aircraft emergency on Saturday afternoon—the inbound aircraft reported cabin pressure issues and triggered the emergency response.

🏒 The CEO of Hockey Canada says she is “disappointed” by Canada’s early exit from the World Junior Hockey Championships—adding that the national sports organization will do what’s necessary to avoid a repeat.

🔬 St. Francis Xavier University researchers have built a first-of-its-kind simulation facility to test methane measurement technology for landfills, as the waste sector looks for new ways to reduce and collect emissions in the fight against global warming.

⚖️ The children of a Pictou County man accused of sexually abusing them when they were minors are disappointed a judge would not accept his guilty plea in Nova Scotia Supreme Court on Thursday.

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🗓️ Things To Do

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

🗓 Open Waters Festival 2025: This iconic festival celebrates the flow of new and improvised music from varied sources. A plunge into surging headwaters of creativity, with new music for the new year, all of it Upstream from the mainstream. Immerse yourself in fresh music — come on in, the water’s fine. | Jan 8-12 | From $64

🗓 Spontaneity's Improv Cage Match: C​heer on your favourite team as they battle it out for a cash prize. These improvisers will be bringing their biggest and best improv to the stage for this round robin tournament, so come ready to laugh and cast your vote! | Jan 9 | 7pm | $15

🗓 Halifax Live Comedy Club Presents Luke Lawrence: Stand-up comedian and writer Luke Lawrence has been entertaining audiences for years in Newfoundland, and now he’s bringing the laughs to Halifax! You may have seen him on Just For Laughs or dropping in on the Best Kind Comedy Tour with the by's! | Jan 10 and 11 | 7pm | $26

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

⚓️ What’s In The Harbour

➡️ The NYK Constellation container ship leaves Halifax for Southampton at 3am.

➡️ The America container ship leaves Halifax for New York at 5am.

➡️ The Rt. Paul E Martin container ship leaves Halifax for Baltimore at 5:21am.

➡️ The One Stork container ship leaves Halifax for Singapore at 5:45am.

🚢 The Nord Ling general cargo ship arrives in Halifax from Portsmouth at 7:30am.

🚢➡️ The Vivienne Sheri D container ship arrives in Halifax from Portland at 8:15am and leaves for Argentia at 4pm.

🚢➡️ The Frisian Octa general cargo ship arrives in Halifax from Port Esquivel at 6:50am and leaves for Moa at 6pm.

🚢 The East Coast oil tanker arrives in Halifax from St. John’s at 10:40pm.

🍴 Where To Eat & Drink

🍮 The weather outside is chilly, but the Miso Sticky Toffee Pudding at Water Polo will warm you right up: topped with miso caramel and sake gelato.

🍕 2025 is off to a great start at Morris East where the pizza of the month is Donair: donair meat, cherry tomatoes, diced onions, mozzarella, arugula, house-made donair sauce.

👀 In Case You Missed It

📻 The station that began as a student radio club celebrates 40 years on the FM dial this February—with a party and a call-out for memories. What started as a radio club in 1964 began broadcasting five years later from what was then the brand-new Dalhousie Student Union Building. The Coast’s Lauren Phillips has more on the 40th birthday of CKDU—the campus-and-community radio station that has become a local institution. 

🎙️ Years before Aaron Williams and RC Shaw became published authors, each with a pair of books under their belt, the friends and former University of King’s College classmates had a fever-induced idea one night. Flash forward seven years, and what started as a lark has come true: Williams and Shaw are the new co-hosts of Further Reading, a podcast about the craft of writing. The Coast’s Martin Bauman chats with the two about finding their groove as hosts.

That’s it!

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