Stephen Kimber

Stephen Kimber is the Rogers Communications Chair in Journalism at the University of King's College in Halifax. He is an award-winning writer, editor and broadcaster.

His writing has appeared in almost all major Canadian publications including Canadian Geographic, Financial Post Magazine, Maclean's, En Route, Chatelaine, Financial Times, the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star and the National Post. He has written one novel — Reparations — and six non-fiction books. Website: http://www.stephenkimber.com.

Redistricting time

Jun 122012

Canadian politics

Time to put boundaries on the electoral boundaries commission.

Redistricting time

Time to put boundaries on the electoral boundaries commission.

Dateline: Tuesday, June 12, 2012

by Stephen Kimber for Metro

Premier Darrell Dexter is right that the province's Electoral Boundaries Commission was wrong to ignore its mandate to eliminate designated minority ridings. But his government was wrong to force that mandate on the commission in the first place.

Let's rewind. There's a legal requirement that an electoral boundaries commission be established every so often to determine the appropriate number, size, shape and composition of the province's voting districts.

NDP Finance Minister quits

Jun 062012

Canadian politics

Graham Steele no softy; maybe he does want family time.

by Stephen Kimber for Metro

Last week's surprise cabinet shuffle raises are all sorts of intriguing questions.

For starters, did Finance Minister Graham Steele jump, or was he pushed? If he jumped, was it because of a tiff with Premier Darrell Dexter over the province's fiscal future?

Does Steele want Dexter's job? If so, is quitting just a John-Turner/Jean-Chretien/Paul-Martin/Harry-Houdini return-to-win-another-day tactic?

NDP Finance Minister quits

Jun 052012

Canadian politics

Graham Steele no softy; maybe he does want family time.

by Stephen Kimber for Metro

Last week's surprise cabinet shuffle raises are all sorts of intriguing questions.

For starters, did Finance Minister Graham Steele jump, or was he pushed? If he jumped, was it because of a tiff with Premier Darrell Dexter over the province's fiscal future?

Does Steele want Dexter's job? If so, is quitting just a John-Turner/Jean-Chretien/Paul-Martin/Harry-Houdini return-to-win-another-day tactic?

Power company: profit down, salaries up

May 142012

Canadian politics

Emera power company salary increases raise some questions.

by Stephen Kimber for Metro

The news that senior executives at Emera and its wholly owned, profit-protected subsidiary, Nova Scotia Power, topped their million-plus, one-per-center-club-members-in-good-standing pay packets with raises from 20 to 30 percent last year, prompts all sorts of intriguing questions.

For starters, how many of the company's secretaries sat on the compensation committee? The short answer: none.

And how many of Emera's pensioner shareholders clutching their 10-share legacies for their grandchildren were invited to weigh in this larcenous largesse? Ditto.

School proselytizing

May 082012

Canadian politics

The Great Yellow Jesus T-shirt Fooforaw finally finishes.

by Stephen Kimber for Metro

One hopes there was more to last week's Great Yellow Jesus T-Shirt Fooforaw than we now know. One hopes. Otherwise… What we do know is that William Swinimer, 19, a Grade 12 student at Forest Heights Community School in Chester Basin, a born-again Christian and member of the Jesus the Good Shepherd Pentecostal Church in Bridgewater, wore a bright yellow T-shirt to school emblazoned with the words "Life is wasted without Jesus."

Someone claimed the message constituted an attack on their religious beliefs.

School officials asked Swinimer not to wear it.

Swinimer kept on wearing it.

Heath care contract: adding and subtracting

May 012012

Canadian politics

Tense negotiations affect patient care, even with a settlement.

by Stephen Kimber

Last week’s to-the-edge-of-the-ledge, past-the-last-minute contract settlement between Capital Health and its 3,600 health workers raises all sorts of difficult but intriguing questions.

Province vs school board

Apr 222012

Canadian politics

Nova Scotia school boards have responsibility without authority.

by Stephen Kimber for Metro

Why don't we cut to the chase? Is it time to eliminate elected school boards and let the provincial government shoulder real responsibility/blame/credit for how our schools are operated/paid for?

Nova Scotia’s deficit dragon

Apr 022012

Canadian politics

Investing might bring a better return than austerity measures.

by Stephen Kimber for Metro

In the all-too-brief interregnum between Thursday's bad-news federal budget and tomorrow's more-bad-news provincial budget, it's worth noting the across-the-board, cost-cutting Kool Aid fiscal policy makers in Ottawa and Halifax have swallowed is not the only — or necessarily best — way to slay the deficit dragon.

The Nova Scotia branch of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, for example, a progressive think tank, recently released its annual alternative provincial budget. Its Forward to Fairness document calls for "strategic investments" while finding "creative ways to save money and increase revenue." Instead of rushing to balance the budget in 2013-14 "to fit the timing of the electoral cycle," the CCPA wants the government to stretch the back-to-balance timetable to 2015-16 to "reflect the actual fiscal situation."

Expensive legacy bid

Mar 272012

Canadian politics

Peter Kelly's stadium dream our nightmare

by Stephen Kimber for Metro

The stadium is dead. Long live the dream. But let's keep it a dream instead of the reality turning into a taxpayers' nightmare.

A brief history is in order. Peter Kelly, our in-search-of-a-legacy-to-match-his-longevity mayor, has long been eager to have the city to erect an expensive new stadium, most recently — and urgently — in the faint hope we might somehow complete it in time to host a few FIFA Women's World Cup soccer matches in 2015.

Keep in mind Kelly previously tried to saddle us with that costly Commonwealth Games white elephant. And still wants us to invest in his convention centre fantasy.

After the Halifax transit strike

Mar 192012

Canadian politics

Neither side won public approval.

by Stephen Kimber for Metro

Now that transit buses are transiting the city and ferries finally ferrying passengers, let's take one last, un-fond look back at what went wrong and where we go from here.

Older Entries Newer Entries