Metro - Halifax

HALIFAX - The Nova Scotia government is making more than $300 million available to Irving Shipbuilding Inc. to help it prepare for the construction of the Royal Canadian Navy's next fleet of vessels.

The government's financial assistance package consists of a forgivable capital loan worth up to $260 million and a repayable marine industry loan of $44 million for human resources development.

Irving Shipbuilding says it will spend between $5 million and $10 million annually on capital improvements to its operations over the next 30 years.

That money is over and above what the company is spending to build new infrastructure that's needed to complete the project.

The Irving-owned Halifax Shipyard was the successful bidder for a $25-billion contract to build 21 combat vessels.

The contract is expected to maintain a steady flow of work at the shipyard over the next 20 to 30 years.

HALIFAX - A Halifax navy intelligence officer accused in a case of espionage has been denied bail.

Sub-Lt. Jeffrey Paul Delisle is charged with communicating information that could harm national interests.

Delisle has been in custody at the Central Nova Scotia Correctional Facility since his arrest in January.

Delisle was charged under a section of the Security of Information Act that was passed by the House of Commons after the terrorist attacks on the United States on Sept. 11, 2001.

The RCMP say the charges against Delisle mark the first time that anyone has been charged under that section of the act.

Court documents say one of the alleged offences happened between July 6, 2007, and Jan. 13, 2012, while the other offence is alleged to have happened between Jan. 10 and Jan. 13 of this year.

Delisle also faces a breach of trust charge under the Criminal Code that is alleged to have happened between July 6, 2007, and Jan. 13, 2012.

All the offences are alleged to have happened in or near Halifax, Ottawa and Kingston, Ont.

Up until 2010, Delisle worked for both the Chief of Defence Intelligence and at the Strategic Joint Staff, which oversees virtually every major aspect of the military's domestic and international plans and operations.

He joined the military as a reservist private in 1996 and was posted to the 3 Intelligence Company in Halifax.

He went on to join the regular forces in 2001, was promoted to sergeant before being accepted at university for two years in Kingston as an officer candidate and eventually landed back in Halifax at the army's Atlantic headquarters.

In August of last year, Delisle was posted to Trinity, a highly secure naval intelligence centre in Halifax.

All the stars coming to town for the Juno Awards may get more attention, but the arrival of four musicians from Venezuela might be just as big an event for some local music students.

The Simon Bolivar String Quartet has toured all over the world, but they started out as students in a free music-education program for Venezuelan children known as El Sistema, which inspired similar programs globally, including Ottawa’s own OrKidstra.

“The program basically provides singing opportunities and free music lessons and free instruments and the opportunity to sing or play in an ensemble,” explained Craig MacDonald of the Leading Note Foundation, which runs OrKidstra with the help of charitable donations.

Many students, he added, can’t afford private lessons.

Kids from OrKidstra are scheduled to perform with the Simon Bolivar String Quartet at several of their appearances this weekend. They got their first chance to jam Thursday at Carleton University, where El Sistema’s founder, José Antonio Abreu, was granted an honorary degree.

“It’s amazing how they take in their stride, you know,” MacDonald said.

Neptune Theatre will celebrate its golden anniversary with music, laughter and friends, the theatre’s artistic director says.

George Pothitos unveiled the much-anticipated 2012-13 lineup to a packed Fountain Hall theatre at the launch of the 50th-anniversary season on Thursday.

“I wanted to have a celebration,” Pothitos said in an interview afterwards. “So there’s music, there’s laughter, there’s drama, but there’s also friends. And to me, that’s a party. So that’s what I started out with.”

The season opens in September on the main Fountain Hall stage with the musical thriller Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.

Other highlights include Elf: The Musical, for the holidays, and Legally Blonde: The Musical, to close the season out.

“From new works to celebrated classics, we have something for everyone,” he said. “Sweeney Todd is (everything) a musical can be, but each production is very different.”  

Introduced this year was the Open Spaces program, which was developed to provide a place to perform for Nova Scotia theatre companies with limited funds.

“It’s a part of the celebration. It’s to include other theatre companies in Nova Scotia,” Pothitos said. “It helps theatre branch out.”

As for the 50th anniversary of Neptune, Pothitos hopes the community will come out and celebrate.

“People talk about Neptune in such loving terms, so I hope they will rekindle their passion (this season). They can celebrate by simply seeing plays.”

CanJet has laid off the last 18 flight attendants working out of Halifax, the union says.

Mary Fougere is the union local’s president and one of those who lost her job.

She said they met with the company Monday and learned they were all losing their positions.

“There was no sign leading up to this. We were on the end of a successful winter flying season,” she told Metro on Thursday.

CanJet mainly offered winter routes to sunshine destinations out of Halifax.

“We’re in shock that they’re laying off all the members,” she said.

CanJet could not be reached for comment, but Fougere said the cutbacks were due to a reduction in flights out of Halifax.

The 18 Halifax flight attendants are senior staff and have bumping rights across the country. The nearest base is Montreal. The other bases are in Toronto and Vancouver.  

“They are having to make very tough decisions about relocating,” Fougere said. “They did tell us they had hope that one day they would be able to recall these members.”

She said CanJet did not tell them when any recall would take place. The cuts take effect on April 9.

The province is looking at moving some government offices out of HRM.

“There are some services that could actually be better delivered from communities outside of Halifax,” Premier Darrell Dexter told reporters after Thursday’s throne speech.

Technology these days means that work doesn’t have to be done in Halifax, he said.

Further details, including how many public-sector workers will be impacted and the costs of moving, will come  through the budget, Dexter said.

He did say it “wouldn’t be thousands” of jobs, and employees, unions and departmental stakeholders would be consulted first.

“It will be done in areas it makes sense,” he said, but he was not willing to give examples.

Liberal Leader Stephen McNeil said it needs to be determined if government is moving departments or growing bureaucracy.

Dexter said it’s not growing bureaucracy but putting existing functions in communities where it makes more sense for them to be.

While not opposed to the idea, Tory Leader Jamie Baillie called it an empty promise since it refers to new and consolidating departments, of which there are none at the moment.

Mayor Peter Kelly said he can understand the need to relocate on a small scale if necessary, but he also said HRM is accessible and centrally located in the province.

“As long as there is reason and rationale to go along with it and not carte blanche,” he said.

National Defence took a big hit in Thursday’s federal budget, but this is not expected to affect the shipbuilding contract, said Nova Scotia Finance Minster Graham Steele.

Federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty is trimming $5.2 billion in annual spending, with the National Defence budget receiving the biggest cut of $1.1 billion by 2014-15. Alternatively, the Coast Guard is receiving $5.2 billion over 11 years for new boats and helicopters.

“The federal government says it’s going to keep the regular forces at the same level, that’s promising, so the details on this are yet to come,” Steele said.

He said it appears the cuts won’t affect the shipbuilding contract, but he’d like concrete reassurance from Defence Minister Peter MacKay.

“It’s so important to Nova Scotia’s future,” Steele said.

He said his staff have combed through the budget documents and found nothing that would require the Nova Scotia budget to change.

“I expect to deliver the provincial budget next week as scheduled,” Steele said.

He’s also concerned about the impacts of cuts to the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency ($17.9 million in ongoing reductions), Department of Fisheries and Oceans ($79.3 million) and changes in the business model for the National Research Council.

Mayor Peter Kelly is also worried about the impacts of cuts to defence.

“We wouldn’t want to see any impact to the naval operations,” Kelly said. “I want to make sure it wouldn’t impact that approved (shipbuilding) contract.”

Police say four people were arrested on Wednesday evening, minutes after a man was badly beaten during an armed home invasion in Tantallon.

Halifax RCMP Const. Tammy Lobb said officers made a “spectacular” takedown just after 6:30 p.m., stopping a vehicle full of suspects as it fled the scene. Lobb said police found a firearm in the car, as well as cash.

“Four suspects broke into the home and restrained the residents. An adult man was assaulted with a pipe and suspects used a firearm to threaten them and demand a quantity of cash,” she said.
It is understood the victim’s wife and teenage son were also present.
A source with knowledge of the assault told Metro a blue car pulled up in front of the house and three people wearing hoods and masks raced inside brandishing guns.
The source said the man in the house was tied up and severely beaten. The three assailants ran out of the house and fled in the waiting car, but were stopped by police.
The home invasion happened on Hemlock Drive, in a subdivision with only one main way in and out.
The four people stopped  were in Halifax provincial court on Thursday to face about 70 charges, including break-and-enter, robbery with a firearm, assault causing bodily harm, unlawful confinement and a range of firearms offences.
Police don’t believe the attack was random. The man was taken to hospital and released Thursday.

About 100 people packed the Bloomfield Centre on Thursday night for an HRM presentation on the possible locations for a north-south bike corridor on peninsular Halifax.

David MacIssaac, the HRM staffer making the presentation, said the municipality wants to pull in as many thoughts on the routes as possible.

“What are their priorities for where cycling routes should be on the peninsula?” he said. “We want to hear what type of routes they think would attract more people to ride their bikes.”

The corridors being looked at are Novalea and Gottingen streets; Agricola Street to Bell Road; Windsor Street to Vernon Street; and Connaught Avenue.

About eight per cent of commuter trips on the peninsula are on a bike. HRM wants to double that figure within 20 years.

The new route could be laid as soon as next year, although it could take longer if the selected route is more complicated. The route would be painted on the road and signed.

Depending on where it goes, it would involve losing parking spaces used by residents and businesses, having cyclists riding with varying levels of traffic and having differing levels of connectivity to other bike routes.

Scott Grundy is a north-end resident and frequent cycler. He backs the Argricola route, but says any bike lanes would be an improvement.

“It’s not the safest,” he said.

Target will open its new store at Mic Mac Mall in Dartmouth in the fall of 2013, the U.S. retail chain said Thursday.

The company announced last year it was spending $1.83 billion to take over the leases of as many as 220 Zellers stores across Canada, among them the stores at Bedford Place Mall and Mic Mac Mall.

In a Thursday release, Target said as many as 200 employees will be hired for the Mic Mac Mall store, which will be renovated at a cost of $10 million to $11 million. The release did not mention an opening date for Bedford Place Mall.

The opposition called it a work of fiction, but the governing NDP called it The Future Starts Here.
Lt.-Gov. Mayann Francis delivered her last throne speech to open the fourth session of the 61st general assembly on Thursday.

Employment and economic growth is booming in Nova Scotia, she said.
“Nova Scotia is heading into an era of what promises to be great prosperity,” she said.

Most of the speech revolved around upcoming plans and strategies like the Welcome Home to Nova Scotia, the province’s new immigration strategy, and the Cape Breton Strategic Framework Advancement project.

The province will establish a special operating agency to involve tourism operators and experts to create a long-term tourism strategy. There will also be strategies on improving mental-health and addictions care, fisheries and a mineral incentive program providing financial assistance to prospectors.

In terms of legislation, Status of the Artist legislation will be introduced this spring session to “reflect the importance of art and culture to Nova Scotians.” There’s also a new cleaner-energy framework and a Fish Harvesters Registration and Certification Act on the way.

At best lacking and at worst “fiction,” Liberal Leader Stephen McNeil and Tory Leader Jamie Baillie were not at all impressed with this direction of government.

“Nova Scotians will be disappointed from what they heard today,” McNeil said. “There’s  nothing in this throne speech that addresses rising power costs in the province of Nova Scotia. Nothing in this helps Nova Scotians with the rising cost of gasoline.”

Baillie said the promises within the speech are misleading.

“To tell all Nova Scotians they’re putting  more money back in their pockets when they’ve taken out $743 from each of us in extra HST is a work of fiction.”

The opposition called it a work of fiction, but the governing NDP called it The Future Starts Here.
Lt.-Gov. Mayann Francis delivered her last throne speech to open the fourth session of the 61st general assembly on Thursday.

Employment and economic growth is booming in Nova Scotia, she said.
“Nova Scotia is heading into an era of what promises to be great prosperity,” she said.

Most of the speech revolved around upcoming plans and strategies like the Welcome Home to Nova Scotia, the province’s new immigration strategy, and the Cape Breton Strategic Framework Advancement project.

The province will establish a special operating agency to involve tourism operators and experts to create a long-term tourism strategy. There will also be strategies on improving mental-health and addictions care, fisheries and a mineral incentive program providing financial assistance to prospectors.

In terms of legislation, Status of the Artist legislation will be introduced this spring session to “reflect the importance of art and culture to Nova Scotians.” There’s also a new cleaner-energy framework and a Fish Harvesters Registration and Certification Act on the way.

At best lacking and at worst “fiction,” Liberal Leader Stephen McNeil and Tory Leader Jamie Baillie were not at all impressed with this direction of government.

“Nova Scotians will be disappointed from what they heard today,” McNeil said. “There’s  nothing in this throne speech that addresses rising power costs in the province of Nova Scotia. Nothing in this helps Nova Scotians with the rising cost of gasoline.”

Baillie said the promises within the speech are misleading.

“To tell all Nova Scotians they’re putting  more money back in their pockets when they’ve taken out $743 from each of us in extra HST is a work of fiction.”

All the stars coming to town for the Juno Awards may get more attention, but the arrival of four musicians from Venezuela might be just as big an event for some local music students.

The Simon Bolivar String Quartet has toured all over the world, but they started out as students in a free music-education program for Venezuelan children known as El Sistema, which inspired similar programs globally, including Ottawa’s own OrKidstra.

“The program basically provides singing opportunities and free music lessons and free instruments and the opportunity to sing or play in an ensemble,” explained Craig MacDonald of the Leading Note Foundation, which runs OrKidstra with the help of charitable donations.

Many students, he added, can’t afford private lessons.

Kids from OrKidstra are scheduled to perform with the Simon Bolivar String Quartet at several of their appearances this weekend. They got their first chance to jam Thursday at Carleton University, where El Sistema’s founder, José Antonio Abreu, was granted an honorary degree.

“It’s amazing how they take in their stride, you know,” MacDonald said.

When the Harper government revealed its budget Thursday, many observers in this government town wondered how many bureaucrats would be sacked.

The answer: 19,200.

 “It’s not as many cuts as we expected, which is a good thing,” said Mayor Jim Watson, “but obviously thousands of jobs lost have an impact not only on the individuals and their families, but also a ripple effect on the local economy.”

Watson estimates 5,000 to 6,000 jobs will be lost here, but NDP MP Paul Dewar expects the capital will absorb the majority of the Conservatives’ cuts.

“They ran on strengthening the economy, creating jobs, and instead what they’re doing is they’re cutting jobs when it comes to this region,” he said. “So I’m calling on (John) Baird and the other (area) Conservative MPs to stand up for our region, stand up for our local economy.”

Nepean-Carleton MP Pierre Poilievre preferred to concentrate on the bigger picture.

“The only way for us to provide job security to public servants is to ensure that the cost of the bureaucracy is affordable,” he said.

Invest Ottawa CEO Bruce Lazenby believes the actual number of cuts may be smaller.
“My experience has been that those numbers often don’t play out, and so my suspicion is three years from now we won’t see that net decrease,” he said.

Larry Rousseau of the Public Service Alliance of Canada had the opposite suspicion, worrying more local job losses might be lurking in the budget’s fine print.

“I think that Mr. Flaherty’s putting a nice face on it. It’s like when they tell you they’re going to hit you with a baseball bat 10 times and then they only hit you five times,” he said.

“I’m going to just wait and see if the other five hits are not somewhere buried in the budget itself.”

Police say a 43-year-old Dartmouth man tried his luck at selling drugs door-to-door on Wednesday night - and it didn’t turn out very well.

Halifax Regional Police say they responded to a report of a suspicious male who had been going door-to-door in the 0 to 100 block of Albro Lake Road in Dartmouth.

Police say when they located the male he had a variety of prescription drugs and a brass knuckle switchblade combo in his possession.

The man was arrested and police say once in booking he caused minor property damage.

He will appear in court on charges of possession of a prohibited weapon, four counts of illegal possession of a controlled substance and mischief under $5,000.

Halifax, March 29th, 2012 – Sharing quality news for free, at the right time, in the right place, and in the right format continues to be the recipe for success at Metro, which grew in all seven markets in which it was measured, according to results released today by the Newspaper Audience Databank (NADbank).

Metro Canada now reaches 1,492,700 daily and 3,388,900 weekly readers coast-to-coast in Halifax, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver.  In comparison to NADbank 2010 results, this represents an increase of 129,700 readers, or +10%, daily and 372,100, or 11%, weekly readers. These latest results show that Metro Canada continues to reach more adults 18+ than the Globe and Mail and National Post combined.*

Locally, Halifax grew a whopping 40% year-over-year! Now more than 1 in 5 Haligonians reads Metro every day and 1 in 2 read it every week.

“The NADbank results confirm just what a huge impact Metro has had in Halifax since entering the market just three years ago,” says Greg Lutes, Metro Group Publisher, Eastern Canada. “More and more Haligonians every year are making the switch from a traditional daily newspaper to Metro, reflected in the fact that Metro readership grew by 33,000 readers, while the other 2 daily papers in the market lost readers.”

SOURCE: NADbank 2011, NADbank 2010; Halifax EMA, Montreal CMA, Ottawa-Gatineau CMA, Toronto EMA, Calgary CMA, Edmonton CMA, Vancouver CMA; weekly refers to five-day CUME, daily refers to “read yesterday” ; *National Post and Globe and Mail combined weekday reach is 975,900, seven-market summary

Halifax’s David Sharpe has all but guaranteed himself a spot at the Summer Olympics in London.

The 21-year-old, who stars for the Halifax Trojans Aquatic Club and the Dalhousie Tigers, placed first in the men’s 200-metre butterfly at Canada’s Olympic swimming trials in Montreal on Wednesday.

Sharpe, who squeaked into the final as the eighth and final qualifier, posted a personal-best time of 1:58.81 to earn a nomination for Canada’s Olympic team. The team won’t be officially selected until June.

Toronto’s Zack Chetrat was right behind him at 1:58.83.

“I expected to win,” said Sharpe, whose time set a new Nova Scotia provincial record.

“Nobody else did but that’s how I need to think if I’m going to finish first.  This morning I made some bad mistakes (in qualifying) and it didn’t go the way I wanted. I knew the adjustments I had to make and it paid off.”

The trials, which feature 700 swimmers from across the country, continue at the 1976 Olympic Pool through Sunday.

As the first team to advance to the QMJHL quarter-finals, the Halifax Mooseheads have also earned the biggest break between games.

And while that’s a blessing in some ways, as battle-scarred players rest their bumps and bruises, it’s also a potential momentum-killer for a team that steamrolled the Moncton Wildcats with four wins in just five days.

The Mooseheads are expected to start the next round on the road on Friday, April 6, in all likelihood against the Quebec Remparts.

That means nine full days off.

“The biggest challenge is resting while at the same time staying sharp physically and mentally,” said Mooseheads head coach Dominique Ducharme. “One of the biggest advantages of finishing that series in four is having the days to get ready and refuel. It’s finding that line where you have that rest but at the same time staying ready physically and mentally.”

The Mooseheads took Wednesday off to bask in the glow of a dominating first round that saw them outscore the Wildcats by a 23-8 margin.

They’re back on the ice on Thursday and Friday for practice and then have off-ice team-building activities on Saturday, where the players will “be together and have fun,” according to Ducharme.

Ducharme said he hasn’t decided whether Sunday will be an off-day, consist of a video session, or involve more team-building. Then it’s back to the rink on Monday for a week of heavy practice to gear up for Game 1.

“We’ll just prepare like we did for Moncton,” Ducharme said. “I think the main thing is our guys are really hungry and they’re excited about the challenge. Hopefully we can start Game 1 (of the quarter-finals) with the same momentum we had against Moncton.”

“My God, give us some money. It’s just crazy,” burst out Sharon Gallant, a frustrated former school cafeteria manager at a press conference on Wednesday.

Three unions representing 6,300 school support workers held the joint news conference at Province House to voice their outrage at the province’s direction to cut at least 1.3 per cent from their budgets.

Gallant, who sat in the audience, stood up to say the province wants kids to eat healthier, but is not funding them properly.

Una Rhodenhizer, a bus driver in the South Shore, also stood up to express her concern that a lack of teacher assistants for special-needs children would cause big problems for her.

Joan Jessome, president of the Nova Scotia General Employees Union, said it’s hard to determine how many job losses the budget cuts will mean — especially with the other costs involved — but it will mean an impact to quality of education.

“In a school system, you take out any cog in that wheel and it’s going to fall,” she said.

She said parents need to wake up and get involved by contacting MLAs and the education department.

Most school boards forbid staff to speak to parents directly, she added.

The unions aren’t facing reality in that there are far fewer students in the school system, said Premier Darrell Dexter in an interview.

“Reality is, this year we’ll make the largest contribution in history to student education on a per-child basis,” he said. “Funding for education is going up, not down, but for obvious reasons they don’t want to accept that.”

There’s no question there are fewer kids in the system, Jessome said, but kids today have more needs.

Building more jails is not the answer to reducing the province’s crime rate, Nova Scotia’s minister of justice says.

Ross Landry told the Crime Prevention Symposium in Halifax on Wednesday that the overall crime rate in Nova Scotia might be declining but admitted the homicide and domestic violence rates are alarming and require a proactive approach.

“While we look for solutions, we know the answer to safer communities does not rest with more jails, more courthouses and more police officers,” he told a crowd at the Halifax Marriott Harbourfront Hotel. “We cannot arrest into a crime-free society.”

Landry outlined several measures he said the province will implement over the next year to reduce or maintain crime rates, focusing on community partnership and restorative approaches.

He highlighted the importance of integration of offenders into the community and said it starts with a co-ordinated case plan in custody and continues with a well-structured transition back into the community.

“If we lower the chance of reoffending, we enhance community safety,” he said.

Government and community partners have also developed a pilot called Housing First that supports reintegration through affordable housing.

Landry also noted the importance of creating opportunities for at-risk youth with programs such as the Lighthouse Program, which helps young people to connect to their community. He said a critical element in any prevention framework is the ability to effectively enforce the laws and get to the root of crime.

“We need to find new ways of looking at crime,” he said, “and addressing the things that are causing people to get involved with criminal activity.”

Landry admitted his approach to crime differs from that of Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his government’s new C-10 legislation.

“I have a lot of difficulty (with) some of the crimes that people are being locked up for,” Landry said, “when, in fact, we have to find ways to get them back into society, contributing.”