Latest news with #BlackNovaScotians
CBC
17-04-2025
- General
- CBC
Halifax starting plan for Memorial Library site that will honour forgotten burial ground
More than a decade after the old Halifax library closed, the city has begun to explore options for the site's future that could include demolition of the municipal heritage building. The municipality recently passed $100,000 in this year's budget to hire a consultant to make a plan for the Memorial Library property. A Halifax spokesperson said that work will include public input and other research. Municipal staff have said removing the building, which would see the site become a park with "historical interpretation," is the best option for an area with a burial ground that has never been properly acknowledged. "It is just one of those classic cases, this [burial] site that illustrates how a whole part of our history can just be jettisoned and forgotten," said Jonathan Fowler, anthropology professor at Saint Mary's University. "There are many parts like that in this city, in this province, in this country. And I welcome the opportunity to engage in the work of remembering." The Spring Garden Road library opened in 1951 as a living cenotaph in honour of those who died in the First World War and the Second World War. It became a fixture of public life over the decades, with generations of Haligonians finding favourite books in the shelves, or enjoying fries from Bud the Spud food truck on the grassy area near the street. The library closed in 2014 when the Central Library opened, and has been vacant ever since. Although there was no mention of it in newspapers when it opened, or in council minutes about the location, the library was built on top of the Poor House Burying Ground. It's estimated 4,500 people from the neighbouring Poor House (located where the Doyle building is now) were buried there between the 1760s and mid-1800s. Poor House residents would have been those on the margins of society at the time, including orphans, people with disabilities, those who were homeless, or unwed mothers. People from all backgrounds were buried there, including Mi'kmaq, Black Nova Scotians, and victims of epidemics like smallpox. Records also show people new to Halifax, from around the province or the world, were buried at the site. "All of their lives have simply been forgotten. And it just doesn't seem right, does it?" said Fowler. Local historian William Breckenridge has formed Friends of the Halifax Memorial Library, and is working with the Halifax Military Heritage Preservation Society to urge the city to repurpose the building. "It leaves me very concerned, because demolition is not an option that I think will respect the burials that are underneath, and also all the other history that goes along with it," Breckenridge said. Breckenridge and Emma Lang, executive director of the Heritage Trust of Nova Scotia, said the library is architecturally important and should be turned into a museum or community space to tell the entire story of the site. "The fact that they chose to build a memorial to people who died in the wars on a cemetery, without acknowledging the people who are under here, is a really important story in itself," Lang said. "To tear it down seems to be … making it worse when you have the ability to at least talk about why this building was there, and what does that say about Halifax at the time — good and bad." After the Poor House on Spring Garden closed in the 1860s, the burial site was grassed over and trees were planted for it to become Grafton Park. The green space housed a fire station before the library was built. Although there are no reports that human remains were found during the library's construction, Fowler said it's "highly unlikely, bordering on impossible" that graves weren't disturbed. An archeological report on the 2016-17 relocation of graves from the adjacent St. David's Presbyterian Church land shows the remains of 244 people were recovered and moved to the church crypt. Three mass graves were found, including one of "likely former residents of the Poor House Cemetery on the neighbouring property." A Halifax staff report from July 2024 said Mi'kmaw ancestral remains were discovered during that excavation work ahead of the creation of the Grafton Park apartment building. Given the cultural sensitivity of the Poor House burial site, and strict protocol around land with Mi'kmaw remains, the report recommends against ground-disturbing activities on the property. Municipal staff said it would take $15 million to $20 million to renovate the library with new water and sewer lines, replace the roof, elevator, and rebuild the interior. These updates, especially new pipes, would require digging. Pam Glode-Desrochers, executive director of the Mi'kmaw Native Friendship Society, said it will be up to elders and other experts to weigh in on what the protocols should be around any changes to the site. While digging should not be a "first resort," Glode-Desrochers said it should be up to the wider Mi'kmaw community, and people of all backgrounds in Halifax, to decide together the best option. "It's almost a little emotional because these are our ancestors. These were somebody's auntie and uncles and mothers and brothers, and like they belonged to community," said Glode-Desrochers. "But it's also exciting on the possibilities of what can be done, and how do we do that together." Although the burial ground is a piece of lost local history for many Halifax residents today, Glode-Desrochers said it's "always been known" by many in the Mi'kmaw community. "There'll be some tough conversations, but I also think it's part of the healing journey and what that looks like," said Glode-Desrochers. If the city wanted to explore repurposing the building, legal changes would need to be made because of a covenant on the land. The staff report said the province granted the land to Halifax in 1882 "for the use and enjoyment of the citizens of Halifax, as a public square or gardens forever and for no other purposes whatsoever." In 1949, the province amended the covenant to allow a public library only. Various groups have considered taking the building over the years, staff said, but determined it would be "uneconomical and thus inviable." Halifax eventually asked the province to take the site back, but it officially declined to do so in 2023. The consultant's final report is expected to go before regional council summer 2026.
CBC
24-03-2025
- Politics
- CBC
Work to redraw Nova Scotia's electoral map begins
Social Sharing An all-party committee of the legislature took the first step toward redrawing Nova Scotia's electoral map on Monday. At its first meeting, the select committee of nine MLAs — five PCs, three New Democrats and a Liberal — agreed that a new electoral boundaries commission should likely be made up of nine members and their work should be limited to creating a maximum of three new ridings. James Charlton, the chief clerk of the Nova Scotia Legislature, warned the MLAs that any more than three would create serious challenges. "We have an infrastructure problem at the House, which is to say our legislative chamber — as all of the members know — is very, very tight right now," Charlton told the committee. "I would probably recommend that we put an upper limit on the number of seats that be recommended." Charlton said the chamber could probably accommodate about 58 members, which would be an increase of three from the current 55. Any more, he said, would necessitate "extensive renovations." A new provincial electoral boundaries commission had to be created to deal with a Nova Scotia Supreme Court ruling last November that the lack of a protected district for Chéticamp was an unjustified breach of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The court gave the commission 20 months to draw up a new riding. According to Charlton, the tight timeline meant the commission should complete its work by early in the new year, at the latest. The legislature's chief legislative counsel, Gordon Hebb, warned the committee charged with forming the commission and setting its mandate that failure to complete the job by July 2026 could have far-reaching consequences. "It's a very serious issue because what the court has done in the decision is dissolved all the constituencies in Nova Scotia as of July 15, 2026," said Hebb. "So it's an absolute deadline. We've got to re-enact all the constituencies." La Fédération acadienne de la Nouvelle-Écosse, the province's largest Acadian group, launched the court case after the commission that created the 2019 electoral map didn't give the community of Cheticamp its own riding. The previous commission recommended the restoration of two Acadian ridings on the mainland and one in Richmond County, Cape Breton, along with one for Black Nova Scotians. But it rejected the call for a protected riding for Cheticamp because of its small population. The MLAs will meet again twice next week, behind closed doors, to try to agree on the commission's members and its mandate.
CBC
13-02-2025
- Health
- CBC
Mental health care for Black people in rural N.S. lacking year after Desmond report
A lack of mental health care tailored to rural Black Nova Scotians is one of several problems yet to be properly addressed by the province, more than one year after an inquiry report into the Lionel Desmond tragedy recommended reforms. Desmond, a former infantryman with severe post-traumatic stress disorder and depression who saw intense combat in Afghanistan in 2007, died by suicide Jan. 3, 2017. Before he shot himself with the semi-automatic rifle he had purchased earlier that day, he shot and killed his wife, their daughter, and his mother in their home in Upper Big Tracadie, N.S. Part of the $3.4-million fatality inquiry into the deaths explored the challenges faced by rural African Nova Scotians like Desmond when attempting to access mental health services. It recommended that the Health Department provide more virtual care to rural Black communities, and hire more Black mental health workers to provide "culturally informed" care. The department said in an email that since the report released Jan. 31, 2024, there has been "an overall expansion of virtual care across the province." But in an interview earlier this week, Lana MacLean, a social worker who gave evidence to the inquiry, said, "It just seems the virtual care they're providing doesn't really drill down to the culturally diverse needs of African Nova Scotians in rural communities." Lack of transparency However, a larger problem in the way the province has responded to the report's 25 recommendations is a lack of transparency, said Adam Rodgers, a lawyer who represented the estate and some of Desmond's family members during the inquiry, in a recent interview. "It's hard to see where the work is being done, if anywhere. At this point, 'wait and see' is starting to sound more like 'maybe never,"' he said. The inquiry report called for a committee to ensure its findings aimed at improving supports for veterans like Desmond "are not lost in the passage of time." Instead, the Justice Department says that another monitoring committee — created to oversee the recommendations of the Nova Scotia mass shooting of April 2020 that killed 22 people — "broadened its scope to also implement the Desmond Fatality Inquiry recommendations." A request for an interview with the head of the committee was declined. Rodgers said the mass shooting committee meets behind closed doors and "it's unclear what's happening." Wait times for psychiatric care The Desmond inquiry also called on the province to expand a pilot project that provides short-term medication, support and diagnosis to patients in an effort to reduce long wait times for psychiatric care. The inquiry had found that after Desmond had exited the intensive Veterans Affairs programs, "it took months" to ramp up the care the soldier needed. On Feb. 5, Brian Comer, the minister for addictions and mental health, said there is an "ongoing dialogue" with Dr. Vincent Agyapong, head of Dalhousie University's department of psychiatry, about expanding the pilot program. Dr. Andrew Harris, director of mental health with Nova Scotia Health, said the program is "one of a number" of mental health services addressing wait times, and it is still being reviewed. However, Agyapong said in a recent interview there is ample data to show that the program is working well, having seen close to 2,000 patients over 18 months since its creation in the spring of 2023, and he says it could be successfully implemented provincewide. Another recommendation called for the recruitment of Black mental health providers. In response, the province notes that the IWK — the province's children's hospital — has received funding for an "African Nova Scotian model of services for youth and caregivers which includes recruiting of Black mental health providers." MacLean, who said her consultancy helped create the IWK program, says the pilot project works with children, adolescents and their parents, and doesn't yet "translate into what happens in adult services." During the inquiry, psychologist Peter Jaffe, a nationally recognized expert on intimate partner violence, provided evidence that Desmond had 20 of 41 risk factors associated with domestic killings. Yet Jaffe noted that from 2011 to 2017, the health workers that encountered Desmond didn't address "the extent of intimate partner violence and abuse." The inquiry's recommendations included a call for a review of a protocol for handling men who were considered a high risk to carry out violence against their partners and families. The Justice Department said that review was carried out. Some recommendations fulfilled, province says The province says it has fulfilled other recommendations, including the creation of a men's helpline. In addition, the province is fulfilling a recommendation calling for a public awareness campaign aimed at Nova Scotians who are facing domestic violence. A recommendation to train health workers on the most up-to-date suicide risk system has been completed, the province said. Another recommendation said the office of the chief firearms officer "should, in appropriate cases," place some firearm licences under review to ensure their holders are meeting eligibility requirements and "maintaining good mental health." The Justice Department declined to make the Nova Scotia chief firearms officer available for an interview. Lynette MacLeod, a spokeswoman for the Justice Department, wrote that the firearms office "has this authority under the federal Firearms Act and exercises it under appropriate circumstances." The spokeswoman said more responses from the government on the Desmond report will be released in the coming months.
