There's no audience at the Davis Cup in order to protect Israeli players' fee

Today and tomorrow, the Canadian and Israeli tennis teams will be playing each other in the Davis Cup without an audience, apparently at the Metro Centre.

In a statement, Tennis Canada cited “safety concerns,” but who are we kidding? The Metro Centre regularly employs metal detectors and armed security for crowd control, and they are fully capable of keeping the players safe.

The statement gave the real reason for not having an audience:

Intelligence received from local authorities and national security agencies, combined with disruptions witnessed at other recent events both in Canada and internationally, indicated a risk of significant disruption to this event.

That is, there’s no audience because people protesting the Israeli slaughter of Gaza might have shown up and said things that would hurt the Israeli players’ fee-fees.

For dog’s sake, in comparison to, say, Metallica fans, a few chanting Palestinian protestors are downright docile. Have you seen them? I talk with them occasionally, as they wave their flags along Spring Garden Road and hold gatherings in the square in front of the library. Yesterday, they lined South Park Street outside the Lord Nelson (where the Israeli team is staying) to make known their displeasure of the sportswashing.

Sure, they’re spirited. Loud, even. But they’re the very definition of peaceful. They didn’t even walk on the Lord Nelson’s tiny manicured lawn. They stayed on public property. They smiled at passersby.

Don’t take my word for it; talk with them yourselves and find out for yourselves.

There’s a lot of bullshit being tossed around by Tennis Canada and Events East, which operates the municipally owned Metro Centre. Both the Halifax police and the RCMP have said they have not been asked to provide a police presence for the game, so apparently the private security is adequate. (As is typical for all demonstrations, Halifax police will show up at the street protests for the protection of the protestors, traffic control, and the like).

As I remark below with relation to the sexual abuse of children, there’s a broad cowardice in our society, a refusal to use plain language to decry horrific crimes. And that’s the situation we face at the moment with the Israeli slaughter of Gaza.

We either call it out, or we’re complicit.

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NOTICED

1. Halifax Water rate increase

A hearing about Halifax Water’s proposed rate increases will be held before the Nova Scotia Regulatory and Review Board next week. (The Nova Scotia Regulatory and Review Board is a successor agency to the former Utilities and Review Board).

As such, various interested parties have entered their opening statements into the record.

The consumer advocate states the dimension of the proposed rate hike as:

Halifax Water proposed to increase water and wastewater rates for residential customers by an average of 15.8% for 2025/2026 and 17.1% for 2026/2027.

These increases would be implemented in two steps within just three months; January 1, 2026, and April 1, 2026.

The increases would be even higher for customers with above-average consumption levels and those served by higher meter sizes.

The Consumer Advocate is very concerned about the level of these rate increases and the compressed time period within which they would be applied.

Halifax Water attributes its need for a substantial increase in its revenue for these two years to major capital investments, a delay in making this application, and the need to eliminate its budget deficit.

However, there is little doubt that increases of this amount within a three-month period constitute rate shock, something which should be avoided if at all possible.

Halifax Water, however, says that the increase isn’t overly large:

For the average residential customer, the proposed rates in this application would increase the total cost of water, wastewater and stormwater services by approximately $28 per month as of April 2026. In recognition of the impact this can have on residential customers, Halifax Water continues to use a conservative benchmark for affordability of 2% of Halifax median household income for all three services, as compared to industry studies suggesting 4%. With the proposed rate increases, Halifax Water’s residential rates are estimated to be in the range of 1.5% of Halifax median household income by April 2026.

Halifax Water is aware of the concerns that have been raised by customers and impacted parties regarding the proposed rate increases. However, these increases are required to address the operational requirements of the utility and the current deficit situation.

Kevin Russell of the group Rental Housing Providers Nova Scotia say that Halifax Water is understating the percentage increase in bills:

It is clear that the actual impact on Halifax Water is 36.6%, not 34% as claimed by Halifax Water.

On Monday, Halifax Water issued a social media post that stated the average quarterly bill was $228 quarter. Under its proposal, the average quarterly bill would increase to $312. That’s an increase of 36.6% for residential customers, effective April 1, 2026.

Then, says Russell, using “median household income” as a metric misses the effect on the most poor:

Halifax Water’s 2024 audited financial statements report an allowance for doubtful accounts of $3.016 million. This is virtually unchanged from the figure of $3.052 million in 2023.

This figure accounts for nearly 2% of total Halifax Water revenues. This is well above the 0.5%–1.5% benchmark for utilities.

A 36.6% hike could push arrears well above $3.5 million annually.

Despite the materiality of this issue, Halifax Water does not budget or project bad debt into future years. Their 2026 budget offers no insight into how a 36.6% increase will affect customers or arrears levels.

If Halifax Water truly believes its rate increases are affordable – and in many ways, they seem to believe a 36.6% single year increase is unavoidable – why doesn’t it disclose how much bad debt it expects?

Halifax Water is also silent on how many customers risk disconnection. The fact that these figures are missing from Halifax Water tells its own story.

Many of the opening statements say that in large part the rate increases are needed because of the large population increase. For example, the consultants hired by the board, William Brown and James Goldstein, say that the proposed increase isn’t enough, because::

…the 2019 IRP [Integrated Resource Plan] update included the assumption that the population in HW’s service territory would grow 1% per year over the planning period. In fact, between 2018 and 2024 the population of the Halifax census metropolitan area (CMA) has grown by more than twice that rate at about 2.5% per year (from 453,010 to 530,167; see HRM Written Submission, July 31, 2025, Attachment 1, M12257). Using the 1% per year growth rate assumed in the 2019 IRP Update, it would take about 16 years (from 2018) or until 2034 to reach a population of 530,000; the actual population Halifax CMA population in 2024.

Moreover, based on recent immigration trends and other factors, the Province and HRM have established very ambitious growth targets that would more than double the population of the Halifax CMA to more than 1.1 million people by 2050. This represents an annual average growth rate of 4.4% over the next 25 years, more than four times that assumed in HW’s 2019 IRP Update. While there is great uncertainty as to whether this level of growth will occur, when considering the actual growth between 2018 and 2024, as well as the growth targets to 2050 from the Province and HRM, we believe it may be imprudent for HW’s ICA to be based on assumptions and data that are clearly outdated and that significantly underestimate its capital spend requirements.

I found an argument put forward by Killam REIT interesting. (I don’t know enough about accounting principles to say that I agree with it; I just find it interesting):

Halifax Water is a non-profit entity, yet a significant portion of its costs are amortization and depreciation, which are non-cash accounting items. These line items do not represent money actually spent, yet they are built into the rates charged to consumers. In practice, this frees up real cash within the utility, which to ratepayers, looks and feels like profit. When combined with the practice of charging consumers directly for capital upgrades, the result is that current ratepayers are funding both operations and long-term infrastructure costs up front. A more balanced approach would be to finance more of these upgrades through long-term debt rather than asking households to pay more.

In contrast, the Minister of Municipal Affairs submitted an embarrassingly thoughtless opening statement that makes no argument whatsoever beyond stating that the proposed increases are too much. It doesn’t engage with any of the financial or population issues at all.

Read the opening statement of the consumer advocate here; Halifax Water here; Rental Housing Providers Nova Scotia here; the board’s consultants here; Killam here; and the Minister of Municipal Affairs here.

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2. Historic sexual assault alleged at Halifax Scouting event

A man now living in western Canada says that as a boy living in Halifax in the late 1970s he was “physically, sexually, and emotionally abused” by “scout leaders and members” (SLMs).

The man, who I’m identifying as C.S., says that from 1977 to 1980 he was a member of a scout troop that held its meetings at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church, which was then at the corner of Gottingen and Russell streets in north end Halifax.

C.S. names Scouts Canada as the defendant in a lawsuit filed Tuesday in the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia.

In the lawsuit, C.S. does not detail the alleged abuse, except to say that it occurred while he was attending a Boy Scout jamboree at a campground in or near Halifax in about 1979. Nor does C.S. name specific SLMs who were the alleged abusers. Such details may come later, should the case approach trial.

C.S. alleges that Scouts Canada and its predecessor organizations did not adequately screen scout leaders for their appropriateness of being placed in positions of power over children, nor did they have adequate systems for investigating allegations of misconduct.

Scouts Canada “put its interests ahead of the interests of the plaintiff,” says C.S.

C.S. seeks “general damages for pain and suffering and loss of amenities,” “special damages, particulars of which shall be delivered at or before trial,” and unspecified punitive damages.

The allegations included in the lawsuit have not been tested in court, and Scouts Canada has yet to file a defence or response to the court.

C.S. is represented by Liam O’Reilly of Wagners Law Firm.

I believe that at the time a large scout gathering in Canada was dubbed a “Scouteree.” There was in 1979 a “Halifax Region Scouteree.”

I have no specific knowledge of C.S.’s allegations, so the following comments do not apply to his lawsuit or to Scouts Canada’s responsibility with regard to the alleged abuse of C.S.

I have, however, followed many other sexual abuse claims, some of which have been successfully litigated in court, and others that have resulted in criminal convictions of abusers. Additionally, I’ve spoken with dozens of survivors of sexual abuse.

I’ve been particularly interested in the experience of boys and men who have suffered sexual abuse. There is no hierarchy of victimhood — no survivor is more or less deserving of our concern than any other — but for a variety of reasons, the experiences of boys have not received the attention that is warranted.

One thing I’d like to stress is that we as a society tend to assign fault solely to the terrible men (usually, but not exclusively, men) who are the perpetrators of sexual abuse, and leave it at that.

To be sure, the actions of the perpetrators are so outside how most of us think and act that we can only consider them as monsters.

But that’s too easy.

Placing sexual abuse in a mental box of monster and victim — something we can set on a shelf somewhere, otherwise out of mind — allows us to avoid the larger community’s responsibility for the abuse, and our own complicities.

The germination and evolution of the motivations of the individual sexual abuser are beyond my understanding. If I had to guess, I’d say there’s an interplay between personal psychology and how sexuality is socialized, but that’s a conversation that very few people are willing to have. Some brave academics are doing the important work of studying this, and who knows? Maybe we’ll one day have a better understanding of it and be able to intervene before people become monsters.

For the present, however, I just take it as a given that there will be some number of people who are potential abusers. What matters, then, is how they are able to criminally prey on children again and again and again. And that brings us to the broader community complicity.

In all the cases that I’ve followed, the perpetrator was known by other adults to be criminally sexually preying on children, but those adults did nothing, or at least not enough, to put an end to the abuse.

Protecting the reputation of organizations — schools, churches, sports teams, what have you — was more important than protecting children. Very often, organizations played a game of “pass the trash” — force the abuser to quit the organization but don’t involve the police for fear of organizational harm, allowing the abuser to resume his predation at the next organization. Priests move to a different church. Teachers to another school district. Coaches to another league. More children attacked.

This goes very deep. I’ve been in discussion with one survivor whose own parents were told of the abuse but they did nothing for fear of professional repercussions.

The full story of child sexual abuse is not just a story of individual monsters and their victims. Rather, it’s a story of the cowardice of normal adults who refuse to stand up for children, and a society that refuses to acknowledge that basic truth.

I intend to tell that larger story in considerable detail, naming names and holding the irresponsible to account. If survivors would like to discuss their stories with me, please contact me.

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3. Halifax apartment building residents without power for two weeks

This item is written by Yvette d’Entremont.

Residents at The Scotian apartment building on Green Street in downtown Halifax have now been without power for two weeks.

As reported by the Canadian Press (CP) on Tuesday, the 50-unit building has been without power since Aug. 27. The property management company, Templeton Properties, did not return CP’s requests for comment. Tenants said the outage was caused by electrical panels affected by flooding.

Jill Balser, minister responsible for the Residential Tenancies Act, told CP that tenants will be given priority at the provincial office that enforces tenancy laws, and cases involving the apartment building will be treated as an emergency.

“The minister urged tenants to come forward to the residential tenancies program if they require help in resolving issues with their leases at the building,” the Canadian Press reported.

In an emailed newsletter late Thursday afternoon, Lisa Lachance, NDP MLA for the area, said they’ve heard from many tenants on fixed-term leases who are afraid they’ll lose their homes if they speak out.

In addition, Lachance said several residents told them they did reach out to the Residential Tenancies office, but were discouraged from filing an official complaint. That’s because Residential Tenancies “advised that they would be at risk because of their fixed lease or were told nothing could be done.”

Lachance continued:

This situation has been unacceptable for the tenants of this building and shows how vulnerable renters are right across the province. Residents have not been able to store or prepare food, there is no relief from the heat and humidity, medical devices can’t be charged, and some residents have lost work because they rely on home-based infrastructure. Residents range in age from 85 years old to families with children, in a building where hallways have been dark and HRM issued a fire protection violation.

Stating that the issue is bigger than any one building, Lachance wrote that “renters across Nova Scotia live with the constant stress that they could be in the same situation.”

The NDP is continuing to call for an end to the fixed-term lease loophole, in addition to “better enforcement of the Residential Tenancies Act so that corporate landlords act quickly to resolve issues and look out for their tenants.”

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THE LATEST FROM THE HALIFAX EXAMINER:

1. Nova Scotia Power fails reliability test, gets $1 million fine

Jennifer Henderson reports:

For the eighth consecutive year, Nova Scotia Power has failed to meet required performance standards, and the company has been fined $1 million by the Nova Scotia Energy Board.

That’s a smaller fine than the $1.25 million it received last year when it got a failing grade for both the frequency of power outages as well as their duration. In 2024 – a year when fortunately there were no hurricanes or severe storms – Nova Scotia Power achieved a “pass” for less frequent outages, but a “fail” when it came to the duration of blackouts exceeding the standard.

By law the fine must be paid by the company’s shareholders and not its ratepayers.

The company claims increasing wind speeds and more frequent storms due to climate change are making it difficult for Nova Scotia Power to meet the benchmarks.

Click or tap here to read “Nova Scotia Power fails reliability test, gets $1 million fine.”

I would like to see an honest assessment of re-nationalization of the power company. There are a lot of different ways of looking at this, and a lot of competing concerns, but I’d like to see it all laid out in a dispassionate fashion: here’s what the debt load would look like and how that would play out for taxes and power rates over the next few decades; here are the drawbacks and limitations of government ownership; here’s why changing technology will make a single power company with several large power generation stations irrelevant; here are some ways other than nationalization to get to the same desired goals of grid reliability and lower costs, and so forth.

But probably that conversation is too fraught for our political reality, so we won’t have it.

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2. Nova Scotia’s Wind West proposal gets boost from federal government

Jennifer Henderson reports:

Premier Tim Houston’s vision for developing Nova Scotia’s renewable offshore wind resource got a boost from Ottawa yesterday when Prime Minister Mark Carney announced a short list of projects of “national importance” that will get the support of Ottawa’s newly created Major Projects Office.

The list was actually a two-parter, and Nova Scotia’s “Wind West” proposal did not make the first cut. The first list includes five projects that have some regulatory approvals and are closer to shovel-ready. These are estimated to cost at least $60 billion in total.

The full list can be found in a news release here.

In brief, the first tier projects receiving federal support include a Phase 2 expansion of the LNG terminal at Kitimat, B.C., the build-out of small modular nuclear reactors in Darlington, Ont., the expansion of a container terminal at the Port of Montreal, and two copper mines in Saskatchewan and northwestern British Columbia to boost Canadian production of critical minerals.

“With the first in a series of new projects, we will build big, build now, and build Canada strong,” the prime minister said in the news release.

Click or tap here to read “Nova Scotia’s Wind West proposal gets boost from federal government.”

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Government

No meetings

On campus

No events

Literary Events

Friday

No events

Weekend

Book Launch (Sunday, 2pm, Halifax Central Library) — Rick Mofina’s If Two Are Dead

In the harbour

Halifax

05:00: Oceanex Sanderling, ro-ro container, moves from anchorage to Fairview Cove

05:30: MSC Clarita III, container ship, arrives at Fairview Cove from Sines, Portugal

06:00: Em Kea, container ship, arrives at Pier 41 from Montréal

07:30: Norwegian Getaway, cruise ship with up to 4,819 passengers, arrives at Pier 22 from Saint John, on a seven-day roundtrip cruise out of New York

08:30: Brilliance of the Seas, cruise ship with up to 2,580 passengers, arrives at Pier 20 from Sydney, on a 15-day cruise from Southampton, England to Boston

09:00: AlgoScotia, oil tanker, sails from Imperial Oil for sea

10:00: MSC Sao Paulo, container ship, sails from Pier 42 for sea

11:30: MSC Mexico V, container ship, arrives at Pier 42 from Nhava Sheva, India

16:00: Em Kea sails for sea

17:00: Pictor, container ship, arrives at Pier 41/42 from Portland

17:00: Oceanex Sanderling sails for St. John’s

18:00: Nolhan Ava, ro-ro cargo, moves from Pier 30 to Pier 41

19:30: Norwegian Getaway sails for New York

20:00: Brilliance of the Seas sails for Boston

Cruise ships this weekend:

Saturday: Mein Schiff 1 (2,894 passengers)

Sunday: Seven Seas Splendor (829 passengers)

Cape Breton

07:00: Ocean Nisa, oil tanker, arrives at EverWind from Halifax

16:00: National Geographic Explorer, cruise ship with up to 162 passengers, sails from Baddeck for Magdalen Islands

16:30: CSL Metis, bulker, arrives at Aulds Cove quarry from Tampa, Florida

18:30: Phoenix Admiral, oil tanker, sails from EverWind for sea

19:30: Levantine Sea, oil tanker, arrives at EverWind from Az Zawiyah, Libya

Cruise ships this weekend:

Saturday: Seven Seas Splendor (829 passengers)

Sunday: Majestic Princess (4,272 passengers)

Footnotes

Fish and chips for lunch.

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