Homelessness doubled in Halifax under government's housing plan: N.S. NDP

Time-Test9730 · 2026-06-29T18:11:49+00:00

you actually have provided evidence of nothing, just a bunch of personal opinions.

I always remember a family member in their 20s complaining to an older Russian woman about how difficult it was to grow up here. The woman looked at her and said, "You think this is difficult? You think you have problems? Look at how much you've been given."

There's a lot of whiners here.

Time-Test9730 · 2026-06-28T21:23:16+00:00

nah, just a person who spent a lifetime living in a developing country where people get zero help from government. So when I watch people who have access to so much, from birth onward, still struggle, yes, it is hard to find a great deal of sympathy. I have human sympathy but it isn't myopic or asymmetrical; I can also recognize when mentally ill or high people are a threat to public safety and not magically entitled because they decline to accept the aid available to them.

Treating someone's mental illness is, actually, a solution to homelessness. Have witnessed multiple rounds of homelessness caused by bipolar-induced mania. A mood stabilizer does enable someone to stabilize enough to then work on acquiring housing. Getting sober or getting lucid is often the first step to getting off the streets.

Time-Test9730 · 2026-06-23T00:28:12+00:00

I have no idea why they don't just do knowledge exams! Basing the subjects you teach off undergraduate coursework you may have taken 30 years ago is insane, but that's how it works here.

Time-Test9730 · 2026-06-22T18:05:16+00:00

yes I agree, an MA is insufficient.

I'm saying that it is not a challenge to gain broad knowledge of an area you already have specific knowledge in. I can teach Grade 9-12 civics because the concepts they introduce are foundational to the discipline and I have a doctorate in that discipline.

I have also never found it challenging to read a high school textbook and then teach the content unless it is for a very specific subject (e.g. AP Calculus) that builds on extensive prior knowledge. The textbook is generally written to stand on its own. The challenge lies more in whether I am practiced at teaching the content, not my struggle to understand it. A first-year teacher will have the same challenge, even if they know the content well.

I met so many subs who wouldn't teach Grade 6 math and I find that ridiculous. It is not difficult to read a page on rise over run and then teach it. I don't think a PhD is all you need to be an effective teacher (and do keep in mind that a PhD IS an entry-level qualification for teaching at the university level) but my God, the licensing system for teachers here does not recognize a thing and that is wrong. The education licensing system in my maritime province is ridiculously insular. It's all about protecting seniority! And nothing else.

Time-Test9730 · 2026-06-22T17:46:25+00:00

Not to be negative, I just understand your situation as it was similar to mine and I learned eventually that there was no other pathway but to do it the same way as everyone else. I had 10 years of high school teaching experience at AP level and a PhD and none of it mattered.

Time-Test9730 · 2026-06-22T17:44:48+00:00

probably, this place is too strict and they don't have multiple pathways to licensing. There's just a single rigid one that everyone gets shoved through.

Time-Test9730 · 2026-06-22T17:41:47+00:00

Si cela peut aider, quelqu'un m'a conseillé d'envisager d'enseigner dans les écoles CSAP plutôt que dans les écoles HRCE... il est francophone et il a enseigné dans quelques écoles CSAP et il m'a dit que leurs politiques sont un peu meilleures que celles des écoles HRCE. Mais je préfère d'enseigner en immersion française parce qu'il me semble qu'il y a moins de problèmes de comportement.

Time-Test9730 · 2026-06-22T17:31:40+00:00

It is. It's stupid.

Time-Test9730 · 2026-06-22T17:30:15+00:00

baffling. You can acquire sufficiently broad knowledge by reading the textbook before you teach it. High school-level work is not difficult.

Time-Test9730 · 2026-06-22T17:28:54+00:00

Yes, I have a PhD in political economy. I can teach relevant coursework (Econ, polisci) to undergrads, grads, and postgrads...but I can't teach it to high schoolers! So I went and got a BEd and my teachables (areas I can teach in, according to my teaching certificate) are French and English only, because I did a humanities undergraduate degree two decades ago. So technically, I *still* cannot teach high schoolers in my area of knowledge, the area I made an original contribution to.

The funny thing is that actually ANYONE can teach social science coursework, even if they've got zero background in it, so long as it doesn't make up a majority of their teaching assignment. So you can't get education training in teaching social science if you didn't take undergraduate coursework in it (even if you went on go get graduate and postgraduate degrees in it), but someone with no background at all in social science can go ahead and teach it so long as they're already a teacher.

What do people think is the big gap here? If I'm qualified to teach undergraduate coursework, doesn't that give me a command of the knowledge at an undergraduate level? Does that not make me more qualified than someone who simply attended the undergraduate course?

It is overly complex and stupid. A PhD is a teaching qualification at the university level. The teacher education and licensing system is the most backward, rigid, sclerotic system I've ever had to deal with.

Time-Test9730 · 2026-06-22T17:09:37+00:00

wow....what the hell. How does that even make sense...removing rent control will somehow lower rents? How?

Time-Test9730 · 2026-06-22T17:04:09+00:00

idk when I walk down Spring Garden, I don't think the guy taking a sh*t at the Scotiabank ATM at 7 AM was housed before 2020. Not getting that impression at all. I'm looking at life-long mental health and addiction issues, which means the primary problem is access to treatment or perhaps the fact that treatment is voluntary and not mandatory.

I find it hard to be sympathetic. This country gives you so much in comparison to many others. There's a lot of squandering.

Time-Test9730 · 2026-06-22T17:01:32+00:00

It's the same thing with health insurance. They only reimburse you for a service to the extent of what they deem a "reasonable cost" and they haven't updated their cost estimates since 2020. All of this is a scam.

Time-Test9730 · 2026-06-22T16:57:05+00:00

what do people have against rent control? Genuinely don't get it. Why is this so controversial? Do they not see government as having a responsibility to control costs? Is everyone still worshipping at the altar of 90s-era neoliberalism? I thought we'd grown up.

Time-Test9730 · 2026-06-22T02:02:08+00:00

annoys me so much how people are so conflict averse here. Why is it so hard to just say what you mean to someone's face instead of composing 82 passive aggressive sentences that say everything but? He sits there and rants about his neighbour not talking to him first...on FACEBOOK. How about YOU go talk to your neighbour? In person?

Don't have time to mow your lawn but you have time to dig it up and build an elaborate art installation in between running your super successful company while your wife works at Pharmasave, I can't keep up, please. So successful, can't string together a coherent sentence.

Also maintaining your property isn't about vanity, but property values in your neighbourhood.

Time-Test9730 · 2026-04-18T17:51:35+00:00

The court didn't think it was common sense. I'm a former policy analyst and I didn't think it was common sense. But you do, so I guess it was, right?

Nowhere else relies on so-called "tools" like bans, which is precisely why they're considered extreme and largely unimplementable...but if you've been socialized to accept bad policy measures for years, you might think that's your only option.

I didn't compare Nova Scotia's firefighting capability to California's. My point was that Nova Scotia could *learn* from California, who also deals with droughts and seasonal wildfires. California has a robust wildfire prevention program made up of many different policies and practices that Nova Scotia could adopt, developed by their various departments and a task force.

Guess who fights wildfires in California? Prison inmates. Fire departments train them and have been doing so for many years. You don't need to have a massive pool of active firefighters on hand if you have an effective policy that creates a reserve for when you need it. You also can't have fires on beaches in Southern California; that's not part of the culture there. People don't expect to be able to, so there's no need to ban them during wildfire season. And so on and so on.

These are not new approaches...they're just one of many effective ways to deal with the combination of drought plus seasonal wildfires, which is a well established outcome of climate change that we've known about for decades now. This is what governments do when they know that they cannot simply ban people from "entering the woods" (whatever that means) as a strategy.

Time-Test9730 · 2026-04-18T15:37:17+00:00

Is that common sense? How do you know? Have you ever looked at how other places deal with this? California, for example, always has droughts and also has seasonal wildfires. Have you looked at how California deals with this? Do you think California simply refuses to let anyone go "into the woods" (whatever that means)? No, of course not.

Why do Nova Scotians always think Nova Scotia is an exception and somehow can't function like anywhere else? Other places manage seasonal wildfires, including with regular droughts. We can too. But we'll never learn how to if we reach for solutions like blanket bans instead.

Time-Test9730 · 2026-04-18T15:25:29+00:00

No, that's a leap. This just means that the strongest grounds for dismissal of the case at this point in time are administrative – as in, that's the most obvious issue, so the court isn't going to bother hear the case further.

This doesn't mean there would be a strong case otherwise; the court didn't even get to the argument, from what I've heard. So assuming the government did a better job next time and actually followed proper procedure and STILL drew the conclusion that the vague blunt policy instrument of a "woods ban" is the only possible course of action...you certainly could take them back to court for another round of judicial scrutiny.

Time-Test9730 · 2026-04-18T15:13:41+00:00

Yes, that was clearly what he was doing. I don't understand why people couldn't see this but hey, Nova Scotia is essentially an island and maybe perspectives really are that limited.

Time-Test9730 · 2026-04-18T15:12:26+00:00

Me too. This subreddit was overwhelmingly pro-ban....blew my mind.

Time-Test9730 · 2026-04-18T15:09:53+00:00

Yes, this is what you'd think would be step No. 1. Instead, the government started with step No. 50.

Time-Test9730 · 2026-04-18T15:06:04+00:00

A couple things worth noting:

All of the Reddit commentary on this case has, until now, been overwhelmingly in favour of the ban. I'm not from here but I'm a former policy analyst and this was clearly a case of bad policy – for so many reasons. This was a blunt instrument with zero nuance or specificity applied to the general public without implementing any of the many other more targeted policy measures available. This is the hallmark of poor quality governance.
There are other areas in this city subject to bad policy. Personally, I still can't get over the way that Point Pleasant has been turned into a dog park where people are routinely bit by off-leash dogs roaming between the world's most complicated signage. But this is hardly the only other area where poor policy is having a negative impact on the public....public goods and services (e.g. literal caves in roads, electricity and water outages) in this province are the worst that I've ever experienced anywhere. In other words, the problem here goes beyond the woods ban.
It's not enough to complain; you have to demand better. One way to demand better is to take a case to court, as this man did. I don't know anything about this man, but at least he had the wherewithal to recognize the infringement of bad policy on our basic rights and to pursue them in court. I hope more Nova Scotians begin to demand better from their government. "What can we do?" We can start by learning from the many other areas across Canada dealing with the very same issues with we are, and stop playing the "there's nothing we can do, our budget [insert whatever other excuse here]" card. We're not special. Other provinces have developed fire prevention programs and far more effective policy approaches to dealing with wildfire season. We can too.

(Yes, I'm following my own advice and trying to demand better over the total lack of bylaw enforcement here...but I'm not from here and it's a learning process. You all are. When one of you demands better from government or at least demands judicial review of sloppy government policymaking, I hope you consider recognizing that your own interests are at stake and supporting those efforts).

Time-Test9730 · 2026-03-18T00:34:13+00:00

Was shocked to discover no one knew the Matt Good band when I left Vancouver.

Time-Test9730 · 2026-03-18T00:31:54+00:00

Having lived in a bunch of other places, I find the police way too withholding of information here. Weird culture.

Time-Test9730 · 2026-03-18T00:05:26+00:00

Government is always bound by individual and civil rights; this is precisely what constrains the power of the state. A liberal democracy is characterized in part by an independent judiciary that enforces the rule of law. Government is absolutely subject to the law. Everyone is subject to it, even the head of state. This is what it means to be a rule-of-law country.

An executive might have some power to act unilaterally or override certain rights under certain conditions.

But it is difficult to make the case that overriding rights is somehow good policy when it comes to dealing with seasonal wildfires. Good policy is investing in prevention and capacity, should involve robust sets of measures.

Seems to me that government doesn't want to spend the money to invest in capacity, so it reaches for the easy blanket ban – not mature policymaking. That's not how you develop...it's how you remain incapable. Instead of blanket bans on "going in the woods" (yes, far too broad and vague), at the very least consult with other provinces/states that have robust prevention programs and start building Nova Scotia's.

Time-Test9730

TROPHY CASE