UNRAVEL

Tammy Fancy

By Trevor J. Adams

trevoradams@unravelhalifax.ca

Unravel HIGHLIGHTS

Floyd Kane didn’t see people like him on TV, so he set out to change Nova Scotia’s entertainment industry. Read more in Ameeta Vohra’s report on page 48.

Retiring the crystal ball

Last January, I imagined the editor’s message I’d write at the end 2021.

“Congratulations to us!” I envisioned. “We beat COVID! Life is back to normal! Now let’s focus this same pandemic-inspired spirit of cooperation on overcoming the climate crisis, systemic racism, and income inequality. We need to make sure the Liberal government turns its focus to these issues over the coming year.”

It was a simpler time.

I didn’t imagine a world where a noisy minority of otherwise intelligent, educated people would become passionately mistrustful of science. Of course there would be selfish people who don’t see the need to mask or follow health rules, but surely it would be apparent to everyone that vaccination is the way to beat a plague?

I knew that Stephen McNeil might eventually retire, but based on the polls, I assumed some sort of McNeil Lite replacement would keep the Liberals safely clinging to power for at least another term or two.

Yet here we are, still up to our hips in COVID, and with a government only the most diehard Tories imagined possible a year ago. Further defying prognostication, recently elected premier Tim Houston is revealing himself to be surprisingly progressive in some ways. (Unkind comments about miniumwage workers aside. These things are relative; at least he seems to make decisions based on science and facts, which makes him unusual compared to, say, Conservative contemporaries Jason Kenney and Doug Ford).

I suspect historians will someday write about 2021 as a “lost” year, a time spent chasing our COVID tail, instead of progressing to new challenges and building our post-pandemic lives. Yet despite that appearance, change keeps brewing.

In our cover story, Houston says he is confident that at some point in 2022, the pandemic will be behind us, COVID just another manageable, scary-butrare, illness like measles or Legionnaire’s disease. Unless everything the epidemiologists know is wrong (which is vanishingly unlikely), Houston is bound to be right.

Life as we remember it is gone. We’ll emerge into something different, a world of periodic outbreaks, vaccine passports, and strange new complications we haven’t imagined yet.

But this also gives us the opportunity to leave behind our old challenges. In this issue of Unravel Halifax, writer Janet Whitman looks at the issues (see page 32) that are going to shape our city in 2022: the housing crisis, the growing wealth gap, climate change, and mental health.

She talks with the people living with those issues every day. Based on their revelations and concerns, we quizzed the premier about his priorities for the coming year. Turn to “Can Houston do it?” on page 40 for Ameeta Vohra’s interview with about Nova Scotia’s journey and where we’re going next.

No more predictions — just a roadmap.

Unravel NEWS

As the holidays approach, Halifax is looking more like its old self, bursting with sports, music, art, and live events. Alec Bruce rounds up the season’s hottest events on page 8.

Unravel ONLINE

Visit unravelhalifax.ca for photo galleries, video interviews, web exclusive reports, and more. This month, highlights include an exclusive book excerpt, a new historical column from Dorothy Grant, and an essay from local author Steven Laffoley.

“A very strong debut.”

–Atlantic Books Today

“In her deeply intimate memoir, Joanne Gallant writes with vulnerability and honestly about her journey through multiple miscarriages, the intensity of grief, the premature birth of her son and the unimaginable love and gratitude she feels as a mother.”

–SaltWire, The Book Shelf

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ISSUE 02 / VOL 01 • DATE OF ISSUE: NOVEMBER 2021 UNRAVELHALIFAX.CA

PUBLISHER Fred Fiander • fredfiander@unravelhalifax.ca

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Crystal Murray • crystalmurray@unravelhalifax.ca

SENIOR EDITOR Trevor J. Adams • trevoradams@unravelhalifax.ca

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Jodi DeLong • jodidelong@unravelhalifax.ca Janet Whitman • janetwhitman@unravelhalifax.ca

VICE PRESIDENT OF BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT Linda Gourlay • lindagourlay@unravelhalifax.ca

ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES Susan Giffin • susangiffin@unravelhalifax.ca Pam Hancock • pamhancock@unravelhalifax.ca Stephanie Balcom • stephaniebalcom@unravelhalifax.ca Connie Cogan • conniecogan@unravelhalifax.ca

SENIOR DIRECTOR CREATIVE DESIGN AND PRODUCTION Shawn Dalton • shawndalton@unravelhalifax.ca

PRODUCTION COORDINATOR Nicole McNeil • nicolemcneil@unravelhalifax.ca

PRODUCTION AND DESIGN ASSISTANT Kathleen Hoang • kathleenhoang@unravelhalifax.ca

DESIGNERS Roxanna Boers • roxannaboers@unravelhalifax.ca Jocelyn Spence • jocelynspence@unravelhalifax.ca

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BROOKLYN CONNOLLY is a freelance journalist based in Halifax. She’s the 2021 recipient of the Investintech – CAJ data journalism scholarship, and has written for the CBC, the Guardian (U.S.), the Chronicle Herald, and the Nova Scotia Advocate, among others.

KATIE INGRAM is a freelance writer, author, and journalism instructor based in Halifax.

CHRIS BENJAMIN is a journalist, editor, and fiction writer. His fourth book, Boy With A Problem, was shortlisted for the Alistair MacLeod Prize for Short Fiction. His book Eco-Innovators: Sustainability in Atlantic Canada, won the Best Atlantic-Published Book Award and was a finalist for the Richardson Non-Fiction Prize. PAULINE DAKIN is a journalist, professor of journalism at the University of King’s College, and the award-winning author of Run, Hide, Repeat: A Memoir of a Fugitive Childhood.

JANET WHITMAN Contributing editor Janet Whitman is a city- and nature-loving journalist who divides her time between Halifax and her cottage on the Northumberland Shore. She’s happiest digging in the dirt, picking up a hammer, or messing around in the kitchen.

AMEETA VOHRA is a news and sports writer with work published throughout North America. Her Halifax Magazine story “Thunderstruck” was a 2020 Atlantic Journalism Awards silver medallist. MARIANNE SIMON is a writer and subeditor and has published many children’s stories, articles and poems in magazines and newspapers. Her interests include teaching and conducting Englishconversation classes.

ALEC BRUCE is an awardwinning journalist whose bylines regularly appear in major Canadian and American publications. He is completing a master of fine arts (2022) in creative nonfiction at the University of King’s College in Halifax.

BRUCE MURRAY has been creating food and lifestyle photography for more than 20 years in the Maritimes and in his original studio in Vancouver. visionfire.ca @VisionFire.