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1. Job losses at SaltWire
I reported yesterday:
A person close to the situation tells the Halifax Examiner that there was a “town hall meeting” for SaltWire employees [Wednesday], in which job losses were announced.
SaltWire currently has 363 employees throughout Atlantic Canada. The company is being acquired by Postmedia, and the deal is scheduled to be finalized Saturday.
The source says that “only about 20” employees from across the SaltWire chain will be offered a job by Postmedia within the next 24 hours. Additionally “about 60” employees will be told today or tomorrow that they won’t be hired by Postmedia.
The rest — about 283 employees — will be in a “transitional services group” spelled out in the sales agreement. Postmedia can decide over the next few months which of these employees will be offered a job at Postmedia.
This is terrible, and unfortunately, it’s only the beginning.
The human loss is enormous, and the loss to journalism is staggering.
I expect to be hearing more detail about job losses in coming days. From what I understand, however, something like three-quarters of the existing SaltWire workforce will lose their jobs over the next few months. All the jobs at the printing presses will be eliminated. Nearly all the jobs at rural papers gone. Lesser but still substantial cuts in the newsrooms at the urban papers.
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2. Dartmouth Cove
“Build Nova Scotia has ordered a company looking to infill a water lot in Dartmouth Cove a deadline to remove concrete barriers it placed at the entrances to a public trail on provincial land on Wednesday,” reports Suzanne Rent:
The placement of the barriers comes two weeks after Atlantic Road Construction and Paving Ltd. (ARCP) threatened to block the trail if Halifax Regional Council approved a motion to start the process for a bylaw to prevent infilling at the cove.
As the Examiner reported on Aug. 7, Michael P. Blades, a partner with Pink Larkin, sent a letter to Mayor Mike Savage and Coun. Sam Austin that said if Halifax Regional Council passed a motion from Austin asking council to start the process to create a bylaw to protect the cove from infilling, the trail access would be blocked on the morning of Aug. 7.
That didn’t happen.
But workers with the company showed up at the trail Tuesday night, marking areas of the cove with red stakes and painted red lines in the grass, and building a fence along the entrance to the trail at the end of Old Ferry Road.
Click or tap here to read “Build Nova Scotia gives Atlantic Road Construction and Paving deadline after company puts barriers at trail in Dartmouth Cove.”
Rent was on site much of the day yesterday, and relates a chaotic, dangerous situation. ARCP employees were moving heavy equipment around without a permit and without the usual safety precautions, as the public was milling about and tearing down fencing ARCP had illegally installed. Someone could’ve been killed. It’s an utterly irresponsible move on the company’s part.
Build Nova Scotia (formerly Waterfront Development), which owns the easement for the trail, ordered ARCP to remove the barriers by noon Friday. We’ll see what happens next, I guess.
Somehow, during all the confusion, Rent was also able to contact (or in ARCP’s case, attempted to contact) all the various agencies involved in the dispute. It’s good reporting.
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3. Long COVID and kids
This wasn’t my finest moment. Yesterday, Tuesday night and into Wednesday, I confused two academic studies concerning long COVID and kids. The whole experience leaves me dispirited — not so much about my screwup (we all make mistakes), but rather about how we collectively can’t seem to talk rationally about anything COVID.
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4. Rockets go boom
“The test was spectacular, but not in the way those involved had hoped,” reports Lynsey Chutel for the New York Times:
A rocket engine firing at a planned spaceport on a remote Scottish island ended in a tower of fire on Monday, with an explosion that engulfed the launch platform in flames.
The site, a former radar station on Unst, in the north of the Shetland Islands, is intended to become a base for launching small satellites. That ambition reflects a wider push in Western Europe to develop more independent space capabilities after relations with Russia broke down over the war in Ukraine, freezing European access to Russian Soyuz rockets.
But this time at least, the result was a fiery display of the trial and error that characterizes the space business.
The rocket manufacturers involved, the German company Rocket Factory Augsburg, said that an “anomaly” had occurred, and that no one was injured.
Rockets blow up with regularity. Proponents of the space industry say the occasional explosion is part of the learning curve, and nothing much to worry about because the industry figures it out and, ya know, profit. But people who live near launch facilities have a different view; a recent spectacular SpaceX rocket explosion has drawn attention to wider pollution issues near its launch facility in Boca Chica, Texas (allegations SpaceX denies).
The Shetland launch facility has many similarities with the proposed Canso spaceport. The company that runs it, SaxaVord, says the facility is perfectly poised for “Sun-Synchronous, Polar and High Inclination Orbits or for suborbital sounding rocket launches,” just as Maritime Launch Services, the company proposing the Canso spaceport, brags about the “unparalleled range of inclinations” available from Canso and that its “world-class facility is ready to place satellites into polar and sun-synchronous orbits.” (World-class, eh?)
Both companies are aiming to launch a few dozen small rockets each year. Both are in remote areas. Both are looking for significant government backing.
SaxaVord is much further ahead than Maritime Launch — SaxaVord has an actual working facility and a contract with multiple rocket companies, including Rocket Factory, HyImpulse, and a subsidiary of Lockheed Martin, while Maritime Launch has a road that leads through the woods to a single concrete pad and some “memoranda of understandings” with some companies (those MOUs and five bucks will get you a shitty cup of coffee at Starbucks).
Both companies are struggling financially. Maritime Launch won’t be a going concern if it doesn’t get a big infusion of cash this year. SaxaVord hasn’t yet successfully launched a rocket, but it has reportedly managed to stiff the local contractors who built the facility:
Shetland Space Centre Limited owes approximately one million pounds to Shetland-based DITT Construction for the development of SaxaVord spaceport, two sources told European Spaceflight. The company currently does not have the funds to pay the amount after a £139 million debt facility promised by CEO Frank Strang in May failed to materialize.
The construction of SaxaVord Spaceport began in late March 2022. At its peak, more than 60 people were working on site to build out key infrastructure that would enable the facility to support launches of small rockets from Scottish shores. However, by August 2023, things had changed, with at least a portion of contractors being sent home. According to a statement given to the Shetland Times, the official reason for the contractor’s departure was that workers were being given “time off because the project was so far ahead of schedule.” That, however, now looks to have been cover for its financial troubles.
Sounds like a sketchy industry.
Nova Scotia will of course pursue it.
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5. The bar business
Gary Hurst, the president of Grafton Street Restaurant Limited, which owns the complex of bars at The Dome on Argyle Street, yesterday filed an affidavit with the UARB related to disciplinary actions being taken by the department of Alcohol and Gaming. Basically, people were getting kicked out of the complex by bouncers at the Argyle Street side of the building but then they’d simply walk around to the Grafton Street side and reenter.
In his affidavit, Hurst declares right off the top that “The incidents of May 14, 2023, should not have happened. My response and my associate’s response to these incidents is both our apology and specific remedial measures.”
So the disciplinary process will unfold as it will, but I was more interested in Hurst’s description of his business. First, he notes that “Our associated companies have owned and operated restaurants, pubs and nightclubs in Nova Scotia since 1971. We employ 350 people. 30% of our sales are sales from our pubs and nightclubs.”
Then Hurst explains how business has waxed and waned over the past few years:
CURRENT OPERATING CONDITIONS
I have observed the restaurant, pub and nightclub business in Nova Scotia since 1971. I maintain current knowledge from Restaurants Canada, The Globe and Mail, participation in Bank of Canada forum, industry friendships and personal observation. I believe the following conditions now exist post-Covid in Nova Scotia and throughout Canada.
a) Today’s nightclub customers are generally polite, respectful and a pleasure to deal with, compared to the violence and the excesses from 1971 through 2015.
b) Today’s customers have greater economic pressures and less disposable income than their predecessors and they drink less. This is consistent with reporting on these characteristics of Gen Z, the majority customer base, throughout the world.
c) Today’s compliance supervision by AGDT is many times more stringent than it has ever been. Standards have been raised, but AGDT are constructive and reasonable, and that includes this situation.
d) Today, many customers engage in “home consumption” which became common practice during the Covid era when licensed venues were closed, and then these customers go to socialize at pubs and nightclubs. Detecting “home consumption” and detecting drugs and last-minute ingestion of drugs and alcohol soon before entering licensed establishments borders on the impossible. We ask Halifax Police and AGDT for assistance with this detection.
e) Safe and entertaining nightclubs, in addition to well-run pubs and restaurants, are important for vibrancy and for sources of revenue to Halifax and Nova Scotia, and applying particularly to entertaining our many categories of visitors. Obviously, both an opportunity and a responsibility.
Financial Conditions
Using 2019 pre-Covid as the benchmark, our nightclub business has gone through the following changes of financial conditions:
a) Covid from March 2020 to June 2021 – we were closed or our capacity was restricted and we lost a great deal of money because our fixed costs continued without subsidy, except for rent and because of over-all inefficiencies with low sales. In 2020 sales were down 60% and in 2021 sales were down 18% compared to 2019.
b) July 2021 to December 2022 – there was a euphoric return to normal and there was spending of savings from Covid. Sales increased ahead of increases in labour and purchases of goods and services and profitability returned. In 2022 sales increased 28.5% from 2019.
c) January to December 2023 – Recession and raised interest rates and general inflation resulted in restricted spending and decreased sales of 24% from benchmark 2019.d) From 2020 to the end of 2023 – our cost of minimum wage increased 31.6% and our cost of liquor increased 17.4%.
e) First months of 2024 – The recession [note: there was no recession] and high interest rates are showing signs of stabilizing, as well as gradually increased sales and profitably. This is resulting in different forms of discounting and competition for sales. Sales are still limited because of lingering recession and reduced spending.
f) It is a condition of our liquor license to have two Halifax Police officers at our entrance on busy nights, typically on Friday and Saturday nights. This presence of Halifax Police is strongly favoured and appreciated by AGDT and ourselves to deter bad behavior for us and for downtown Halifax. Since Covid, this cost has increased 34.5%.
Notwithstanding adversity, our business and countless other restaurants, pub and nightclub businesses, and many other industries in Canada are still experiencing recoveryfrom Covid and the recession. My colleagues and I work every day to increase sales and manage expenses to achieve this recovery.
We’ve come a long way from the waterfront watering holes of yore. The bar business is now just another corporate enterprise.
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6. Money for ‘green’ hydrogen
We’ve taken Joan Baxter’s July 31 article, “‘A terrible use’ of public money: Critics slam federal government handouts for ‘green’ hydrogen exports to Germany from Atlantic Canada,” out from behind the paywall.
Baxter reported that “Canada is committing up to $300 million to support clean hydrogen trade with Germany is being slammed by critics”:
In a scathing statement, Julia Levin, associate director of national climate for the Canadian environmental advocacy organization, Environmental Defence, described the $300 million handout for the Canada-Germany Alliance as a “terrible use of taxpayer money for an energy-intensive, inefficient and expensive hydrogen scheme.”
We’ve also de-paywalled Yvette d’Entremont’s article, “Nova Scotia proclaims act for French first-language education.”
Government
City
Active Transportation Advisory Committee (Thursday, 6:30pm, online) — agenda
Province
No meetings
On campus
Dalhousie
PhD Defence: Psychology and Neuroscience (Thursday,9:30am, Room 3107, Mona Campbell Building, and online) — Colin R. McCormick will defend “It’s About Time: Converging Methods for Distinguishing the Influence of Endogenous and Exogenous Modes Within the Temporal Domain of Attention”
In the harbour
Halifax
03:00: One Cygnus, container ship, sails from Pier 41 for New York
05:30: Morning Prosperity, car carrier, arrives at Autoport from Southampton, England
06:30: Silver Shadow, cruise ship with up to 466 passengers, arrives at Pier 23 from Gaspé, Quebec, on a 10-day cruise from Québec City to Boston
07:00: Zuiderdam, cruise ship with up to 2,364 passengers, arrives at Pier 22 from Corner Brook, on a 35-day roundtrip cruise of the North Atlantic out of Boston
10:00: NYK Nebula, container ship, arrives at Fairview Cove from Antwerp, Belgium
11:00: Trustee, heavy lifter, arrives at anchorage from Argentia, Newfoundland
12:00: Nolhan Ava, ro-ro cargo, arrives at Pier 41 from Saint-Pierre
14:00: Trustee sails for sea
15:30: Grande Senegal, ro-ro container, arrives at Autoport from Savona, Italy
15:30: Morning Prosperity sails for sea
16:30: NYK Nebula sails for For Lauderdale, Florida
22:30: Grande Senegal sails for sea
23:45: Silver Shadow sails for Saint John
23:45: Zuiderdam sails for Boston
Midnight: Acadian, oil tanker, arrives at Irving Oil from Saint John
Cape Breton
08:00: Baie St.Paul, bulker, sails from Aulds Cove quarry through the causeway for Sept-Iles, Québec
15:00: Tanja, bulker, sails from Port Hawkesbury Paper for sea
15:30: Front Shanghai, oil tanker, arrives at EverWind from Girassol, Angola
16:00: Algoma Value, bulker, sails from Coal Pier (Sydney) for sea
Footnotes
I’m on the road. Spent a wonderful two days in Montreal, holed up in a hotel room reading documents. Today, I’m in Toronto, and have an interview scheduled for most of the afternoon. Heading back home tomorrow.