Roundup: COVID count climbs, Pictou Co. man faces child porn charges, Antigonish bishop hopes for healing, Bridgewater to rename Cornwallis Street

The statue of Edward Cornwallis that used to stand in a Halifax park.

Plus: Life in the age of oxymorons — author Steven Laffoley explores this nonsensical period of pandemic

Nova Scotia has 171 known active cases of COVID-19, with 31 new cases and five recoveries reported in yesterday’s government update. Of the new cases, 17 are in the Central Zone, eight in the Western, three in the Eastern, and three in the Northern.

Health officials also added another HRM school, this time Rocky Lake Elementary in Bedford, to the exposure list.

Pictou Co. man faces child porn charges
A 25-year-old man who lives on Little Harbour Road is scheduled to appear in court on Nov. 29 to face charges of possession of child pornography, distribution of child pornography, and making child pornography available. 

New Glasgow Regional Police say they arrested the suspect on Oct. 25 at his home, after a two-week investigation. They haven’t revealed his name.

The Pictou Advocate reports.

Steven Laffoley

Life in the age of oxymorons
We’re living in strange times, and author Steven Laffoley has been pondering the changes in how we communicate, and the ongoing inanity that life has thrust upon us.

“In this interminable Age of COVID, the curious phrase the new normal has quickly become so ubiquitous that we routinely toss it off in meetings and in conversation without much thought, along with those wince-worthy fellow travellers ‘lockdown,’ ‘pivot,’ and ‘zoom,'” he says. “Oxymorons appear perversely apt in this nonsensical period of pandemic … Along the way, the random order of the new normal kept us searching for the oddly familiar, which was always conspicuously absent. Instead, we were told, the new normal would be a genuine imitation or literal interpretation of, well, the old normal.”

Read more in his latest Unravel Halifax essay
.

Antigonish bishop hopes for healing
The Bishop of Antigonish tells The Reporter that he hopes a recent apology and $30-million compensation pledge from the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops moves the church closer to reconciling with the victims of the residential school system.

“There is no single step that can eliminate the pain felt by residential school survivors, but we collectively hope these measures will position us to walk together on the path of hope,” Rev. Wayne Kirkpatrick says. “As we continue on this journey nationally and locally, we will listen to the experience of the Mi’kmaq in our diocesan communities, especially to the survivors of residential schools, to guide our path forward.”

Drake Lowthers reports. And in this first-person account originally published in Halifax Magazine in 2014, residential-school survivor Irene Bernadette Eisenhower shares a first-person account of the sexual, physical, and emotional abuse she (and thousands of other children) experienced, and how it continues to affect her life.

Bridgewater nixes commemorative street names
Bridgewater’s municipal government has decided to remove the name Cornwallis from a prominent local street, and will no longer use commemorative names for parks, roads, and trails.

Edward Cornwallis is often cited as the founder of Halifax (even though there were many people living here before he arrived) and has historically been venerated around the province. Historical research, however, shows he did a great deal of harm, notoriously offering a bounty for the killing of First Nations people in Nova Scotia. Municipal officials say it will cost $500 to replace the street signs.

“It’s future proof if you just don’t name it after people,” Mayor David Mitchell says. “There’s enough things in the world you can name things after.”

Keith Corcoran has the story for LighthouseNow.

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