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Desmond Inquiry Final Report Delayed Again [AUDIO]

Raymond Sheppard talks to The Todd Veinotte Show on News 95.7FM in Halifax – July 7th, 2023. 

Via City News: “The Nova Scotia government has dismissed the judge presiding over an inquiry that has spent much of the past five years investigating why Afghanistan war veteran Lionel Desmond killed three family members and himself in 2017.

Brad Johns, Nova Scotia’s attorney general, confirmed Tuesday he has asked the chief judge of the provincial court to assign a new judge to finish the work started by provincial court Judge Warren Zimmer, saying the province has waited long enough for Zimmer’s final report.” 

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The Desmond family

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Halifax Regional Police Chief Dan Kinsella speaks during a meeting of the Board of Police Commissioners on Monday, Dec. 13, 2021. He is scheduled to testify in the Kayla Borden appeal hearing this Thursday in Burnside.

Borden’s lawyer, board chair debate line of questioning around systemic racism during constable’s testimony

Andrew Gough, the lawyer representing the Halifax Regional Police, openly scoffed and laughed at the notion that the denial of systemic racism within the HRP by one of its officers would be evidence, in of itself, of systemic racism within the force.

Top left photo: Halifax Regional Police officers Const. Mark Pierce & Const. Craig Trudel in Feb. 2020 moments before arresting a 15-year-old Black teenager who suffered injuries during the arrest (seen in the bottom left three photos) before releasing him without charges. Right photo: Const. Mark Pierce entering a restorative justice meeting in May, 2023.

Halifax constable referred to restorative justice for 2020 assault on Black teen [VIDEO]

Const. Mark Pierce, the Halifax Regional Police officer charged with assaulting a 15-year-old Black boy outside of a mall in Bedford in February 2020, came face to face last week with the youth and his parents for the first time since the night of the incident.

Demario Chambers, now 19 years old, said he received a concussion, cuts, bruises, and badly hurt finger at the hands of Pierce and his partner Const. Craig Trudel when they arrested him.

They released Chambers without charges to his parents later that night.

Sara Micheal says it took over two weeks to give a statement to RCMP following a racist assault that left her with neck scars.

‘This town is very racist’: African student in Wolfville speaks out about experience with RCMP, mayor after filing complaint about an assault

Sara Micheal is speaking out about her experience with King’s District RCMP and Wolfville Mayor Wendy Donovan following an incident that left her with visible injuries and during which she said she was verbally attacked with racial remarks.

In an interview with the Halifax Examiner, Micheal, who is a permanent resident from Eritrea, said she moved out of an apartment where she experienced a lot of racism from the landlord, and into a house with more than half a dozen other roommates she didn’t know.

C MLA Elect for Preston, Twaila Grosse, at her campaign announcement even in June, 2023.

Twaila Grosse, first Black woman appointed as cabinet minister in Nova Scotia’s history

Twila Grosse, PC MLA for Preston, is now  Minister of African Nova Scotian Affairs and Minister of the Public Service Commission following a cabinet shuffle on Thursday.

This makes Grosse the first Black woman in Nova Scotia’s history to hold a cabinet position in the provincial government.

Lennett Anderson, Ali Duale, Suzy Hansen, Barb Hamilton-Hinch, Tony Ince, El Jones, Lyn Jones, Quentrel Provo, Angela Simmonds, Robert Wright

Who will be the next minister of African Nova Scotian Affairs?

PC premier-designate Tim Houston has no African Nova Scotian members in his caucus to choose from for the job.

Renise Robichaud is a social work student at the Université de Moncton doing her masters thesis on Black mothers’ experience in the Nova Scotia child welfare system. Photo: Renise Robichaud. Robert Wright is the executive director of the People’s Counselling Clinic and the acting executive director of the African Nova Scotian Justice Institute. Photo: Zoom.

Social work student collecting data about Black mothers’ experiences with child welfare system

A social work student in New Brunswick wants to interview Black mothers in Nova Scotia who’ve been involved with child welfare servces and the Department of Community Services for child neglect within the past five years.

Renise Robichaud is working on her masters thesis at Université de Moncton. She said Black mothers are overrepresented in the child welfare system and the main issue is the Department of Community Services relies heavily on people reporting parents to the offices of child welfare, which accounts for the majority of the cases they receive.