Halifax, Nova Scotia
Friday, September 4, 2026
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Vol. 12 · No. 36 · Newsstand $3.50
Opinion
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Opinion
Editorials, letters, and the argument after the vote. Elena Morse writes when the cameras leave. Letters run with names and neighbourhoods. We do not run unsigned attacks. Corrections belong on A2, not in a footer.
The editorial board is Morse. There is no separate "voices" vertical. If you want to argue with Thursday\'s pier editorial, write 250 words, sign your name, and name your neighbourhood. If you want a correction, use [email protected]. Both land on A2.
Editorial · Thursday
The pier is not a blank lot
Public land gets treated like inventory. It is not. Once the view is privatized, you do not get it back with a plaque. Tuesday\'s harbour vote was imperfect. The outer pier stayed ungated. Hold that line on Sept. 22, when the cameras thin out. Bring the Thursday photograph.
Elena Morse · Editor
Letter
"I waited six hours. I will wait for the fence."
Dara MacKinnon of Gottingen Street, who submitted the 4,812-name petition, writes that she will believe the pier is public when the first rental fence comes down, not when the press release went out. The gallery was not a rally. It was the same 40 people. That is the point.
Letters · Aug. 28
Letter
A Bedford reader on the 18-storey cap
Lewis Grant\'s no vote, a reader in Bedford writes, was not a betrayal of the harbour. It was a fear of another Cogswell: a fence and a promise. Fair. The occupancy clause is how you tell the difference. If staff soften it in September, Grant will have been right about the method, not the pier.
Letters · Sept. 2
Reported
How the vote landed, 9-6, at 11:47 p.m.
Amira Hassan\'s overnight is the record, not this page. Read it before you write us. The height cap, the walkway, the dead lease, and the 90 days are all in the story. Opinion is what we think. Politics is what happened.
Amira Hassan · 12 min
Column
Targets without sites are press releases
The province\'s 7,400-unit dare is already being used as a reason to unwind the harbour cap. Completions last year were 3,180. School lots have no servicing calendar. Do not put 64 extra units back on a waterfront floorplate and call it a housing strategy. Morse said so. The numbers say so first.
Desk
The Common
A ticket does not own the lawn
Same argument, different shoreline. Parks spent $6.1 million and then wrote that the grass stays public on ticketed nights. Promoters will test that sentence the first sold-out Saturday it rains. We will be on the grass, not the deck.
Maya Orth · 7 min
Letter
From a ferry supervisor, on his own time
He sat in the gallery Tuesday. The Port\'s letter asked that any public-pier rule "not impede lawful commercial access." He writes that the ramp already impedes itself when a cruise ship and the 1 p.m. boat meet. A cafe table on the outer timber is not the problem. A fence after 8 p.m. would have been.
Letters · Sept. 3
Corrections
How we correct, and where
Email [email protected]. We run them on A2 in print and at the foot of the digital story, with date and the wrong fact named. We do not bury them. Staff who get a vote count wrong hear about it from Morse before they hear about it from you. That is the policy. Use it.
Masthead
From the editor
This paper still fits on one page of names. That is on purpose.
Morse covered the Herald buyouts from the Joseph Howe newsroom, then left. Civic Press is independent, local, and small. If you want a national take, there are apps for that. If you want the pier file kept open, subscribe. Print is $12. Digital is $7. Students $4.
Elena Morse
How to read this page
Editorial, letters, then the reported record
Morse writes the editorials. Letters need a name and a neighbourhood. Hassan’s harbour overnight is the record; this page is the argument. Corrections go to A2. If you only read one piece, read the pier editorial, then show up on Sept. 22.
Desk