If Halifax Water gets its way water rates are about to rise. One word sums up the impact on the city's water users. Ouch! Halifax Water has applied to the Utility and Review Board for a rate increase of just over 11% as of July 1st and another 16% increase on April 1st, 2014. If approved, it would boost the average water bill by about $200 a year. Again, ouch! The average yearly water bill today is nearly $640. One of the reasons given for the proposed hike is the need to upgrade the city's waste-water system, described as having been neglected now for decades. And just who is to blame for that? So now we pay the price for that neglect.
City police continue to search for the man who gunned down 24 year old Raymond Floyd Peters this week. However they only have a vague description of a black male and they don't yet know his identity. Peters was shot early Monday evening after a group of men got into a fight in the backyard of a home in the Pinecrest and Primrose area of Dartmouth. This has become one dangerous neighborhood. It's been the scene of many shootings and other violent incidents and it looks like there'll be little change this year. A witness to this murder, the city's first of 2013, tells CTV's supper hour news he received a death threat yesterday morning. He says Peters had been in his apartment late Monday afternoon with a friend and used the phone. Moments after he left he was shot dead.
Jim Lowther, the presidents of VETS, a veterans advocacy group, has it right when he describes Dennis Manuge as a hero. Manuge is the Nova Scotian who was the lead plaintiff in a class action lawsuit over clawbacks to the disability pensions of injured members of the military. They scored a victory in the Federal Court of Canada that ordered the Harper government to stop the practice and yesterday the details of the financial settlement were revealed. The roughly 7500 veterans eligible for some cash will share nearly $900 million. For Manuge, injured at CFB Petawawa, it will mean a cash settlement of about $9400. The law firm handling the law suit will also give him $50,000 for his role as lead plaintiff. It was wrong for the federal government to clawback those pensions. It was a long fight, but in the end justice was served and deserved.
Have a great day. Get involved. And if you're not outraged, you're not paying attention.
Rick Howe
