(NB-Travel-Nurses)
New Brunswick Health Minister Bruce Fitch says the province has been taken advantage of as a result of the “exorbitant” costs it paid for private nursing services.
Fitch says private companies failed to follow the “rules of business engagement” in their dealings with the government for travel nurses.
His comments follow a report by the province’s auditor general which found two provincial health authorities and a government department failed to properly monitor contracts awarded for travel nurses.
Fitch says the Health Department is looking at whether the francophone Vitalité Health Network should be taken to court to force it to hand over audit reports it refused to provide to the auditor general’s office on its use of travel nurses.
(The Canadian Press)
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(NS-School-Cellphone-Policy) (WATCH FOR DATING)
Nova Scotia’s education minister is scheduled to release her government’s plan for cellphone use in public schools today.
Sources are telling C-B-C that the plan will be similar to the model announced earlier this year in Ontario.
This plan would require elementary students to turn their phones off and keep them out of sight throughout the day.
Junior and senior high school students would be asked to turn their phones off and keep them out of sight during class time, unless their teacher has planned for cellphones to be used as part of the lesson.
(CBC News)
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(NB-SIRT-Investigation)
A police watchdog agency is investigating an alleged altercation last month at a home in Shediac, New Brunswick.
The Serious Incident Response Team says R-C-M-P were dispatched on May 29th following a report of a 43-year-old man in medical distress.
SiRT says an altercation began after officers arrived and a Taser was deployed.
The watchdog says the man went into medical distress before being taken to hospital where he later died.
(CTV Atlantic)
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(D-Day-PEI-Soldiers)
A P-E-I man is in France this week to trace the steps of a company of Island soldiers who took part in the D-Day invasion 80 years ago.
Greg Gallant, curator of the P-E-I Regiment Museum in Charlottetown, says it’s little known that about 250 Islanders served in a company of the North Nova Scotia Highlanders.
The regiment was at the head of the Canadian advance from Juno Beach on the first day of the Allied invasion of Normandy.
Gallant says many are unaware of the role played by troops from Canada’s smallest province and he believes it’s important to highlight the contributions of the men and women who served.
(The Canadian Press)
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(NS-Gay-Bars)
A new bar is looking to end an L-G-B-T-Q-Plus nightlife drought in Atlantic Canada’s biggest city.
Rumours Cabaret is set to open this month in downtown Halifax.
The couple behind the venue say they want their new space to be a hot spot for drag queen and king performances, live music and dancing, with community space for meetings in the daytime.
It comes after Halifax queer bars Reflections Cabaret and Menz and Mollyz closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
(The Canadian Press)
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(BOOKS-Griffin-Poetry-Prize)
Newfoundland-based poet Don McKay is set to receive this year’s 25-thousand-dollar Lifetime Recognition Award.
The award is scheduled to be handed out at the Griffin Poetry Prize ceremony in Toronto tonight.
McKay won the Griffin Poetry Prize in 2007 for “Strike/Slip,” a work jurors at the time praised as “a playful yet resonant microcosm, charted with virtuosity and love.”
He was a finalist for the prize two other times, and has twice won the Governor General’s Literary Award for Poetry.
(The Canadian Press)
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