The site for the Halifax local of The Media Co-op has been archived and will no longer be updated. Please visit the main Media Co-op website to learn more about the organization.
What are the stories, events, people and policies you think the Halifax Media Co-op should cover in March? Post your ideas here!
We know you're full of ideas. Don't hold back!
The site for the Halifax local of The Media Co-op has been archived and will no longer be updated. Please visit the main Media Co-op website to learn more about the organization.
Comments
Election Turnout
Voter participation decline in HRM/NS, and reasons for?
radio coverage of mental health issues
There have been a rash of radio pieces about mental health on CBC radio's The Current as part of their "Live Right Now" series. The series has featured the voices of several people who are strugging with past or current "mental illness," as well as prominent medical experts (who, incidentally, share little of their actual selves with listeners).
Somehow, a social analysis of mental illness has been nonexistent in these discussions. No mention of how non-dominant groups like LGBTQ people, women, ethnic minorities, and youth are disproportionately represented in virtually all population studies done on mental illness in Canada... nor any debate about the rapid growth in pharmaceutical prescriptions/sales and how ideas of normal feelings (and normal people) are being increasingly narrowed. I am not sure how this is possible! Could you do a feature on mental health to balance this out?
A related idea is a series on how diverse community members approach mental health, to show alternatives to understanding and treating these conditions. It seems that CBC and other organizations include celebrity witnesses like Steve Page to reduce stigma surrounding mental illness. While all brave stories should be welcomed, I don't see how stigma can be reduced without also challenging medicine's monopoly on North American minds. What are other ways of looking at this topic? Can we bring in non-physician community members as experts? What if we discussed mental illness from spiritual and political standpoints?
Thank you for considering these suggestions.
compensation for sexual abuse victims of the church
Some decisions in Nova Scotia around compensation to sexual abuse victims have been released recently. The monetary compensation is woefully low. This is in part because dioceses have been left largely to their own devices to raise the money for abuse victims -- forced to sell community halls built by a dwindling rural population, and diocese property deemed by the church "non-core." Those ultimately responsible for the ongoing abuse in Nova Scotia's churches in the 50s and 60s are meanwhile doing nothing to compensate for their criminal actions -- the Archbishop refuses to speak on the matter, and the Roman Catholic Church itself refuses to pay out of its huge coffers. What a sin.
budget cuts/deficit in maritime provinces
With all the provincial governments running huge deficits serious large budget cuts seem to be in the pipe. It would be interesting to read a range of views on how we got into this situation, likely outcomes of large cuts to social services and creative means on digging ourselves out of this hole while maintaining or even improving our quality of life.
Halifax Chamber of Commerce
I think it would be really interesting to see something on the Halifax Chamber of Commerce. Personally I know very little about what they do but have the impression they are an influential organization. I'm not prepared to tackle this myself, maybe there is someone out there?
What is it? What do they do? Who do they represent? What is their decision-making and lobbying history?