Oscar-winning British actress and screenwriter Emma Thompson was on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert last week talking about some of her new projects, including her TV series Down Cemetery Road in which Thompson plays a private detective.
During the interview, Colbert asked Thompson how she feels about the “coming AI revolution.”
“A lot of creators are worried about it,” Colbert said.
Thompson said AI makes her feel “intense irritation.” She spoke about her writing process that includes writing longhand using a pen and paper.
“I believe there is a connection between the brain and the hand,” Thompson said.
Thompson said once she’s finished a piece of work, she then types it into a Word document.
“Recently, the Word document is constantly saying, ‘would you like me to rew…
Oscar-winning British actress and screenwriter Emma Thompson was on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert last week talking about some of her new projects, including her TV series Down Cemetery Road in which Thompson plays a private detective.
During the interview, Colbert asked Thompson how she feels about the “coming AI revolution.”
“A lot of creators are worried about it,” Colbert said.
Thompson said AI makes her feel “intense irritation.” She spoke about her writing process that includes writing longhand using a pen and paper.
“I believe there is a connection between the brain and the hand,” Thompson said.
Thompson said once she’s finished a piece of work, she then types it into a Word document.
“Recently, the Word document is constantly saying, ‘would you like me to rewrite that for you?’” Thompson said.
“I end up just going, ‘I don’t need you to fucking rewrite what I’ve just written! Will you fuck off! Just fuck off!’”
I’m with Thompson: I don’t want AI to “fucking rewrite what I’ve just written” either.
Thompson won the Oscar for her screenplay of the 1995 film Sense and Sensibility, based on the beloved 1811 novel by Jane Austen of the same name. Sense and Sensibility is one of my favourite films; I watch it once in a while just for the comfort of it. I have the book and last read it while lying on a beach in Cuba.
Thompson is the perfect talent to write a screenplay based on Austen’s work. In her screenplay, Thompson managed to capture the lives of Regency-era women, and Austen’s soul and wit. In the film, Thompson also played Elinor, the eldest Dashwood sister, with the sense, reserve, and thoughtfulness in which Austen wrote her character.
Generative AI could never do the same. Imagine asking Thompson to rewrite her work. The gall!
I also agree with Thompson that there is a connection between the brain and the hand. I don’t write longform as Thompson does, but I feel like the words I write, even in this Morning File, come from my brain, down my arm, and into my fingers, which then find the correct letters on the keyboard.
I never took a typing class. I didn’t have the patience, so I just taught myself. Sometimes my brain and fingers compete, which is why I end up with typos.
That I get to write and report for a living is such a gift. For me, writing is a passion, maybe even a calling. But getting your writing published takes drive. Talent remains invisible without drive (I’d argue drive is more important than talent).
If you want to be a writer, you just have to write. Again, generative AI can’t replace the patience, persistence, and sheer determination involved with becoming a writer — or anything, for that matter. You have to deal with the errors, rejection, and people disliking what you write. But you write because some readers will love what you have to say.
Also, this is why AI can’t replace editors, who not only catch typos but who understand the context in which a story is written. When Yvette d’Entremont or Tim Bousquet edit my work, they can fill in blanks and see the meaning of words I may not have seen for myself when I was writing. They also understand the local context of the story, which, again, AI can’t.
Reporting is a different story because it’s not just writing, but also researching, interviewing, gaining the trust of sources, and then putting their stories into words. Generative AI cannot do this. Reporting requires curiosity and human connection.
Technology has changed reporting, of course. The printing press never wrote the news, but changed how it was spread.
In his latest column in Defector, Drew Magary wrote a response to a father whose 16-year-old daughter wants to go into journalism. The dad, however, is worried about his daughter getting into a career where she will just “grind out content for AI to gobble up.”
Here’s what Magary wrote:
The way to defeat bad journalism, AI-generated pap included, is with more people practicing good journalism.
The Examiner believes in that, too.
I believe that brain-hand connection applies to anything creative. Take cooking, for example. Some people have a natural talent and passion for cooking. They know what flavours pair well together and how to experiment with recipes.
While machines and technology may have made cooking easier and more convenient, it can never replace the talent and passion for food. It’s the person cooking the meal who makes it taste delicious.
Cooking and food, like writing, has a bigger purpose. Food and words bring people together, create community, connect cultures, and teach us something new we didn’t know. We gather over food at holidays, with friends at dinner, and when being a tourist in a new location.
That goes for so much of what people create: art, music, theatre, architecture, crafts, gardens, and more. When we create, we think, we teach, we learn, we share, and we connect.
Give people the credit for what they create instead of using generative AI that steals from creators. Generative AI doesn’t deserve any kind of credit unless it’s someone pointing out what AI destroys.
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NOTICED
1. Halifax hosting public open house on Sandy Lake development
The entrance to a trail at Sandy Lake. Credit: Suzanne Rent
Halifax Regional Municipality (HRM) is hosting a public open house where people can offer feedback on development at the Sandy Lake Special Planning Area.
The open house takes place at Bedford United Church on Wednesday, Nov. 12. There are three sessions, all of which will offer the same information:
- 10am to 12pm
- 2pm to 4pm
- 6:30pm to 8:30pm
There’s also an online survey at the bottom of this page that you can fill out. That survey is open until Dec. 5.
In May 2025, the province announced two new special planning areas, including Sandy Lake; the other area is the Highway 102 west corridor. With that announcement, Growth and Development Minister Colton LeBlanc told HRM to start the secondary planning process that would see 19,500 units of housing in those special planning areas.
In 1971, there were plans to develop Sandy Lake into a regional park. For years, a group called Save Sandy Lake Coalition, a group of 30 organizations, has been working to not just formalize the status of the park, but expand it. The group got started in 2013 when Armco clearcut a portion of the forest that it owned. That land is now owned by Clayton Development, which wants to build housing.
Concerns about developing Sandy Lake include adding more cars on the already congested Hammonds Plains Road, polluting Sandy Lake and other waterways, destroying habitat for species, and risks of climate-change related flooding in the area and into Bedford. That area was one of several communities that flooded in July 2023.
Flood waters in Bedford on July 22, 2023, the day after Friday’s historic rainfall event. Credit: Shaun Lowe Photographic
I wrote this story about the group’s work in October 2020. Obviously, much has taken place since then and the group continues its fight.
In July, I went on a hike around Sandy Lake with Karen McKendry, senior wilderness outreach coordinator with the Ecology Action Centre (EAC). There are dozens of drumlins around Sandy Lake that support mixed, multi-aged Wabanaki-Acadian forest and significant old-growth forests. (Drumlins are hills formed by glacial sheets; Citadel Hill and George’s Island are drumlins).
We hiked up and around one of the drumlins not far from the lake where there is also a small but popular beach. It’s a beautiful spot for hiking. McKendry is a trail runner and occasionally runs the trails through Sandy Lake.
When you’re at the beach on Sandy Lake and look across, you can see the area that was clearcut by Armco, and it’s starting to grow back. Here’s what the coalition says on its website:
Such a development would irreparably damage one of the last large greenspaces in urban Halifax.
With nature rapidly disappearing, floods becoming more frequent and severe, and local traffic already at its limits, it has become increasingly clear that this is an unsuitable place for development at all — let alone the 6,000+ new housing units that are proposed along the Hammonds Plains Road.
You can learn more about the open house on Nov. 12 at this link.
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2. Halifax closing encampment at Lower Flinn Park
On Wednesday, Halifax announced it was starting the process to de-designate the tent encampment in Lower Flinn Park. In a press release, the city wrote that it handed out notices to the people living in that encampment and gave them a deadline of Dec. 7 to leave.
In October, a 30-year-old man who was living in the Lower Flinn Park encampment was shot.
HRM closed the encampment at Cogswell Park in September. That leaves just two designated sites for encampments: Green Road Park in Dartmouth and the Barrington Street Greenway in Halifax.
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3. Basic income and the federal budget
Credit: montage: Iris; photos from Unsplash
On Wednesday, Basic Income Nova Scotia shared this statement in response to the federal budget.
Budget 2025 arrives at a pivotal moment. In an era of rising uncertainty, we applaud the government’s commitment to a stronger and more sovereign Canada. But we face growing inequality and precarity with too many people being left behind. That’s why aBasic Income Guarantee must be part of the plan—regular, unconditional income security sufficient to cover basic needs so everyone can thrive. This is the missing piece that aligns with the government’s Canada Strong plan to Unite, Secure, Protect, and Build.
Budget 2025 includes investments in major projects to build a strong economy and a more united Canada. By investing directly in the economic capacity of all Canadians a Basic Income Guarantee would be an unparalleled, unifying project—for Canadians impacted by tariffs, technological disruption and other risks that any of us could face. A country where people look out for each other is harder to divide and easier to mobilize for common goals. Canada’s productive capacity is its people. Canada’s greatest opportunity for growth is not in machines, capital deepening or nation-building projects; it is investing directly in the human beings who power them.
Budget 2025 invests in defending Canadian sovereignty and protecting against growing threats. But true security requires income security. Canadians need stable footing, the same way our nation does. It would take only a fraction of the Budget’s funding on defence to ensure basic living standards for all Canadians far more effectively and efficiently than our current patchwork across the country. The savings from investing in the health and wellbeing of Canadians through a Basic Income Guarantee would be significant and would help eliminate unnecessary, wasteful spending dealing with the symptoms, not the causes, of social problems.
Protecting social programs is not enough, we need to improve and expand them. To protect Canada is to protect our values and fundamental human rights. A Basic Income is key to completing a vision for a strong and prosperous Canada because income insufficiency is at the root of so much of poor health, food deprivation, housing unaffordability and other challenges. We welcome automatic tax filing, an advancement that can streamline the delivery of a basic income for those who need it.
Building Canada Strong means investing in the people who build this country. People who have adequate incomes strengthen local economies, create jobs, innovate, raise families, and build communities. As a leader in AI, Canada should support people through transitions and ensure AI’s gains are broadly and fairly shared.
Budget 2025 identifies important priorities — building a secure and united Canada — but it could do better by making tangible investments in the lives of Canadians. A Basic Income Guarantee could provide an economic stimulus and ensure everyone has the opportunity to thrive in the future of the Canada we build together.
In October, Tim Bousquet wrote this bit about Ireland making a basic income pilot for artists permanent because it was so successful. Bousquet wrote:
This would be a good program to replicate in Nova Scotia. This province shares not just an artistic tradition with Ireland but also a highly educated but lowly paid artistic community facing steep rents and other living expenses.
In January, I interviewed Scott Santens, the founder and CEO of the U.S.-based Income to Support All (ITSA) Foundation, who has been researching and advocating for Universal Basic Income (UBI) since 2013.
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4. ‘This won’t be the last time wells in Nova Scotia run dry’
A bulk water truck in a line at the Halifax Water refill station on Bayne Street in Halifax on Oct. 7, 2025. Credit: Suzanne Rent
Barry Rueger, who owns a farmhouse in Western Head near Liverpool, has this op-ed in the Globe and Mail about his dug well going dry during the months of drought in Nova Scotia. Rueger wrote that his well can hold 3,000 gallons of water.
Rueger and his wife live in Cambridge, England but rent out their Nova Scotia home. He said they had to pay $400 to fill the well, quite an expense for many Nova Scotians whose wells have gone dry in recent months. But filling the well didn’t help.
Rueger writes:
Instead of stabilizing the water level, it’s disappearing quickly into the soil. We’re faced with a choice: Spend $20,000 for a new, deeper, drilled well, or close up our wonderful farmhouse and ask our tenants to find a new home – one with running water.
The larger question is what the Nova Scotia government is doing to assist homeowners with dry wells. They’ve been quick to suggest that you take shorter showers, or use waste water to refill your toilet tank, but when you have literally no running water that doesn’t help.
If you’re retired and living on a pension, or if you’re a single mother struggling to feed your children, you need a government that will pay for water delivery to your house, or even for part of the cost of drilling a new well. You need a government that understands that clean, running water is essential to life. It’s not a luxury.
Rueger said he’s been speaking to companies that drill wells, which is costly: $20,000. The owners of those companies, he wrote, are working seven days a week.
That’s what I heard from Tammie Isenor, the owner** **of Maritime Clean and Care, a bulk water delivery service. When I interviewed her last month, Isenor said she and her coworkers have only had three days off since June delivering water to Nova Scotians whose wells have run dry.
“Global warming is very much a thing,” Isenor told me during our interview.
Philip Moscovitch wrote about his experiences monitoring the water levels in his dug well while adapting and learning to live with water shortages.
Rueger gets to the real point of the issue in the final line of his op-ed:
“Because our governments refuse to stop the extraction and use of fossil fuels, climate change will continue, and this won’t be the last time wells in Nova Scotia run dry.”
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5. Sounds of Your Park
The shadow of our plane on the sand flying over a herd of seals along the beach on Sable Island. Credit: Suzanne Rent/Halifax Examiner
On Monday, I learned about Sounds of Your Park, an online interactive map that has audio clips of the sounds of protected parks and areas across the world. One of the audio clips is common terns from Sable Island, which I visited on June 16, 2024. You can read my series here.
Sounds of Your Park is produced by a collaboration of groups under the name #NatureForAll. The group includes Parks Canada, the National Park Service, Colorado State University, the George Wright Society, the World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA), and Wildlife Acoustics.
Other Nova Scotia locations and sounds on the map include ocean surf from The Hawk Beach on Cape Sable Island, and pebble beach surf and a stream trickle from the Cape Breton National Highlands.
I plan on using this map while I am lying in bed at 7:30pm thanks to the time change.
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RECENTLY IN THE HALIFAX EXAMINER:
1. Province delivering on nursing home beds, contract transparency still an issue, committee hears
From the Public Accounts Committee meeting on Nov. 5, 2025. L to R: Rob Bourgeois, finance department controller; Janet Lynn Huntington, associate deputy, Seniors and Long-term Care; Lora MacEachern, Seniors and Long-term Care deputy minister; Paula Langille, executive director, infrastructure with the department. Credit: Jennifer Henderson
Jennifer Henderson has this story on what happened at the public accounts committee meeting on Wednesday. The committee discussed the procurement of thousands of new nursing home beds across the province.
In September, Nova Scotia auditor general Kim Adair released this report that criticized the decision to give nursing home operators the first crack at bids on new facilities worth billions of dollars, rather than putting that work out to competitive bids.
As Henderson reports, Seniors and Long-term Care deputy minister Lora MacEachern said the policy of “the right-of-first-refusal” has been in use for a long time. Not so, Adair said at the committee.
Henderson writes:
The auditor general was at the meeting, sitting in the front row as an observer. Liberal MLA Iain Rankin requested Adair speak before the committee and address the issue.
“In our view, the right of first refusal is not in compliance with the Public Procurement Act,” Adair said. “These are 25 service agreements including an operating component and a major capital component in excess of $15 billion. We’re saying all of these beds, these contracts, should go to public tender.”
Audit recommendation 1.5 states “the Department of Seniors and Long-term Care requires all new and replacement beds selected for construction to be awarded following Public Procurement Act requirements.”
Although the government accepted the recommendation, the disagreement continues over how to interpret the wording. MacEachern did not provide a clear answer when repeatedly asked if future contracts will be awarded through competitive bidding.
“Our view and our advice is that the procurement act has been and continues to be complied with,” MacEachern said.
Click or tap here to read “Province delivering on nursing home beds, contract transparency still an issue, committee hears.”
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2. ** **Nova Scotia announces protection of 1,267 hectares, but no word on West Mabou Beach Provincial Park
Save West Mabou Beach sign at the entrance to Cabot Links in the town of Inverness, Cape Breton. Cabot Links is one of two luxury golf resorts in the area that belong to Cabot Golf, which wants to develop a new 18-hole private golf course on West Mabou Beach Provincial Park. This photo was taken in late Oct. 2025. Credit: contributed
Joan Baxter reports on the designation of 1,267 more hectares of land in 16 parks and protected areas across Nova Scotia. The Department of Environment and Climate Change sent out this press release on Wednesday.
Baxter interviewed Raymond Plourde, senior wilderness coordinator at the Ecology Action Centre (EAC), who said he’s not impressed with the announcement. From Baxter’s story:
“It’s a cynical move to try to cover their ass on their incredibly slow and tiny progress towards reaching the 20% protection goal,” Plourde said in a message to the Halifax Examiner.
“All of these little additions only amount to two one-hundredths of a percent,” he added. “The 1,267 hectares represents 0.023% of Nova Scotia. Less than one-quarter of one-tenth of 1%.”
The 11 parks that were included in the announcement should have been designated a decade ago, Plourde added.
“There are no new large wilderness areas, some of which have been waiting for designation since they were promised in the 2013 parks and protected areas plan,” Plourde said.
Baxter also writes about the timing of the announcement. Two weeks ago, Baxter reported this story about how Nova Scotia has breached conditions of its $28.5 million nature agreement with Ottawa.
Meanwhile, in Cape Breton, a citizen group Save West Mabou Beach Provincial Park is fighting to protect the park from any development, including a golf course.
Click or tap here to read “Nova Scotia announces protection of 1,267 hectares, but no word on West Mabou Beach Provincial Park.”
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IN OTHER NEWS
1. Top 0.1 per cent of tax filers in province made 29 times more than average Nova Scotian
Credit: PiggyBank/Unsplash
Andrew Lam at CBC reports:
If you made more than $920,600 in 2023, you were part of the top 0.1 per cent of earners in Nova Scotia — that’s before taxes, but including investments, pensions, capital gains and any refundable tax credits or government transfers.
People at the top of the income distribution live in a different world, says Dalhousie University economics professor Lars Osberg.
“When you’ve got over a million dollars coming in every year, your problem is which European vacation do you take and how many do you take,” as opposed to how to pay rent, Osberg said.
Lam reports on this data from Statistics Canada that details how much the high-income earners made in 2023. Lam writes:
The median total income including capital gains of those in the top 0.1 per cent of tax filers was $1,181,600. For the typical Nova Scotian, it was $41,300 — about 29 times less.
In September, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA-NS) released its annual report on living wages in Nova Scotia. The average living wage for Nova Scotia is $27.60/hour.
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2. Gas plant plans threaten migratory bird corridor on Chignecto Isthmus
Graphic: Chignecto Isthmus Climate Change Adaptation Engineering Feasibility Study Credit: Chignecto Isthmus Climate Change Adaptation Engineering Feasibility Study
Cloe Logan with the National Observer has this feature on a proposed gas plant on land on the New Brunswick side of the Chignecto Isthmus. But advocates are worried about how the plant could threaten the environment and a migratory bird corridor.
From Logan’s story:
Located near Sackville in southeastern New Brunswick, the plant has already been released from a federal environmental assessment. If the province gives it the green light, a 500 megawatt facility with up to 10 generators will be built right on top of the Isthmus’ Acadian forests and ecologically-sensitive wetlands which help guard against flooding. NB Power, a Crown utility, has contracted an American company called ProEnergy to construct the project and crews are already at the site building a temporary access road to enable water testing.
While the province is no stranger to fossil fuel generation — it’s Irving country, after all — many residents were shocked when they heard the project would be built on such a sensitive piece of land. The federal government has coughed up $325 million (matching the same amount provided by the affected provinces) to raise the dyke system in an effort to hold back sea level rise and storm surges, justifying the funds because of the Isthmus’s economic importance.
Logan spent some time at the Chignecto Isthmus, speaking to people such as Barry Rothfuss, co-founder of the Atlantic Wildlife Institute. Here’s Logan again:
When he got word that a greenhouse gas-spewing gas plant could soon be plopped right on the Isthmus, he was in disbelief. The location of the institute is no accident: it’s within the main migratory route for shorebirds coming from the Arctic and a stone’s throw from Johnson’s Mills, where a quarter of a million birds take a rest on the red, sandy banks of the Bay of Fundy on their way south each year.
This story is excellent reporting and you should read it. Of course, Logan’s story caught my attention because of the birds, but there is one thing I’ve learned in my birding adventures: birds are the canaries in the coal mine of how we treat the environment.
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Government
City
Women and Gender Equity Advisory Committee (Thursday, 4:30pm, online) — agenda
Harbour East-Marine Drive Community Council (Thursday, 6pm, HEMDCC Meeting Space and online) — agenda
Province
No meetings
On campus
Dalhousie
Thursday
Environmental/Health Effects of Uranium Mining (Thursday, 7:15pm, Potter Auditorium, Rowe Building and online) — ESS Lecture Series, featuring Chief Tamara Young, Nancy Covington, Laurette Geldenhuys, and Tynette Deveaux
Group Read – Reclaiming Power + Place: The Final Report (Thursday, 12pm, Indigenous Student Centre and online) — details
Physiology and Biophysics Seminar Series (Thursday, 1pm, Room 3H-01, Tupper Building) — Arun Anantharam from the University of Toledo, Ohio, will present “Novel insights on Ca2+ sensing and signaling in dense core vesicle fusion”
Psychedelics in Psychiatry: Innovation, Risks, and Realities (Thursday, 7pm, Peggy Corkum Music Room, Halifax) — public panel discussion with guest speaker Joshua Rosenblat from the University of Toronto
Friday
Noon Hour Free Live Music Series: Pop Music Ensemble (Friday, 11:45am, Strug Concert Hall) — details
**Lebanese Film Festival **(Friday, 7pm, Room 1020, Rowe Building) — details
King’s
Interested in our MFA? (Thursday, 5pm, Bus Stop Theatre) — workshop and open house
NSCAD
Thursday
Artist’s talk + cloudwatch (Thursday, 11:30am, Anna Leonowens Gallery 2A) — Julien Jefferson
Friday
Artist’s talk (Friday, 12pm, Anna Leonowens Gallery 2B) — Kamryn Gilliss
Artist’s talk (Friday, 1pm, Anna Leonowens Gallery 3) — Evan MacPherson
Saint Mary’s
Thursday
No events
Friday
History Seminar Series (Friday, 1pm, Loyola 173) — Michael Vance will present “Irish Soldier Settlers in Atlantic Canada, c. 1818-1838”
Past Lives (Friday, 7pm, Burke Theatre B) — public screening and discussion of 2023 film with Ji Yoon An from UBC
Literary Events
Thursday
dART speak (Thursday, 7pm, East Dartmouth Community Centre) — details
Friday
Latte Lit Open Mic (Friday, 6:30pm, Open Book Coffee, Halifax) — details
In the harbour
Halifax
04:00: CMA CGM Libra, container ship, sails from Pier 41 for New York 07:00: AlgoLuna, oil tanker, moves from Imperial Oil to Bedford Basin anchorage 08:45: Annie B, container ship, sails from Fairview Cove for sea 10:00: Algoma Acadian, oil tanker, arrives at Irving Oil from
Cape Breton
13:30: Radcliffe R. Latimer, bulker, sails from Aulds Cove quarry through the causeway for sea 19:00: CSL Tacoma, bulker, sails from Coal Pier (Sydney) for sea 20:00: Evans Spirit, cargo ship, transits through the causeway for Mulgrave, arriving from Baie Comeau
Footnotes
I registered to attend this online event tonight called “Feathers in the Frost” that’s being hosted by the Nature Conservancy of Canada. It’s all about tips, advice, and gear you need for winter birdwatching. Here’s a bit of what the speakers will share:
- How to start birdwatching during the winter and why it’s the perfect season to try.
- How to make your outdoor space more bird-friendly and help birds thrive in colder weather.
- Gear recommendations for spotting birds, from the right layers to the right binoculars.
- The surprising health and well-being benefits of birding in any season.
If you can’t attend, you can still register and they will send out a recording of the event. Click here to learn more.