What does $160 buy you?  Nova Scotia’s Liberal government has promised an average $160 tax cut for half the province’s population, in a surplus budget that seeds the ground for an election campaign that may begin within days. — Globe & Mail, 27 April 2017 So, if I’m a middle-class NovaRead More

The Port of Sydney Development Corporation will seek $460,000 in public funding for a study to “confirm the costs of upgrades to the rail line” from Truro to Sydney. In what we can only hope was a last hurrah for the Port’s interim board (Mayor Cecil Clarke, Deputy Mayor Eldon MacDonald, CouncilorRead More

The Port of Sydney Development Corporation posted minutes from two more board meetings on its website recently. (I can’t say exactly when, because I don’t check the site every day and the Port doesn’t seem to feel the need to notify me when it’s about to post a batch of freshly vetted documents.)Read More

I have spent the last two weeks binge watching The Walking Dead, a strangely gripping series set in a decimated United States after the zombie apocalypse. All the things that make life in 21st century North America comfortable and safe are lost: abandoned cars clog highways, making travel difficult forRead More

Ed’s Books and More on Charlotte Street in Sydney is a secondhand bookstore with wildly varied stock and many labelled bookshelves in lots of sections—rooms, corners, alcoves, a dead-end book alley. Last Wednesday, while I was there for this article, I almost collided with a customer hectically emerging from theRead More

What to do this week Optimistic beginner gardeners are often tempted to plant after a few days of great weather in May. I think it is important to let you know how to reasonably predict the risk of frost, just in case you find yourself in that situation. We shouldn’tRead More

Margaret Young of Sydney writes: Thank you, Dolores Campbell, for your article on the mission begun by the Congregation of Notre Dame in 1885, now to be carried on — much altered, of course — by New Dawn. At the official announcement made by the premier, I was disappointed, althoughRead More

Stealth staffing I heard Kathy Bell, director of primary health care, chronic disease and family practice with the Nova Scotia Health Authority, tell the CBC’s Yvonne LeBlanc-Smith on Thursday that while she was happy to announce Cape Breton would be receiving seven nurse practitioners, she was not at liberty to sayRead More

In my never-ending quest to discover just what $25 million buys the Cape Breton Regional Municipality in terms of police protection, I recently visited the police force web site, which features this little collage of photos in its header: Yes, our CBRM cops, calling in expired plates (left), patrolling wooded areasRead More

There are many reasons I farm. Foremost is the welcome diversity of the work, the many physical and mental challenges – always a new puzzle to take apart and solve. It also involves extended periods of repetitive tasks, undemanding of acute attention, that allow my thoughts to wander. This isRead More