In a letter to the editor dated 16 July 2002 I carefully set out some historic evidence on the long-predicted conversion of coal transportation from rail to road on Cape Breton Island. Given the pending government pronouncement on rail abandonment (or wink, wink “preservation”), I thought some factual background mightRead...

Snowing on our parade The fall-out over the CBRM’s decision to cancel night parades continues to land — most recently on the editorial pages of the Cape Breton Post where District 12 Councilor Jim MacLeod published a mea culpa on Wednesday for remarks he’d made to CTV news in November.Read More

“The only thing harder than moving a fire station out of a neighborhood is to build a fire station in a neighborhood” is a fire service truism. Evaluate the community concerns of a prospective site’s neighborhood. Community outreach efforts are well worth the effort and demonstrating the fire service’s goodRead More

The 2016 Fire Services Organizational Review, prepared for the CBRM by Manitou Incorporated, a consultancy based in New York State, is an incredibly informative document, and that’s high praise coming from someone like me who, as you know, is no fan of the Consultocracy. There are two factors that, inRead More

In the atomic age, who needs the four horsemen of the apocalypse – pestilence, war, famine, and death – when one will do? In mid-October, North Korean ‘Supreme Leader’ Kim Jong-un rode a white horse up a snow-peaked mountain, gazing from the summit with a “mien” so “dignified” – inRead More

Can you believe 2019 is almost over? I can’t — and do you know who else probably can’t? Martin Chernin of Harbour Royale Development Limited (HRDL) and Albert Barbusci of Sydney Harbour Investment Partners (SHIP). Why is that, you ask? Well, because each of them faces a big deadline forRead More