Editor’s Note: I’m using this week’s Fast & Curious to cover some items from Tuesday’s CBRM council meeting. Your regular, more random, Fast & Curious will return next week.   All in the Family Tuesday’s CBRM council meeting began with Mayor Amanda McDougall explaining that council had just met inRead More

In a decision released Tuesday, Nova Scotia’s Information and Privacy Commissioner Tricia Ralph says the CBRM did not fairly calculate the fee it proposed to charge a citizen for a port-related access to information request and recommends the municipality waive the fee and release the documents. This story began inRead More

It was Monday morning as I began writing this and I had just heard Damian MacInnis explaining to the CBC’s Steve Sutherland how his “social enterprise” — Rural Cape Breton Enterprises — is going to build affordable housing on Cape Breton Island. (Its Facebook page specifies “low to medium incomeRead More

This week, the FOIPOP findings are just going to be a jumping off point for a check-in with everybody’s favorite Northside shipyard — the one operated by Canadian Maritime Engineering on the property formerly known as Archibald’s Wharf. I’ve covered the controversial sale of that property in detail — thisRead More

Editor’s Note: This week, we are re-running the third in a series of three columns from 2017. They are perfect for this time of year, and will help you get ready for spring while Michelle deals with a few things that have her tied up right now.    What to doRead More

Old Don Cameron Donald Cameron became premier of Nova Scotia in 1991 the same way Iain Rankin is poised to become premier next Tuesday: by winning the leadership of his party (the Tories) after the elected premier (John Buchanan) stepped down. When Cameron did lead the party to the polls,Read More

I have now received almost all the port-related documents the Privacy Commissioner told the CBRM to release to me. All that seems to be missing are the documents the municipality has never produced, not even for the commissioner herself. On the one hand, this is great, full stop. The CBRMRead More

The feasibility of developing a terminal for the world’s largest container ships in Sydney harbor is something you’d think the proponents would probably want to determine relatively early on in the process and yet, by 2014 — after the $38 million dredging of the harbor — the port team hadRead More

For thousands of years, the diverse marine life in the southern part of the Gulf of St. Lawrence prospered as the waters of the Atlantic Ocean mixed with those of the Gulf. The ebb and flow of huge volumes of salt water brought food and myriad whales, fish, lobster, crabRead More

Editor’s Note: I spoke with Michelle Smith this week, and she says it’s time to start gardening again, so the Spectator will resume publication of timely advice from her archive.   What to do this week Most of the vegetables we grow from seed in our gardens are annuals. TheseRead More