Remember my plan to write about council meetings based on the agenda (generally released the day of the meeting) and then update according to what actually happened during the meeting? Well, I hit a couple of road blocks with it this week. First, portions of the agenda in which IRead More

This year, 2021, marks the centenary of the first appearance in Canada and Britain of the red poppy as the official emblem of war remembrance: a single symbol of sacrifice that has dominated the rites and rhythms of November 11, Armistice Day, each year since. The idea of selling artificialRead More

This is an article about two things you may not have realized CBRM once had: an American Consul and a a film industry. From 1911 to 1924, the US State Department operated an American Consulate in Sydney (prior to this, Sydney was home to a lesser, Consular Agency). Very detailedRead More

Nearly 100 years after the Maritime Motion Picture Company (MMPC) was making movies in Sydney, local filmmakers are achieving great success. Locally shot with homegrown actors, Werewolf (Grassfire Films: Nelson MacDonald, producer, Ashley McKenzie, director) was shown at many film festivals, featured in numerous reviews, including the Globe and MailRead More

I thought it might be time for an update on the Bridging Finance story but in case you’ve forgotten about Bridging, I’ll do a sort-of “previously on” recap. Bridging Finance is a Toronto-based “alternative lender” providing financing to projects considered too risky by traditional banks. It raises money through theRead More

Munger Games Everywhere I look these days I see vanity projects — from billionaires propelling themselves into almost-space to local businesswomen producing 13-episode podcasts — but the story of Warren Buffet’s partner designing a dorm for the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB) takes the proverbial vanity cake. AccordingRead More

The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) in Nova Scotia has performed its annual public service of crunching the numbers to determine how much a worker must actually earn to live with some modicum of dignity in this province and the answer this year, for Cape Breton, is $18.45/hour. That’sRead More

Editor’s Note: This week, I’m focusing on the concerns that have been raised in Saint Lucia over Ben Cowan-Dewar’s latest golf development, Cabot Saint Lucia. First up: beach access.     Finola Jennings Clark says when she first heard that Cabot, the golf resort company founded by Torontonian Ben Cowan-DewarRead More

Editor’s note: This week, I’m focusing on the concerns that have been raised in Saint Lucia over Ben Cowan-Dewar’s golf resort, Cabot Saint Lucia. In this installment: water, archaeological and sustainability issues.   “Where open sea and land collide is where golf exists in its purest form,” is a BillRead More

Last October, in anticipation of a change of presidential administration in the United States, I interviewed Matt Korda of the Federation of American Scientists on the prospects for a progressive reformation of American foreign and defense policy . Korda expressed what I would characterize as ‘qualified pessimism’ about the potentialRead More