Sea change A spectator (you know who you are) pointed me to this item from the tender for architectural and engineering services for the new Marconi Campus on the Sydney waterfront (before, I might add, it was also picked up on by the Cape Breton Post): Climate risks include increasedRead More

Like a Netflix reboot of a canceled TV series, Mother Canada has reappeared on my screen this summer. I’d all but forgotten the plan to build the 24-meter-high sad lady in Green Cove in the Cape Breton Highlands National Park — a plan that simultaneously flouted both the Parks CanadaRead More

On 13 May 2016, I submitted an access to information and privacy (ATIP) request to ACOA asking for information pertaining to the 2012 sale of the Royal Cape Breton Yacht Club (RCBYC) and adjacent lands to Enterprise Cape Breton Corporation (ECBC). The request was transferred to Public Services and ProcurementRead More

During the recent CBRM general committee meeting about the current state of the new central library project, the subject of the new library in Truro was raised a number of times. I thought it would be worth looking at how the Town of Truro (population 12,000) managed to do whatRead More

Motel art Artist Onni Nordman (profiled in the Spectator in October 2016) has a new exhibit at the Cape Breton Centre for Craft & Design and I can’t wait to see it. (Full disclosure: I had a sneak peek back in March when I interviewed his partner, Paula Muise, for thisRead More

Since writing last week about the delayed development of Cossitt Heights — a 350-unit, site-sensitive, sustainable housing development proposed seven years ago for a former Sydney industrial park — I’ve gotten my grubby little hands on a copy of the Power Point Presentation shown to council in 2012 as partRead More

I have recently read two interesting descriptions of libraries. One is from Michelle Wilson, the executive director of the Sydney Downtown Development Association (formerly the Sydney Waterfront District), who sees the proposed new central library as a “quality product” that can enhance Sydney’s “brand.” In a letter to the editorRead More

I have been trying to determine how, exactly, we decided to locate the new CBRM central library on the Sydney waterfront and as best I can figure, it happened like this:   Architectural & Facility Planning In June 2011, the Cape Breton Regional Library (CBRL) Board initiated a study toRead More

News in the news Federal Finance Minister Bill Morneau’s fall economic statement includes a section labeled, “Support for Canadian Journalism.” I’ve been reading it this morning, but I fear all I really need to know about it is this: Paul Godfrey, the CEO of Postmedia, which publishes the National PostRead More

I have undertaken to erect in the Town of Sydney a building intended for a Convent Boarding School for the county of Cape Breton. The need of such an institution is an acknowledged one. On several occasions during the last fifteen years I have been urged by persons from variousRead More