Summer, for me, has always meant time spent in the woods. I would like to say I was the type of child who paid attention to the trees and the lichen and the moss and the mushrooms, who learned their names and their lifecycles and could distinguish white spruce fromRead...

I was unfamiliar, until very recently, with the work of Mahone Bay-based “journalist and author” Quentin Casey, who seems to specialize in a type of “journalism” (I call it “Capitalist Hagiography”) that gives me hives. Casey writes fawning portraits of rich businessmen (they all seem to be men) under headlinesRead...

I think there must be something in the air this week. First, the Spectator‘s Sean Howard, in Part I of what will be a two-part series, discussed ways to “change our local world” with a focus on exercises in “direct, participatory, deliberative citizen engagement” like Citizens’ Assemblies. Then CBU professorRead More

Growth Back in 2021, the CBRM went looking for a consultant to: …complete a new Municipal Planning Strategy (MPS), Economic Development Strategy, Land Use By-law (LUB), and other related enabling by-laws including the Subdivision By-law. The contract, worth $217,391.30, was awarded to Dillon Consulting which subcontracted two additional consultants—David Campbell ofRead...

Cabot Takes an ‘L’ Cabot Cape Breton will not be getting a chunk of a Nova Scotian provincial park to turn into yet another golf course. Cabot hasn’t actually made a formal application to the province for permission turn part of the West Mabou Beach Provincial Park into its thirdRead...

Editor’s Note: When I realized I would be publishing this year on the 41st anniversary of the sinking of the Ocean Ranger, I decided to reprint this piece from 2022—the preface to Susan Dodd’s 2012 book, The Ocean Ranger: remaking the promise of oil, with permission from Fernwood Books.  Read More

The year before I started school in 1960, there was a field at the bottom of Matilda Street in Sydney with a path that led to the back door of an old house on the next street over, Dominion. One of my earliest memories is of escaping the backyard ofRead More

Editor’s Note: What follows is one of the earliest compositions attributed to the legendary Cape Breton labor leader of a century ago, J.B. McLachlan. Published in December 1906 as a letter to the editor in the Halifax Herald, it was sent along to the Spectator by David Frank, author ofRead More

Eureka! I have been trying for some time now to articulate the problem with venture capital, especially as it was practiced in this province by Innovacorp—and now by Invest Nova Scotia, under the possibly capable but definitely expensive ($1,500 a day up to $18,000 a month) leadership of our premier’sRead More

“War is not the only thing that, to occur, must be waged.” —Judith Lipton and David Barash, Strength Through Peace   It now seems like a bygone age, but it was only on December 15 last year that the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs presented a draft Treaty on ‘SecurityRead More