Key changes I know nothing about music but, as with pretty much all subjects, I like to hear what people who do know something about it have to say, which is why this week I’ve been following a discussion about the demise of the key change in popular music. ToRead More
In early April 1974, on an unusually pleasant morning that promised to help deliver a big voter turnout, Pat and Roy and I, young volunteers all, began working Polling Station 16 in Cape Breton Nova. The poll was at the bottom of Matilda Street in Whitney Pier, where I hadRead More
Comfort and Joy I have to tie up two loose ends from my coverage of Tuesday morning’s council meeting. After listening to—and approving—Destination Cape Breton’s funding request (which I covered in detail because opaque organizations spending oodles of public money are catnip to me— or would be, if I wereRead More
McKenna & Co I was going to call Brookfield Asset Management (BAM) a many-headed hydra but that’s the wrong metaphor, it is decidedly more of an octopus, with tentacles everywhere in everything—railroads, ports, real estate, nuclear power—but just one head, as the Southern Investigative Reporting Foundation reported back in 2013:Read More
I watched Westmount native Doug Doucet, founder of Bedford-based Doucet Developments—and a suite of related companies—present his plans for waterfront development to CBRM council last night. Much of the presentation (which also featured Chris Baldwin, his chief financial officer) focused on Doucet himself and his companies and why it’s aRead More
As noted elsewhere, I spent far too many hours this weekend reading issues of the Cape Breton Post from December 1984, in which I found very little of relevance to my ongoing series on our failure, that year, to bury the power lines on Charlotte Street, but a great dealRead More
Medicare-less As I noted in my unburied power lines story on Wednesday, I managed to stay better focused in my research this week, but I cannot spend hours reading old newspapers without occasionally getting distracted. Fortunately, I have Fast & Curious as a sort of catch-all drawer; a place forRead More
Editor’s Note: This is Part II of a series that will continue until I find some answers or give up, whichever comes first. You’ll find Part I here and Part III here.) When last we met, it was August 1984, and Zutphen Brothers of Port Hood was sitting onRead More
Coal Face “There’s no stone left unturned when it comes to safety with this company”—CBRM District 8 Councilor James Edwards on Kameron Collieries’ decision to reopen the Donkin Mine, CTV Atlantic News, 14 September 2022 The unfortunate reference to stones—the man is, after all, talking about a coal mine proneRead More
There was—even cynical old me has to admit it—good news on the CBRM Central Library file during last night’s CBRM council meeting. In a memo to Council and staff, Mayor Amanda McDougall explained that the old Cape Breton County Courthouse in Sydney’s Wentworth Park (otherwise known as 70 Crescent Street)Read More
