As I write this month’s column, Ontario, where I live, is still in the grip of the COVID pandemic. The government issued a stay-at-home order on Boxing Day, which closed restaurants for in-person dining, university classes remain virtual, and we have been told that we should only leave the houseRead More

Have you read latest CBRM Central Library study? Anyone outside CBRM reading about the private developer who has been given control over the project would probably write it off as fiction, but we know better, don’t we? The study in question is the service, programs and operational plan commissioned fromRead More

Ahem… Back in May of 2019, I wrote a story with the headline, “This is what a REAL port announcement looks like,” in which I contrasted what was happening at the Port of Québec — which had announced a deal with CN and Hatchet Ports to build and operate theRead More

The Spectator heard from Breton Books this week and the news is good: the seventh edition of Cape Breton’s Christmas, publisher Ron Caplan’s annual book of seasonal stories and memories, has appeared this year despite the extenuating circumstances that have constituted pretty much everything related to 2020. Caplan says COVID-19Read More

Before I tell you about Mary Ellen MacIntyre’s blog, Innis Bheag (Little Island), you should read a bit of it. Here’s a snippet from a story called “Cow Bay Road Mud and Fire“:   Some people shouldn’t retire. If they do, they must then do other things, or they willRead 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

Ask Marta Singh, the guest storyteller at this year’s Isle of Story Festival, how she became a storyteller and you get — what else? — a story. “The real story,” she says with a laugh, although it’s “not romantic, I’m telling you!” It had been three years that I hadRead More