I just spent a wonderful couple of hours exploring the history of Nova Scotia’s branding policies from 1982 to the present courtesy, once again, of a completed freedom of information/access to information (FOIPOP) request. Thank you, unknown member of the public!   Helvetica It begins with a manual from 1982, whenRead More

Nova Scotia’s Workplace Innovation and Productivity Skills Incentive (WIPSI) program (which could also be called the “Let a Thousand Consultancies Bloom” program) has existed since 2010 and since 2014 has been “an initiative of the Canada-Nova Scotia Job Grant.” The program gives Nova Scotia “[b]usinesses, social enterprises and revenue-generating non-for-profitRead More

I write today as one of the 8,800 residents of Sydney — Nova Scotia’s third-largest city, urban heart of a rich coal-mining region, industrial hub of Atlantic Canada — to ask Holland America Line (HAL): WAT IS ER MIS MET JOU? (That’s Dutch for “What is wrong with you?” AtRead More

Welcome to the Cape Breton Regional Municipality, Nova Scotia’s second largest municipality with a population of 98,722 and home to the Port of Sydney. The Port of Sydney is the first port-of-call on mainland North America for vessels transiting the Suez Canal and acts as a gateway to the GreatRead More

Ban the Bomb If Spectator contributor Sean Howard has raised your awareness (and the hairs on the back of your neck) about nuclear weapons and the need for disarmament, you may well be wondering, “But what can I do?” (Other, of course, than dismantling your own stock of intercontinental ballisticRead More

I’ve been trying to educate myself on the Muskrat Falls issue and if I’ve learned nothing else, my fellow Nova Scotians, I’ve learned this: Newfoundlanders are probably going to hate us by the time this thing is through. Yes, all that resentment currently focused on Quebec, which has been buying powerRead More

I was confused from the moment I read the subject line (which you can click to enlarge):   My best guess was that “Portege” was a typo and what Business Cape Breton had actually launched was an Entrepreneurial PORTAGE/Vanguard Program. This, I decided, would either involve entrepreneurs carrying canoes on their headsRead More

Hunger and homelessness are urban problems being tackled in interesting ways in cities on both sides of the Atlantic. In Edinburgh, for example, “social entrepreneurs” Josh Littlejohn and Alice Thomson have launched Social Bite, a chain of soup and sandwich shops where customers can pay “for a coffee or a sandwichRead More

This past week I was lucky enough to participate in a Statistics Canada webinar. (I write that in complete sincerity — Stats Canada invited me to participate in a webinar and I accepted the invitation as happily as if I’d thought there’d be cake. Full disclosure: I thought there’d be cake.)Read More

Double vision? I promised to ask when and how Dennis Campbell of Ambassatours Gray Line got the nod to develop the property formerly occupied by the Royal Cape Breton Yacht Club on Sydney’s harborfront and let you know what I found out. As you may recall, Campbell, whose firm operatesRead More