What, exactly, is the advantage to the broader CBRM of the $100,000 waterfront helipad that officially opened last week? Why, exactly, was it considered such a good use of public money that Mayor Cecil Clarke himself presented the proposal to council (which passed it unanimously)? Breton Air, the helicopter charterRead More

It’s toady time! I confess: I find Anthony Marlowe — CEO of MCI, savior of the Sydney Call Centre — fascinating. So much so that whenever things are slow, or I’m in need of distraction, I tune in to his Twitter stream to see what he’s been getting up to.Read More

Many Nova Scotians grumble about the huge subsidies the provincial government pays to keep the Yarmouth Ferry running (or not running, as the case may be), but the combined bill for that service and two others in the province  might leave those same Nova Scotians gobsmacked — over the pastRead More

Voting season CBRM council has cleared the way for online and telephone voting in October’s municipal elections, which the provincial government has declared will take place despite fears of a second wave of COVID-19 this fall. No particular concerns were raised during the council debate on the issue — havingRead More

Cruise News Monday was World Oceans Day and if you put your ear to a seashell,  you could hear a chorus of voices across the globe calling on the cruise industry to clean up its act. Environmental activists living in “port communities” marked the occasion with a virtual “Rally toRead...

COVID as context I try not to write about COVID-19 in this space because it’s taking up so much other space but there are some stories that one cannot write in May 2020 without at least nodding in the direction of the virus. Or at least, I thought there were.Read...

The Spectator has got it hands on a message sent in early April by CBRM Mayor Cecil Clarke to councilors and select CBRM staffers: Dear colleagues: I received a call from Albert Barbusci this morning with a heads-up to confirm that Novaporte has signed an agreement with a global financeRead...

The cruise industry has been hard hit by COVID-19, which is bad news for any port that has put all its eggs in that particular basket, like the Port of Sydney which counts on the industry for up to 85% of its revenues and has funneled $20 million in publicRead...

One of the best hours I spent this week was listening to my favorite podcasters dissecting the recent attempt by a ragtag group of mercenaries to overthrow the Venezuelan government — a saga that sounded like a James Ellroy novel come to life. (Seriously, if you’ve read Ellroy’s American Tabloid,Read...

Mayor’s Notebook Did you know Mayor Cecil Clarke sends out a handful of pages from his “notebook” quarterly to a mailing list I didn’t know existed and probably won’t be permitted to join? (I’ll try, but his spokesperson has stopped answering my emails.) Luckily, I have a source who sharedRead More