To be a marketer in 2017 in North America is to be social media savvy: to think about things like interactive media, influencer content, mobile video, chatbots and augmented reality, to name just a few of the 2017 marketing trends I cribbed from this Forbes article. So when a guyRead More

Xinhua, the official Chinese state news agency, says a recently completed voyage through the Northwest Passage by a Chinese scientific icebreaker was actually a fact-gathering mission on behalf of its commercial shipping industry. As reported in the Globe and Mail, the news agency said the Xuelong (or Snow Dragon), whichRead More

DNA Fail I grew interested in the subject of DNA evidence after a number of men convicted during the “John-Be-Gone” sting operation in Sydney were ordered to supply samples to the National DNA Data Bank. I wrote about some of the issues surrounding the collection and retention of DNA evidenceRead More

When governments and public bodies are proud of the deals they’ve brokered or the progress they’ve made on sticky issues or the money they’re allocating for studies and reports, they climb onto the roof of the tallest building they can find and sing their triumphs to an admiring world. WhenRead More

This was supposed to be a follow-up to last week’s article on wastewater in which I would present the response of the Cape Breton Regional Municipality (CBRM) to concerns about its readiness to meet federal Wastewater System Effluent Regulations (WSER). But what with vacations and long weekends and short workweeks,Read...

Lease released The first rule of accessing information from public bodies is “just ask for it,” and sometimes — hallelujah! — just asking is all it takes. For instance, I asked the CBRM for a copy of the lease signed between the municipality and Danny Ellis’s company, the catchily namedRead More

Today, we’re going to talk about the Canadian federal government’s Wastewater System Effluent Regulations (WSER), soon to be a major motion picture starring Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams. (That’s not true but it gave you hope for a moment, didn’t it? You thought, “Great, I’ll just wait for the movie.”Read More

I can’t stop thinking about that photo that appeared on the front page of the print edition of last Friday’s Cape Breton Post. It showed a young man standing outside the guardrail on the Sydney-Whitney Pier overpass, head in hands, under the watchful eye of a Cape Breton Regional PoliceRead More

Mission creep This was the front page of Wednesday’s Cape Breton Post: “Wow” I thought. “They sure are creepy — I wonder who caught them?” Only it turns out the people lurking in the shrubbery in the skull balaclavas and sunglasses are not the creeps — they’re the creep catchers.Read More

I have been wading through pages of documents related to the CBRM and Business Cape Breton (BCB) and the provincial Department of Municipal Affairs (DMA) searching for answers to questions about economic development funding and Glace Bay revitalization and the role of our economic development “entity.” While I still haveRead More