Bait and Switch? How it started: Excitement is building for what’s expected to be a multi-million dollar development along the Cabot Trail by a private firm with European connections. Just two days after the sale of a beleaguered Ingonish ski hill, the facility’s new owners are hosting a public meeting.Read More

Tailor-made A few years back, I bought a winter coat at Gala Re on Charlotte Street in Sydney. I love this coat—it’s mostly green wool with bits of blue and brown and every bit as warm as my puffer jacket. In style, it’s very 1960s—the early, more formal part ofRead...

I hadn’t meant to make this week’s an “all-council” edition of the Spectator but between catching up on last week’s budget deliberations and watching last night’s regular monthly meeting, I have council on the brain. So here (with the exception of the volunteer awards, which I will cover on Friday)Read More

Let’s focus on the good news: CBRM council has approved a project for funding under the federal government’s Rapid Housing Initiative (RHI). Council took time out of its budget discussions on April 5 to approve a joint proposal from New Dawn and the Ally Centre of Cape Breton to buildRead More

In a different world, responding to Tuesday’s Cape Breton Post column by Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing John Lohr would have been a cake walk. Lohr, after all, took pen in hand to compose a missive that began: Imagine sending a note to a municipality informing them they willRead More

As you know, I spent last week dealing with tech and admin issues and so didn’t cover CBRM’s budget deliberations. This turned out to have been a brilliant strategical move because, in a most unexpected plot twist, council suspended talks on its operating budget on Thursday in hopes the provincialRead More

Poker Face I haven’t enjoyed a TV series as much as I enjoyed Natasha Lyonne’s Poker Face in a very long time. It’s not a “Golden Age of TV”-style show like Deadwood or The Sopranos or Mad Men (all of which I also enjoyed very much), it’s a throwback toRead...

I have found an excellent way to evaluate what port promoter Albert Barbusci told an audience at the Membertou Trade and Convention Centre last Thursday—namely, that he was on his way to Baltimore to convince “three or four” American wind developers to store the massive components for their offshore windRead More

Tom Urbaniak, CBU professor and Cape Breton Post columnist, took to the pages of that publication on Tuesday to make a very interesting point about a recent, secret session of CBRM’s regional council. On February 27, writes Urbaniak: Council went into confidential session without notice to the public that aRead More

A number of spectators have pointed me toward the latest Bridging Finance developments and, given the recent Novaporte announcement, this seems as good a time as any to do a check-in. Bridging, in case you’ve forgotten, was the Toronto-based private debt lender that loaned Membertou Corporate $6.8 million to investRead More