Mary Campbell

Talkin’ Bout Remuneration (Part VI)

Talkin’ Bout Remuneration (Part VI)

January 30, 2019 at 11:49 am

Editor’s Note: Mayor Cecil Clarke’s contention that discussing council remuneration in camera (and treating elected officials as “personnel”) is a longstanding CBRM practice sent me scuttling to the “CBRM Mayor and Council” clippings file at the McConnell library, to research some of the remuneration (and related) issues council has dealt withRead More

Cold Takes: Pokémon Go

Cold Takes: Pokémon Go

January 30, 2019 at 11:47 am

Editor’s Note: In keeping with my chosen mode of journalism — slow — I’m starting a new feature called Cold Takes in which I’ll revisit a person, place, thing or issue that was at some point the subject of multiple media “hot takes” but has since vanished from the headlines. The idea struckRead More

Fast & Curious: Short Takes on Random Things

Fast & Curious: Short Takes on Random Things

January 25, 2019 at 9:45 am

Deep Dives The banner across the top of this morning’s Cape Breton Post gave me pause, I’ll admit it: The SaltWire Deep Dives: Looking at the Doctor Shortage in Atlantic Canada. Today: Where are all the doctors? “Deep dives?” I thought. “That’s my thing.” I was nervous, but I hadRead More

Map showing proposed site of RV park in Big Pond.

UARB Critical of CBRM Planners in RV Park Case

January 23, 2019 at 1:08 pm

I have to start by quoting myself. This is what I wrote about Chris Skidmore’s RV Park proposal for Big Pond back in February 2018 CBRM planning staff seem really keen on this Big Pond RV Park idea. I don’t know how else to interpret the time and effort planningRead More

More About RENs

More About RENs

January 23, 2019 at 1:06 pm

While writing last week about the CBRM Regional Enterprise Network or CBRM REN it suddenly struck me that I didn’t know what I was talking about. I didn’t really know what a Regional Enterprise Network was, so I decided I’d better educate myself. I began by looking up the existing CapeRead More

How Big is Nova Scotia’s Call Center Industry?

How Big is Nova Scotia’s Call Center Industry?

January 23, 2019 at 1:02 pm

I have been thinking about the call center industry a lot lately, thanks largely to our local Chamber of Commerce Newsletter daily newspaper which will keep printing headlines like the one last week proclaiming that workers receiving their first paychecks from the Sydney Call Centre were “on cloud nine.” Don’t misunderstandRead More

Fast & Curious: Short Takes on Random Things

Fast & Curious: Short Takes on Random Things

January 18, 2019 at 11:10 am

Sister City A sharp-eyed Spectator drew my attention to an odd little fact in that terrible story of the Canadian sentenced to death in China. Robert Lloyd Schellenberg, a 36-year-old from Abbotsford, BC, was arrested in 2014 and found guilty in 2016 of participating in a drug ring that soughtRead More

So…What is the CBRM REN?

So…What is the CBRM REN?

January 16, 2019 at 12:02 pm

Now that Business Cape Breton (BCB) has been consigned to the ash heap of history, it’s time to meet the CBRM’s new sidekick in economic development — the Cape Breton Partnership. Because it seems there is to be a Cape Breton Regional Municipality Regional Enterprise Network (REN) and the CapeRead More

Looking Back at 2018 with Mayor Cecil Clarke

Looking Back at 2018 with Mayor Cecil Clarke

January 16, 2019 at 12:00 pm

What better way to begin 2019 than by looking back at 2018 with CBRM Mayor Cecil Clarke? Clarke appeared on CBC radio’s Information Morning Cape Breton on January 3 to reflect on the year just passed and the Spectator listened with interest. In particular, it listened to the discussion ofRead More

CBRM Council Chambers, 2017. (Photo by WayeMason [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], from Wikimedia Commons)

CBRM Solicitor Threatens Council With Legal Action

December 19, 2018 at 12:06 pm

This Spectator has learned that Regional Solicitor Demetri Kachafanas threatened legal action against District 11 Councilor Kendra Coombes “and all Council” after a radio interview Coombes gave the CBC on 27 November 2018. The interview (which I can no longer find online) was about the four in camera meetings duringRead More