The hook for this edition of “A Word from Your Planet” is not just weak, it’s downright imaginary — I’m hanging it on Sydney Harbour Investment Partners (SHIP)’s grand plans for our port, which I referenced this week in the Cossitt Heights article. In fact, I’m hanging it on aRead More

What to do this week Michelle Smith is away this week, but don’t worry, she’s got your back as far as early-May gardening is concerned. Back on 3 May 2017, she was urging you to get off your couch and plant some trees: The old saying about it being betterRead More

Coverage of “developer” Jim Kehoe’s Cossitt Heights Park has made my eyes cross so firmly that typing has become a challenge, but I will persevere. It all started (the story, not the Kehoe coverage) in 1991 (pre-amalgamation) when the Cossitt Heights Industrial Park was established on Upper Prince Street inRead More

Caveat emptor So, this happened:   Ian Scott elaborated on the lawsuit in an interview with Ryan Ross of Charlottetown’s Guardian newspaper (also part of the SaltWire empire) saying: “If your counterparty is not being honest or is hiding things, there’s a lot of stuff that you can’t really determineRead More

Note:  Climate change is freaking me out. More to the point: our general refusal to acknowledge the threat of climate change is freaking me out. This province is cutting down trees and digging up coal and threatening the health of rivers like it was 1819, not 2019, so I’ve decidedRead More

Emera The Cape Breton Post is reporting changes to Nova Scotia legislation that will lift restrictions preventing foreign investors from holding more than 25% of voting shares in Emera, the parent company of Nova Scotia Power Inc (NSPI). The other change “reinforces Emera’s existing commitment to maintain its head officeRead More

I have been trying to determine how, exactly, we decided to locate the new CBRM central library on the Sydney waterfront and as best I can figure, it happened like this:   Architectural & Facility Planning In June 2011, the Cape Breton Regional Library (CBRL) Board initiated a study toRead More

I need to begin by saying that despite my misgivings about the location of the planned new library and my dislike of the way it’s been tangled up in a private development, I am excited about it. I would just like to ensure that it’s around to excite future generationsRead More

What to do this week There may not be any garden insect pests in view just yet but they are still there. They’re slumbering in the soil or the half-rotten dropped fruit you didn’t get a chance to rake up last fall — all waiting for that first warm dayRead More

Budget This week, I’m going to focus on the federal budget tabled Tuesday by Liberal Finance Minister Bill Morneau and discuss a couple of points of particular interest to Cape Bretoners. The first is the government’s decision to double (for one year only) the gas-tax revenue available for infrastructure spendingRead More