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

Welcome to this week’s installment of “Where’s Cecil?,” my ongoing effort to keep track of Mayor Cecil Clarke’s campaign appearances to judge just how much time he’s taking from his day job to travel the province in pursuit of the leadership of the Progressive Conservative Party of Nova Scotia. AsRead More

Although he’s now apparently entertaining the idea of remaining mayor even if he wins the PC leadership race, Mayor Cecil Clarke is on record saying precisely the opposite. It happens at the 09.42 mark of this February 6 interview with Steve Sutherland of CBC’s Information Morning Cape Breton. (Clarke hadRead More

Earlier this summer, those of us living in Ontario suffered through a provincial election campaign filled with attack ads, ad hominem critiques, anger, angst and fear. Underlying the anger, angst and fear felt by a large percentage of the electorate was a queasy feeling that public services, particularly in theRead More

I wanted more information about political leadership conventions in Nova Scotia and my googling kept leading me to the same door: that of retired Acadia University political science professor Ian Stewart. Stewart and a colleague, University of Calgary political science professor David Stewart, have literally written the book on theRead More

CBRM Mayor Cecil Clarke has declared his candidacy for the provincial Tory leadership, which he intends to pursue while remaining mayor. Clarke points to Nova Scotia’s Municipal Government Act (MGA) which places no restriction on municipal officials seeking other offices. (Neither, it should be noted, does the Municipal Elections Act.)Read More

One of the great advantages of citing I.F. Stone as an influence when you launch a news publication is that you never have to attend a political event — no press conferences, no port announcements, no chamber of commerce luncheons, no public meetings. Stone’s journalism was based entirely on theRead More

CBRM Mayor Cecil Clarke wants to be the next leader of the provincial Progressive Conservative party and has been touring the province trying to determine whether anyone else wants to see him in that role. I’m guessing this means he is running. The alternative — that he will announce publiclyRead More

Resign to Run? Resign to run laws are pretty self-explanatory: if you hold public office and wish to run for another public office, you must first resign the office you hold.  Five US states (Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii and Texas) and several cities (including Dallas, Philadelphia and Phoenix) have them.Read More

Draft Cecil A “grassroots” campaign to draft CBRM Mayor Cecil Clarke to run for the leadership of the Nova Scotia Progressive Conservatives has begun. The web domain “draftcecil.ca” was registered on November 14, even as the CBRM council was meeting in camera, at Clarke’s behest, to discuss the option andRead More