On the same day last week—July 8—600,000 liters of gasoline spilled out of a storage tank in Sydney’s North End and Rogers Communications showed us why Canada needs not more “competition” in the telecoms sector but a publicly owned internet provider (yes, I went there). I say this off theRead More

Like a Netflix reboot of a canceled TV series, Mother Canada has reappeared on my screen this summer. I’d all but forgotten the plan to build the 24-meter-high sad lady in Green Cove in the Cape Breton Highlands National Park — a plan that simultaneously flouted both the Parks CanadaRead More

CBRM Council has declared its support for the Blue Dot movement. Launched in 2014 with the backing of the David Suzuki Foundation, Blue Dot is a “national campaign to advance the legal recognition of every Canadian’s right to a healthy environment.” In passing its resolution of support last night, theRead More

Cecil Clarke is not the only anti-carbon tax politician in the current landscape; in fact, he’s arguably just the homegrown version of a familiar figure on the political scene — the “Canadian conservative” who, as Dalhousie economist Lars Osberg puts it, has “successfully framed” the federal government’s carbon-pricing system as aRead More

boondoggle: (noun) an unnecessary and expensive piece of work, especially one that is paid for by the public (Cambridge Dictionary)   I think the Cape Breton Highlands National Park (CBHNP) moose cull meets the definition of a boondoggle. As a Parks Canada undertaking, it is definitely paid for by the public.Read 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

It’s easy for people to not think about moose culls in our national park during the summer; however, for anybody wanting more details about the annual moose cull in the Cape Breton Highlands National Park, the 2017 Moose Harvest Summary Document can provide information. It is a short read, butRead More

A CAPE BRETON SPECTATOR/HALIFAX EXAMINER SPECIAL INVESTIGATION Editor’s Note: This is the fourth and final article in a series on the push for mines and quarries in Nova Scotia. (Read Part I, Part II, and Part III.)   Sacred land On a cold day in late November 2017 a couple of dozenRead More

At what point did Parks Canada develop such a callous disregard for the lives of living creatures? Moose, cormorants, deer, elk, coyote, wolves and other creatures have all caught the eye of Parks Canada management at various times. Recently, in the Cape Breton Highlands National Park, a prescribed fire wasRead More

A CAPE BRETON SPECTATOR/HALIFAX EXAMINER SPECIAL INVESTIGATION Editor’s Note: This is the second in a series of articles on the push for mines and quarries in Nova Scotia. You can find Part I here.   Going for gold The CEO and chairman of Vancouver-based Atlantic Gold Corporation, Steven Dean, aRead More