A spectator (you know who you are) recently referenced my June 2019 article about the Royal Cape Breton Yacht Club (RCBYC), the 113-year-old building that graced the Sydney waterfront until 3 May 2013, when it was destroyed by fire. This reminded me that I had never properly followed up onRead More
“We now send greetings and thanks to our eldest Brother, the Sun. Each day without fail he travels the sky from east to west, bringing the light of a new day. He is the source of all the fires of life…” — From Greetings to the Natural World, the ThanksgivingRead More
It was Monday morning as I began writing this and I had just heard Damian MacInnis explaining to the CBC’s Steve Sutherland how his “social enterprise” — Rural Cape Breton Enterprises — is going to build affordable housing on Cape Breton Island. (Its Facebook page specifies “low to medium incomeRead More
If you follow CBRM politics, are on social media or hold local elected office, you probably know the name Rod Gale. The South Bar resident (who has written for this publication in the past) doesn’t hesitate to share his thoughts, especially on matters about which he’s passionate — like poverty.Read More
In putting a timeframe of 1 December 2013 to 29 June 2015 on my access to information request, I’d hoped to cast my net wide enough capture the earliest communications between port promoters Barry Sheehy and Albert Barbusci and CBRM Mayor Cecil Clarke, and if I haven’t done so, I thinkRead More
The documents I received last week reveal some very interesting details about the 2015 McKeil deal, which saw the CBRM purchase land in the Sydport Marine Industrial Park to lease to Ontario-based marine services company McKeil Marine. The transaction was a very contentious piece of municipal legerdemain that troubled theRead More
FOIPOP Update It’s been over two months — 71 days, to be exact — since Nova Scotia’s Information and Privacy Commissioner Tricia Ralph recommended the CBRM release 890 pages of documents to me in response to a 2015, port-related, access to information request. Of those pages, 28 had been previouslyRead More
Christmas is nigh and the good and the generous have been hard at work throughout our communities, making sure that each and every family awakens to everything it takes to make the day a joyful one. They’ll have food and toys and clothing and all will be fine — forRead More
Back in April, CNN reported that the governor of the Kenyan capital city, Nairobi, was including small bottles of Hennessy cognac in COVID-19 care packages being distributed to citizens. He erroneously claimed the cognac would act as a “throat sanitizer” and help combat the coronavirus. Both the World Health OrganizationRead More
Many things about 2020 have been disconcerting, to say the least, but here in Nova Scotia we are faced with other issues of particular social significance – the racism revolving around the fishing industry. As per the Oxford Dictionary: Racism is prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against a person orRead More
