Federal

"Motherly love," painting/drawing by Dee-Jay Monika Rumbolt. MMIWG Gallery of Artistic Expressions https://www.mmiwg-ffada.ca/artists/motherly-love/

The Role of Indigenous Women

July 24, 2019 at 12:21 pm

Editor’s Note: This is the fourth in a series of articles about the conclusions of Canada’s Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG) inquiry. You can read the first one here, the second here and the third here.)   To show how Canada—and we in it—perpetrate genocide against Indigenous womenRead More

Airport sign, free stock photo.

Considering the Case for an Inverness Airport

June 26, 2019 at 12:23 pm

You would have to be completely foolhardy to question the brain trust that has formed to support spending public money to build an airport in Inverness but foolhardy’s my middle name so — hold my beer. The group — consisting of former premiers, businesspeople, consultants and Mary Tulle — hasRead More

Solving Halifax’s Port-Related Truck Problem?

Solving Halifax’s Port-Related Truck Problem?

June 26, 2019 at 12:21 pm

Editor’s Note: Given that the mayor of our municipality has spent much of his time in office — and thousands of public dollars — promoting a Port of Sydney container terminal, the Spectator feels all Nova Scotia port news is of interest to its readers. So when Halifax-based reporter RickRead More

photo: National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls

A Game-Changing Inquiry

June 26, 2019 at 12:19 pm

Editor’s Note: This is the second in a series of articles about the conclusions of Canada’s Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG) inquiry. You can read the first one here.)   Why does the MMIWG inquiry declare a “Canadian genocide”? Why raise such a storm of controversy overRead More

The Coming Automation of Call Centers?

The Coming Automation of Call Centers?

June 19, 2019 at 11:47 am

I was listening to an interview with businessman Andrew Yang, one of the many Democratic presidential candidates in the US, during which he listed the jobs he felt were most vulnerable to automation in the near future (it was part the case he was making for a basic annual income).Read More

Fast & Curious: Short Takes on Random Things

Fast & Curious: Short Takes on Random Things

June 14, 2019 at 9:34 am

Grandstanding Okay, so on Tuesday, as I was burrowing through the documents I’d received from the feds relating to the 2012 sale of the Royal Cape Breton Yacht Club, I thought I might try to follow the CBRM Council meeting about the library at the same time. (You know howRead More

In the Ashes of the Royal Cape Breton Yacht Club

In the Ashes of the Royal Cape Breton Yacht Club

June 12, 2019 at 11:23 am

On 13 May 2016, I submitted an access to information and privacy (ATIP) request to ACOA asking for information pertaining to the 2012 sale of the Royal Cape Breton Yacht Club (RCBYC) and adjacent lands to Enterprise Cape Breton Corporation (ECBC). The request was transferred to Public Services and ProcurementRead More

Red dress, Potlotek First Nation, 9 June 2019

The Meaning of Genocide

June 12, 2019 at 11:21 am

“We recognized the need for a national public inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls and we have commissioners who came back with findings of fact and with calls to action. “We thank them for their work, we applaud their work and we accept their findings, including thatRead More

By Martin Cathrae - https://www.flickr.com/photos/suckamc/205326100/, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15189414

The Moose That Didn’t Need Culling

June 12, 2019 at 11:17 am

Kudos to the Nova Scotia Department of Lands and Forestry for providing information from the March 2019 moose population survey to the public in a timely manner, through stories in the media.  The 2019 survey in Cape Breton included participants from the Lands and Forestry, Parks Canada, the Unama’ki InstituteRead More

Stained-glass window, McConnell Library, Sydney, Nova Scotia (Spectator photo)

Phalen Returns to Public Works as Library Stalls

May 15, 2019 at 12:23 pm

I just watched last week’s CBRM general committee debate over funding for the new central library and heard Mayor Cecil Clarke declare the project “dead” because the federal government has not come through with its share of the funding (either for a programming and internal operations study or for theRead More