Novaporte’s new face Kathleen Yurchesyn has left her post as CEO of the Cape Breton Chamber of Commerce to become the vice-president of operations and corporate development for Novaporte, the name promoter Albert Barbusci has given to his Sydney harbor container terminal project. Six years in, Yurchesyn represents Novaporte’s firstRead More

My summer coverage focused on the August provincial election, although I also found time to read Barry Sheehy’s thoughts on ports and Martin Chernin’s case for extending his waterfront development contract (not exactly beach reading, but not entirely devoid of entertainment value either). September found me looking into the problemRead More

Editor’s Note: I had to read the book, conduct and transcribe an interview and write the story about Maxwell Hartt’s Quietly Shrinking Cities this week, which left me very little time for other reporting but I would like to note a couple of interesting items that popped up in myRead More

Last week, I wrote CBRM Communications & Information Officer Christina Lamey asking to see details of the CBRM’s bid for the 2023 Brier. As you may recall, council discussed the bid in camera during its regular monthly meeting on August 24, but Mayor Amanda McDougall, as she kicked all media,Read More

Having been publishing bi-weekly — or, as I like to think of it, working at half-speed — all summer, I’ve been building up a store of opinions on a variety of subjects. In fact, my “two-cents’ worth” on such disparate issues as Annette Verschuren’s induction into the Business & PhilanthropyRead More

Were it not for the long-dead woman at its center, this story, about a researcher being denied access to items by Quebec’s Musée de la civilisation, might not have been an obvious Spectator story. But the items Jamie Jelinski, “an interdisciplinary scholar whose work focuses on the history of Canadian visualRead More

Free Seeds! The Cape Breton Regional Library’s Seed Library is back by popular demand. The program offers free vegetable seeds to “encourage community members to start their own vegetable gardens and provide fresh, healthy food for their families and neighbours.”  It was launched in 2020 to great success: within two-and-a-halfRead...

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

In a decision released Tuesday, Nova Scotia’s Information and Privacy Commissioner Tricia Ralph says the CBRM did not fairly calculate the fee it proposed to charge a citizen for a port-related access to information request and recommends the municipality waive the fee and release the documents. This story began inRead More

This week, the FOIPOP findings are just going to be a jumping off point for a check-in with everybody’s favorite Northside shipyard — the one operated by Canadian Maritime Engineering on the property formerly known as Archibald’s Wharf. I’ve covered the controversial sale of that property in detail — thisRead More