Lease released The first rule of accessing information from public bodies is “just ask for it,” and sometimes — hallelujah! — just asking is all it takes. For instance, I asked the CBRM for a copy of the lease signed between the municipality and Danny Ellis’s company, the catchily namedRead More

I have been wading through pages of documents related to the CBRM and Business Cape Breton (BCB) and the provincial Department of Municipal Affairs (DMA) searching for answers to questions about economic development funding and Glace Bay revitalization and the role of our economic development “entity.” While I still haveRead More

Why am I so interested in Business Cape Breton, the CBRM’s economic development “entity?” Because I just can’t get a grip on what it’s supposed to be — it’s neither flesh, nor fowl nor good, publicly accountable municipal body. It’s a non-profit society with a board made up of localRead More

Danny Ellis, who has signed a deal with the CBRM to rent property on the Sydney waterfront for a seasonal food and drink establishment, is a director of Business Cape Breton — the municipality’s designated economic development “entity.” According to his LinkedIn account, Ellis has been on the BCB boardRead More

Remember WIPSI? I know it sounds like a toy from the ’70s — a plastic lemon you’d tether to your ankle and skip over, maybe — but it’s actually Nova Scotia’s Workplace Innovation and Productivity Skills Incentive program. I wrote about it way back in June after stumbling upon aRead More

The CBRM has an environmental assessment of a property owned by local businessman Jerry Nickerson on which it hopes to construct a second cruise ship berth. We know the assessment exists, as Nancy King points out in the Cape Breton Post, because Mayor Cecil Clarke has referred to it, asRead More

In the world of the start-up digital publications, $3,000 is a lot of money. Had I $3,000 burning a hole in my pocket, I could walk into Connors Basics on Charlotte Street and come out with a new desk, a new office chair, a lifetime supply of roller ball pens,Read More

I think I made the Annual Report of the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner (OIPC) of Nova Scotia for 2016-2017. I can’t say for sure, but one of the cases described by the commissioner, Catherine Tully, sounds like an entry from my 2016 diary: I think the publicRead More

I really didn’t think I’d be able to FOIPOP Business Cape Breton (BCB). Although the organization runs entirely on public money, I’d already been told by the office of the Privacy Commissioner that it doesn’t fit the definition of a public body under Nova Scotia’s Freedom of Information/Protection of PrivacyRead More

Lasso of Truth The box office success of Wonder Woman reminded me of the connection between her creator, William Marston, and the lie detector which reminded me that I’ve never received an answer from the Cape Breton Regional Police as to what sort of work their two “polygraph technicians” perform. ByRead More