In writing about the provincial government’s latest rural broadband promises last week, I cited the example of Yarmouth County’s Cedar Lake Wireless Cooperative. The group received a grant of $41,879 under the province’s Municipal and Community Rural High-Speed Internet Funding Program to bring high-speed internet service to the community and, to date, has connectedRead More

Tri-Council Meeting Let’s see if I have this straight: once a year, the elected councils of the CBRM, Eskasoni and Membertou meet…in private? These “tri-council meetings” have been going on for a number of years now, and I have never seen a pre-meeting announcement or agenda, just post-meeting reports likeRead More

Shout out Let’s start this out on a positive note: the staff at the Port of Sydney are really great. CEO Marlene Usher referred to them as her “small but mighty” team during her opening remarks at Port Days on Thursday and it’s true, the entire operation — including cruise,Read More

I was very interested to hear the “news” on CBC on Tuesday that the deeper channel dredged in Sydney Harbour six years ago is not being used because the necessary navigational aids have never been put in place. The gist of the story is that there was not enough money forRead More

Sydney City Hall? I will be the first to admit the name “Cape Breton Regional Municipality” does not roll mellifluously off the tongue, nor is “CBRM” any prettier. I think it would be good to have an actual name for our municipality and I would like to be able toRead More

Back in January, I wrote about the town of Bar Harbor, Maine, and its plans to purchase and develop its disused ferry terminal. I was struck by the story, which I first read in the New York Times, because the approach Bar Harbor is taking to the project contrasts so sharplyRead More

On Monday, the Law Amendments Committee sent Bill 85, which grants new powers to the Cape Breton Regional Municipality (CBRM), back to the Nova Scotia House of Assembly without amendment. One of the powers Bill 85 will grant the CBRM is the ability to enter into a 99-year lease, which our mayorRead More

When Municipal Affairs Minister (and Sydney-Whitney Pier MLA) Derek Mombourquette first expressed the notion that the province could find a way to facilitate the CBRM’s port project without rushing through a “phase one” CBRM Charter focused entirely on the deal, I thought it was a good sign. I was soRead More

Mayor Cecil Clarke and the CBRM council will meet port promoter Albert Barbusci on Wednesday afternoon in what was supposed to have been a secret session between 1:30 PM and 3:30 PM at the Holiday Inn. Barbusci, of Sydney Harbour Investment Partners (SHIP), flew into Sydney Monday night, according toRead More

I have been keeping a jaundiced eye on the Cape Breton coal trucking story since the 1980s when my friend Leo Evans was shining a public spotlight on the decision by Devco to “rubberize” a part of its coal transportation system.   Made no sense then – makes no sense now.Read More