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...

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...

My judgement of port announcements has been forever damaged by what passes for them at the Port of Sydney (where the word “partner” is applied so broadly it has lost all meaning) but Tuesday’s announcement by the Port Authority in Québec has the ring of actual development about it: TheRead More

The Spectator squeezed in a working holiday this past week, driving from Sydney to Québec City by way of New Brunswick’s Acadian Coast and the Gaspé Peninsula. It’s very early in the season, which has its positives — no crowds or blackflies — and its negatives — very little isRead More

I was looking over some old files as I was writing the article on the fine line between reporting and enabling and I came across a list I compiled of dubious assertions by proponents of the CBRM container port project in December 2015, seven months after the CBRM signed itsRead More

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

During the recent CBRM general committee meeting about the current state of the new central library project, the subject of the new library in Truro was raised a number of times. I thought it would be worth looking at how the Town of Truro (population 12,000) managed to do whatRead More

Over a year ago, I began creating this timeline, intending to track two separate but connected stories: Canada’s National Shipbuilding Strategy (NSS) and more particularly, the large-vessel component of the NSS. The criminal case against Vice-Admiral Mark Norman. The impetus was the upcoming trial — scheduled for August 2019 —Read More

What I will be watching for is to see if [Ben Eoin Development Group Inc] come back to the  public looking for further support — whether as a for-profit business or hiding behind the skirts of the not-for-profit Ben Eoin Recreation — because honestly, I think we’ve done our part.Read More

Since last we dropped by Ben Eoin, there have been developments — and not just the ongoing expansion of The Birches Country Inn (to accommodate what I really hope will be called The Birches Country Pro-Shop). That last bulletin detailed ructions over the sale of The Lakes Golf Club toRead More