“December will likely be the decision month about the future of a subsidy preserving Cape Breton’s rail line,” Cape Breton Post, 19 September 2019   Do you get the feeling we’re being allowed to listen in on a private conversation between Nova Scotia Business Minister (and Glace Bay MLA) Geoff MacLellan,Read More

Sea change A spectator (you know who you are) pointed me to this item from the tender for architectural and engineering services for the new Marconi Campus on the Sydney waterfront (before, I might add, it was also picked up on by the Cape Breton Post): Climate risks include increasedRead More

Air Inverness I read an interesting Inverness airport-related story in Friday’s Chronicle Herald (but not, inexplicably, in Friday’s Cape Breton Post — although as a Post subscriber explained to me, “It will probably be in tomorrow”). It seems the Province of Nova Scotia is continuing to evaluate an application toRead...

Print pairings I find a fun thing to do is to pair Cape Breton Post stories with other stories the way you pair wine and cheese. The idea behind pairing wine and cheese is that each tastes better when complemented by the other. Similarly, many Cape Breton Post stories areRead More

It’s not like I had high hopes for that “viability” study Grant Thornton has just completed for the CBRM — frankly, I viewed it as a $219,000 hoop we had to jump through to get the province to recognize our difficult financial situation —  but I hadn’t expected to findRead More

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

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

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

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