Economic Development

CBRM Has Day in Court (and Loses)

CBRM Has Day in Court (and Loses)

September 18, 2019 at 1:58 pm

On Monday, the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal dismissed the Cape Breton Regional Municipality’s bid to reverse a UARB ruling overturning a CBRM Council decision that green lighted the development of a 211-site, lakeside RV park in Big Pond Centre. That was a lot to pack into a single sentence,Read More

Adirondack chairs, flowers and signage. Charlotte Street, Sydney, NS (Spectator photo)

You Can Always Go — Downtown!

September 18, 2019 at 1:57 pm

During last night’s CBRM council meeting, Jim Mountain and Robert Pajot of the National Trust for Canada reported on the results of a two-year pilot program to regenerate Sydney’s downtown. Mountain described the Trust to council as a “small charity based in Ottawa” that has been involved with main streetRead More

American Factory, Canadian Port?

American Factory, Canadian Port?

September 11, 2019 at 1:06 pm

I know I said I was going to hang this week’s content on “recent developments” in stories I’d already covered but this story is an exception: I’m hanging this one on the fact that there have been no recent developments in a story I’ve covered extensively (some might say obsessively)Read More

Fast & Curious: Short Takes on Random Things

Fast & Curious: Short Takes on Random Things

July 24, 2019 at 12:17 pm

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

Evaluating the Viability of the Viability Study

Evaluating the Viability of the Viability Study

July 10, 2019 at 11:23 am

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

Air Canada Airbus landing in Montreal. (Photo by abdallahh at Flickr [CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)]

Have (CBRM) Expense Account, Will Travel

June 19, 2019 at 11:53 am

Note: On Friday June 21 I received a revised version of the travel expenses and have updated the totals accordingly — I have also attached the revised travel sheet at the end of the article. In the five months after losing his bid to become leader of the provincial ProgressiveRead More

Fast & Curious: Short Takes on Random Things

Fast & Curious: Short Takes on Random Things

June 14, 2019 at 9:34 am

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

In the Ashes of the Royal Cape Breton Yacht Club

In the Ashes of the Royal Cape Breton Yacht Club

June 12, 2019 at 11:23 am

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

‘Hi Karan and Malcom’: The RV Park Correspondence

‘Hi Karan and Malcom’: The RV Park Correspondence

June 5, 2019 at 11:10 am

I FOIPOPed all correspondence between the CBRM planning department and Chris Skidmore — the Calgary-based developer who wants to establish an RV Park in Big Pond Centre — because I thought the planning department seemed to be rather decidedly in Skidmore’s corner on this project and I wanted to knowRead More

Fast & Curious: Short Takes on Random Things

Fast & Curious: Short Takes on Random Things

April 26, 2019 at 8:00 am

‘Many or several’ A Tuesday night CTV news report about the cruise industry in Cape Breton (opening line: “It seems their ship has come in, once again, for the cruise industry in Cape Breton”), sent me scrambling for my secondary sources. First, because it seemed to contain confirmation that theRead More