Wildfires Working on CBRM council stories for the Wednesday edition as wildfires raged on the mainland—and not just on the mainland but in the provincial capital—was a strange experience. I knew I had nothing to add to the coverage of the fires, that’s not the kind of coverage I doRead...

I am not on the Port of Sydney’s media list, so did not receive the press release headlined: Port of Sydney to Host U.S. and Atlantic Canadian Ports During Port Days I actually knew the Port of Sydney would be welcoming the North Atlantic Ports Association (NAPA) and the IndependentRead More

Tailor-made A few years back, I bought a winter coat at Gala Re on Charlotte Street in Sydney. I love this coat—it’s mostly green wool with bits of blue and brown and every bit as warm as my puffer jacket. In style, it’s very 1960s—the early, more formal part ofRead...

Words with Mayors In my coverage of CBRM council this week, I made a crack about the mayor—who was elected as Amanda McDougall and has been referred to for the past two years as Amanda McDougall—suddenly being referenced in the meeting agenda as Mayor Amanda T. McDougall-Merrill. I was actuallyRead More

Port of Sydney CEO Marlene Usher and Port board chair James Kerr proposed to CBRM council last night that the Port move from the governance structure on the left (a not-for-profit company with the CBRM as its sole shareholder) to the one on the right: When I read this priorRead More

Editor’s Note: On April 28, The CBC’s Tom Ayers reported that the CBRM will actually pay $3.8 million for the Nickerson property. The $2.5 million budgeted for 2022-23 represents the outstanding balance. The Spectator apologizes for the error.   Did you happen to catch the price tag on the land theRead More

It’s time for Confessions of a Bad Reporter. In this week’s episode, I have to confess that I did not attend the Port of Sydney’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) on February 23. It was on a Wednesday night, a week before I publish, and I thought I would be ableRead More

Novaporte’s new face Kathleen Yurchesyn has left her post as CEO of the Cape Breton Chamber of Commerce to become the vice-president of operations and corporate development for Novaporte, the name promoter Albert Barbusci has given to his Sydney harbor container terminal project. Six years in, Yurchesyn represents Novaporte’s firstRead More

Full disclosure: I thought 2021 was going to be vastly different from 2020 but instead, it unfolded like we’d given 2020 a 12-month extension on its contract. The COVID pandemic continued to loom large in everyone’s lives although, as you’ll see, I modified my response to it. I spent muchRead More

The Spectator‘s coverage this spring was varied, to say the least. From Albert Barbusci’s nuclear waste deal, to the workings of the Verschuren Centre to the province’s third wave of COVID with a variety of stops in between, including a feature I count among my all-time favorites — the oneRead More