Back in April 2017, the Spectator asked the Port of Sydney Development Corporation for a breakdown of spending from its so-called Assumption Fund. The Assumption Fund is a trust fund containing monies (about $2.5 million originally) left over from the 2012 Sydney harbor dredge, a $37 million project funded by threeRead More

Welcome to this week’s installment of “Where’s Cecil?” my ongoing effort to keep track of Mayor Cecil Clarke’s campaign appearances to judge just how much time he’s taking from his day job to travel the province in pursuit of the leadership of the Progressive Conservative Party of Nova Scotia. I’mRead More

I have been debating how to mark Open Government Week in Nova Scotia (May 7-11). Sitting in the graveyard behind St. Patrick’s Church in the rain with a 40-ouncer of Captain Morgan was my first idea, but I don’t like watery rum and frankly, I always knew the week wouldRead More

Highlights of this article: • Provincial government employees who were made aware of the security failure with the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy (FOIPOP) website told Halifax police that the site had been “hacked” and that nearly 10,000 files “were taken” — which clearly overstated the nature ofRead More

Here’s how we obtained the documents. First, a quick primer on search warrants. To get a search warrant, police have to go to a judge or Justice of the Peace and submit a document called an “Information To Obtain a Search Warrant,” or ITO. The ITO lays out the policeRead More

The Case of the Disappearing Audit Request Several keen CBRM Council watchers on social media noted this next item this week. During the regular meeting of CBRM Council in February, as Council was discussing plans for a Viability Study ordered by Minister of Municipal Affairs Derek Mombourquette, District 2 CouncilorRead More

A story on the front page of this Saturday’s Cape Breton Post caught my eye — and apparently caught somebody else’s eye too: While I sympathize with anyone suffering from the kind of pain Greg Sharpe describes, I had a very different response to this article than did our mayor/PCRead More

Ask Marta Singh, the guest storyteller at this year’s Isle of Story Festival, how she became a storyteller and you get — what else? — a story. “The real story,” she says with a laugh, although it’s “not romantic, I’m telling you!” It had been three years that I hadRead More

Welcome to this week’s installment of “Where’s Cecil?” my ongoing effort to keep track of Mayor Cecil Clarke’s campaign appearances to judge just how much time he’s taking from his day job to travel the province in pursuit of the leadership of the Progressive Conservative Party of Nova Scotia. I’mRead More

I happened to be walking merrily down the street in Halifax one sunny but cool spring day when a poster on a light pole caught my eye. It was a lovely poster, for an arts event, full of color and enthusiasm, but this was not what grabbed my attention. ItRead...