Last Friday’s “emergency” CBRM council meeting has been well covered in the local media, leaving me with one angle—secrecy—that I still feel has not been adequately explored. But first, let’s recap recent affordable housing history: 2020 October 27: The federal government launches the Rapid Housing Initiative (RHI) delivered by theRead...
It was very disappointing to hear CBRM placing blame rather than taking accountability for their flawed actions, only to reverse course due to public pressure—Acting Municipal Affairs Minister Colton LeBlanc While I don’t support Tory politics, Minister LeBlanc’s comments summarize my view on the five-million-dollar CBRM affordable housing debacle.Read...
I spent so much time researching rail safety and green hydrogen this week that I have time to touch just briefly on two other issues that have piqued my interest of late. One is an observation about the newly refurbished section of Charlotte Street in Sydney, but first, I mustRead More
Dear Premier Houston: We would like to bring your attention to the West Mabou Beach Provincial Park controversy and our concerns in that regard. West Mabou Beach is an ecologically sensitive area that forms part of the mere 5% of Nova Scotian coastline that is legally protected. We are adamantlyRead More
Last week, in Part I of my article on Canada’s healthcare system, I cited the Canadian Encyclopedia entry on “health policy” written by the late Toronto Star medical reporter Marilyn E. Dunlop. In my initial draft, I noted that the Canadian Encyclopedia is kind of wacky (see the “David Dingwall”Read More
This is, after all, the playbook of all privatization advocates everywhere: starve a public good, wait for it to malfunction, and then claim the free market is required to fix the problem—Mitchell Thompson, Jacobin, January 2023 The current health system does not have a ‘management’ problem; it has an ‘economics’Read More
Editor’s Note: I broke this article into two pieces (see Part I here) to allow you an opportunity to rest between decades but now it’s time to face the ’80s and ’90s. Canada’s mania for deficit reduction, although it reached its peak in the ’90s, started in the ’80s.Read More
CBU President and Vice-Chancellor David Dingwall has issued ANOTHER open letter “to the Cape Breton Community,” this one occupying three full (expensive) pages in last Saturday’s Cape Breton Post, and it is another absolute dud of a PR exercise. It states: I want to assure you that I, as PresidentRead More
Golfing in the Park [Ben Cowan-Dewar] also cited golf courses in national parks — including Highlands Links in Cape Breton, Green Gables in P.E.I., Fundy National in New Brunswick and Banff Springs in Alberta — as other examples of competing land uses. “Is there a case where golf exists inRead More
The CBRM is one of 41 Canadian municipalities “pre-determined” to receive funding (worth $5 million) under the third round of the federal government’s Rapid Housing Initiative (RHI), one component of its National Housing Strategy. The announcement, which I completely missed, was made on November 10, but council didn’t get aroundRead More
