Genesee & Wyoming (G&W) Canada Inc, owner of the Cape Breton & Central Nova Railway (CBNS), is restructuring its Nova Scotia holdings. In September, G&W Canada established a wholly-owned subsidiary called the Nova Scotia & Eastern Railway (NSERL). On October 17, G&W Canada President Rick McLellan—who also serves as presidentRead...

I get email notifications of “recent decisions” by Nova Scotia courts that I don’t always open but yesterday I did and got sucked into reading the March 18 decision in the case of Matthews v. Ocean Nutrition Canada Limited, which led me to the original decision in the case, handedRead More

I’m going to keep picking away at the list of companies in which Innovacorp has invested to find out what happened to each of them, but I thought this week I’d show you how unnecessarily difficult this can be in some cases. My example is the first company in theRead...

This week, I thought I’d give myself a bit of a break, research-wise, by focusing on Innovacorp’s exits between 2011-2012 and 2020-2021. If you’re wondering why I keep choosing that timeframe, it’s basically, as I should have explained earlier, because Innovacorp did. The agency, which was founded in 1995, changedRead...

Looking into Innovacorp’s “unicorn” investment earlier this year got me to wondering how many successful exits our provincial venture capital fund has managed over the years compared to the number and value of its investments, so I submitted an access-to-information request asking for a list of its investments since 2011.Read...

Tim Bousquet of the Halifax Examiner has been making the point that the $104 million Innovacorp made on its META exit could be used to fund affordable housing in Nova Scotia. He even did the math: For the record, $104 million would pay for 80 apartments at $1,000/month rent forRead More

This week, I’m going to continue my examination of Innovacorp’s “unicorn” investment, spurred, in part, by the Cape Breton Post’s take, which appeared in Monday’s print edition wrapped in a piece of puffery about Bob Pelley, Innovacorp’s regional manager in Cape Breton. The Post — like the CBC before itRead More

This week, the FOIPOP findings are just going to be a jumping off point for a check-in with everybody’s favorite Northside shipyard — the one operated by Canadian Maritime Engineering on the property formerly known as Archibald’s Wharf. I’ve covered the controversial sale of that property in detail — thisRead More

Nothing ventured… This week, I have a question for you: Women in this province have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic. You want to help them. Do you: A) invest $5 million in an early-stage venture capital fund focused on women-led startups; B) tear $5 million into tiny shreds andRead More

Editor’s Note: Sydney’s casino turns 25 this month and to mark its quarter-century, Rob Csernyik takes an in-depth look at the promises — and realities — of casino gambling in Cape Breton. In Part II, he focuses on the casino’s record for charitable contributions and job creation and explores theRead More