“Excitement is building for what’s expected to be a multi-million dollar development along the Cabot Trail by a private firm with European connections.” — Cape Breton Post, 17 August 2019 That’s the opening to a Cape Breton Post article about Czech-born, New York-based developer Joseph Balaz (né Josef Baláž) andRead...

I was listening to an interview with businessman Andrew Yang, one of the many Democratic presidential candidates in the US, during which he listed the jobs he felt were most vulnerable to automation in the near future (it was part the case he was making for a basic annual income).Read More

On January 15, NSBI issued the following press release: Nova Scotia Business Inc. (NSBI) has approved a business development incentive in the form of an innovation rebate for Canadian Maritime Engineering Limited. For over 30 years, the company has serviced a range of marine and industrial companies including machining, mechanical,Read More

I have been thinking about the call center industry a lot lately, thanks largely to our local Chamber of Commerce Newsletter daily newspaper which will keep printing headlines like the one last week proclaiming that workers receiving their first paychecks from the Sydney Call Centre were “on cloud nine.” Don’t misunderstandRead More

Jeff Sklarz is the New Haven, Connecticut-based attorney representing the unsecured creditors’ committee in the JNET Communications (parent company of ServiCom) bankruptcy case. I talked to him on Monday about the JNET bankruptcy and I’m combining what he told me with some information I dug up myself to help youRead More

Tourism Nova Scotia announced visitor traffic numbers to the end of September 2018 this week and it’s not happy news for Cape Breton: licensed room nights sold between January and September this year totaled 367,000 — down 6% over 2017 — and the occupancy rate stood at 53% — downRead More

In a “classical” [private-public-partnership or P3], a government typically uses a consortium of private sector firms to finance, design, construct, operate and maintain some new physical public infrastructure. Despite the increasing use of [P3]s, evidence shows that many [P3]s have produced unsatisfactory outcomes, including high transaction costs and project bankruptcy.Read More

You probably just read Part I of this P3 Hospitals article, but in case you then took a juice break, or a yoga break, or a few minutes to breathe deeply or pound a couple of shots of tequila, let me remind you why, according to Premier Stephen McNeil, hisRead More

In writing about the provincial government’s latest rural broadband promises last week, I cited the example of Yarmouth County’s Cedar Lake Wireless Cooperative. The group received a grant of $41,879 under the province’s Municipal and Community Rural High-Speed Internet Funding Program to bring high-speed internet service to the community and, to date, has connectedRead More